dBpoweramp rubbish, is there an alternative?

Try XLD. I use that on my Mac. A forum search will tell you how to set it up.

I use dbpoweramp and it’s ripped hundreds of CDs without a glitch, including those from charity shops that look completely knackered. It’s far from rubbish. 

Please talk to the owner/designer of dBpoweramp on the Illustrate forum.  I suspect you have overlooked or missed something in the set up.    I'm not a Mac user so can't help that much,  but please believe me, dBpoweramp is not rubbish,  I rate it as the best.   When I first started I ripped about 400 CD's,  & only a few old, edge rot or scratch marked ones did not achieve 'AccurateRip' on my desk drive DVD reader.

Thanks for the replies. I have dBpoweramp set to 'Burst' mode, yet it still chucks 2 out of every 10 discs out. There are loads of other settings that I've left at default as they are too damn complicated. But it just isn't working for me. Also, a lot of CDs I put in, by default, it comes up with a different artist and different list of songs altogether? WTF??? I have to then delete the artist, album title and change them and then change all the song titles that are incorrect too, it is doing this 2 out of 10 discs on average too. 

Swearing and dismissing things as rubbish is one way of dealing with challenges, I suppose. It may not, however, be the best or most mature way. 

I agree, Hungry, but this software is so damn frustrating. Reminds me of back in the day when I used Windoze when everything was riddled with issues. I have over 1000 CDs to import and it is getting on my tits when dBpoweramp chucks out every 6th CD, or it gets the artist and songs wrong and I have to edit all the metadata, this will take years with this glitchy software. If only iTunes imported FLAC files my life would be simple.

I have ripped about 1000 CD's from end of May to present with dBpoweramp software. The metadata has had to be edited but that has all been the structure on the CD. No consistency on naming format from album to album and absolutely no consistency on any of the random music types that is listed for the album. So I have had to pay attention when ripping the CD's and take some time for a little work prior to clicking on the RIP Icon. Using a Mac CD attached to a Mac Desktop and ripping to a Synology DS716+II NAS. Quite happy with the software and the music sounds mighty fine on replay.

The Author posted:

 If only iTunes imported FLAC files my life would be simple.

If iTunes works for you as a ripper, you can use it and then convert to FLAC if you need to.....or stick with WAV, AIFF of ALAC, depending on what works with your setup. 

Do the "inaccurate" coded CD rips play OK? If so then continue. If not something else is amiss as dbPOweramp is the go to option for many of us. 

It's likely that your CD/DVD  drive in your PC is 'rubbish' and dbPoweramp is quite correctly detecting that it is not ripping correctly. iTunes and other rippers will be more tolerant but the point of dbPoweramp is that it rips accurately and if it can't it will let you know if it can't.

Just seen this thread. Trickidickie is spot on (in all likelihood). dbPoweramp worked perfectly on my 7 year old iMac for months, then suddenly began chucking up 'inaccurates' all over the place. Turned out my DVD drive was knackered - as soon as I had that replaced (£60 part) all was good again. Sometimes it pays to think a little laterally!

trickydickie posted:

It's likely that your CD/DVD  drive in your PC is 'rubbish' and dbPoweramp is quite correctly detecting that it is not ripping correctly. iTunes and other rippers will be more tolerant but the point of dbPoweramp is that it rips accurately and if it can't it will let you know if it can't.

This had occurred to me, too, as a possibility - easily tested by using a different CD drive.

Try a core. Oh, wait...

The Author,

Likewise, I use a Mac and initially had issues with DBPoweramp. Many discs being listed as corrupted or inaccurate. All discs new / as new condition.

After a little research I concluded that the (really) cheap Samsung external DVD Read / Write unit I was using was potentially to blame. Bought a 2nd hand older LaCie D2 DVD/CD read/writer for about £15 off the auction site. Problem more or less solved. 

Between both Samsung and LaCie CD readers I now get accurate rips. Even with the tatty alleged ‘good condition’ discs occasionally sent out from 2nd hand retailers - or charity shop buys that are in such poor condition they need the scratches polished out with car polish and a polishing pad! 

Occasionally I find the odd (older) CD will appear as new, but may have tiny dots where the foil has started to degrade and you can see through the disc = bad rip not matter what. Also, some discs from the 1990’s had some form of anti pirating software to stop discs being ripped. Had a handful of those too.

In my limited experience I’ve found DBPoweramp to be far from rubbish, if a little fiddly and complicated at first. Plus, the developer is very helpful on the DDBPamp forum. 

Good luck, its worth persevering.

Can somebody be kind enough to tell me what to have 'all' the settings set to, not only in the main dBpoweramp interface, but in the preferences too. I'd be much obliged.

You have two choices...

A)    Use iTunes and accept lower quality rips.

B)   Change your DVD drive for a better one and use dBPoweramp or EAC.

I use dBpoweramp too, on a Mac Mini as it happens, with zero problems.

The Author posted:

Can somebody be kind enough to tell me what to have 'all' the settings set to, not only in the main dBpoweramp interface, but in the preferences too. I'd be much obliged.

  Why don't you do as I suggested in yesterday post  "Please talk to the owner/designer of dBpoweramp on the Illustrate forum.  I suspect you have overlooked or missed something in the set up"

Also agree with Huge about a possible cause being the DVD reader,  I had variable results between my desktop reader/writer & the laptop integral.  

Have you looked at the dBPoweramps setup guides https://www.dbpoweramp.com/cd-ripper-setup-guide.htm

I must have ripped many thousands of CDs with this software and very rarely get an error and only on one or two occasions have I had to resort to 'Burst'.

As mentioned above my first "port of call" would be to try plugging in an alternative external CD/DVD drive and check if you are getting a match in the Rip Status column see: https://www.dbpoweramp.com/secure-ripper.htm

Another successful user of dBPoweramp here, on a Mac. All things point to it being your CD/DVD drive. Try another one.

dBpoweramp most certainly not rubbish. It is one of the most highly regarded, accurate, well featured ripping programs available. Your disc drive most likely is rubbish. dBpoweramp verifies rips against a database of known good rips, and rejects any where the checksums don't match. iTunes doesn't give a toss - it will rip just about any old cd from any old duff disc drive. It rips with errors of course, but doesn't tell you there are errors. But you will hear the worst ones. So get a disc drive that works. And stop blaming dBpoweramp. It is trying to help you. Your disc drive is duff. Maybe the lens is dirty, maybe it is damaged. But it is duff.

And as far as metadata is concerned, dBpoweramp is again excellent. It checks four or so online sources of tags as well as the tags on the disc, and you get to choose between them, and make any edits you like before the rip. No other ripping engine gives you such choice.

Have you tried calibrating your DVD drive? There's a setting somewhere in dbPA (but I forget where) that allows it to 'learn' the characteristics of your drive and help compensate for errors.

Just a thought, are you ripping your CD's directly to your NAS drive? 
Or are you ripping them to your Mac, then copying across to your NAS drive?
The latter works best in my experience.

When I use the built-in drive on my older MacBookPro, dbpoweramp doesn't seem to like it when I try to rip directly to the NAS drive, so I rip to the Mac, then copy across to the NAS.
I have even tried an external SuperDrive (which I normally use on my iMac) and dbpoweramp always performs well - fewer errors (if any) when compared to my Naim HDX.

db  used it best part of 10 year   ,nothing wrong with it ,must be other issues