Exact Audio Copy (EAC)

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Jan-Erik Nordoen posted:

Thanks Mike. I posted here to catch Simon's attention. Results will go in the 'Core meets UnitiServe' thread.

Simon: link sent. Try to give them a listen too (if only the first minute of track 8), as I'm curious to understand what may be causing the audible (to me) differences.

Jan

ok but any comment on SQ from a listen I will keep to myself

Ta

S

i don't understand simon, i am french. You said that you don't want to comment on sound quality?  why?  it is more important thant technical aspects. But i certainly not understand something, i loose something?

Huge posted:

The biggest problem I find with a mixed modern / classical collection is the meaning of the <Artist> tag.  For modern music I usually want to select by the Artist (and the <Composer> Field is usually not set), for classical I usually want to select by composer.

This is fine for modern stuff as the <Artist> tag usually contains what I'm expecting to find.  However, for classical material the Artist tag is usually the orchestra / performer (I'm told by someone who used to work in the industry that this is for reasons of copyright).  In consequence for classical material I usually put the orchestra / performer in the <Album Artist> field and duplicate the composer into the <Artist> field.  This approach works for me.

As I said I use DBPoweramp, and the ease of selecting and editing the metadata is the reason for this.  I do however believe that under normal circumstances the rips from the two are effectively the same all bar the metadata.

For classical music I tag <Composer>, <Work>, <Conductor>, <Ensemble>, <Artist> , <Form> and <Period> indexes (beside the standard <Album>, <Album Artist>, <Genre>, <Date> etc.) For jazz, pop, rock etc. I usually leave the <Work>, <Conductor> and <Form> indexes untagged.

I use a few more indexes to access specific collections (for instance a <Gramophone top 10 violin concertos> index or a <Gramophone top 10 symphonies> index) or to display files that I have added to the collection recently first.

Indexing criteria are of course very subjective and professionals often need completely different indexing criteria than consumers.

Best, nbpf

Keler Pierre posted:

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Jan-Erik Nordoen posted:

Thanks Mike. I posted here to catch Simon's attention. Results will go in the 'Core meets UnitiServe' thread.

Simon: link sent. Try to give them a listen too (if only the first minute of track 8), as I'm curious to understand what may be causing the audible (to me) differences.

Jan

ok but any comment on SQ from a listen I will keep to myself

Ta

S

i don't understand simon, i am french. You said that you don't want to comment on sound quality?  why?  it is more important thant technical aspects. But i certainly not understand something, i loose something?

Hi Pierre,

I've asked those testing the Core vs Serve rips to keep their impressions private until all testers have completed the listening, to avoid biasing opinions. You can compare them yourself if you wish. Just send me an email with 'Naim rips' in the title.

Jan

I used EAC before switching to dBpoweramp. No difference in perceived quality of output. I prefer dBpoweramp for it's flexibility and suite versatility. I don't see how you could go wrong with either.

Keler Pierre posted:

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Jan-Erik Nordoen posted:

Thanks Mike. I posted here to catch Simon's attention. Results will go in the 'Core meets UnitiServe' thread.

Simon: link sent. Try to give them a listen too (if only the first minute of track 8), as I'm curious to understand what may be causing the audible (to me) differences.

Jan

ok but any comment on SQ from a listen I will keep to myself

Ta

S

i don't understand simon, i am french. You said that you don't want to comment on sound quality?  why?  it is more important thant technical aspects. But i certainly not understand something, i loose something?

Keier - because Jan asked for comments on SQ to be kept private for the time being

S

OK - I started this thread & I'm now at the end of the road with it.  

Its simply a CD ripper & as such does not compare to dBpoweramp:   As I said in a previous post, it does not covert codec - I need that to convert the 'no choice' codec supplied by the download vendor(s) into WAV.  But most important for me is It does not handle 24-bit therefore its a non-starter as I use dBpoweramp principally for editing hi-res downloads.    

I rarely rip CD's these days,  but have just ripped some that are damaged with scratches & CD rot & fair play EAC did a better job of recovering & repairing the data.  The useable tracks are now on the NAS.  

.........  so thats it for me,  I will keep it but expect it will be just for old damaged CD's