I would appreciate any insight you can give on this:
I have successfully ripped several CD albums of various genres successfully to Flac level 5, then transferred them to a thumb drive and played them on the trusty SU. Oh, one or two tracks had to be re-ripped, on the second time around it worked. And they all sound great!
But tonight, I attempted to rip an album with the same parameters. It has 9 tracks on it--the first four comprising Tchaikovsky's "Serenade for Strings" in C and the other five, Dvorak's "Serenade for Strings" in E. The rip shows "inaccurate" for all nine tracks with a comparison number of "3". I try to re-rip individual tracks with no success.
The CD is brand new, shiny as a mirror, and plays beautifully on the CDP.
So after the rip, I open my Music folder and find the album art there for the recording. I right click on the art and get one line showing "Tchaikovsky and Dvorak..." I right click on this line item and all five tracks pop up.
So I go back to my Music folder, open up my thumb drive, and drag and drop the album art for the new "Various Artists..." entry to my thumb drive. It chews on this for a while, reducing the time remaining down to 40 seconds, but then seemingly gets stuck. It chews and it chews. But I wait it out. Finally, it gives up and gives me the message: "Could not find this item" and it lists the third of the four Tchaikovsky tracks. I enter "skip" and it goes through not being able to find any of the rest of the nine tracks AND the album art.
Next, I go over to my thumb drive to have a look and it shows that the whole thing has no files, but properties shows that it is full! I can't "safely remove" it, so I pop it out and back in. I then see all the files, INCLUDING the Tchai/Dvor album I just tried to rip.
I right click on the album art and then on the line item "Various Artists". Sure enough, only the first three pop up. I plug the thumb drive into the USB Port of the Superuniti--and it sounds great--well, what there is of it! Every bit as good as the CD in the player--maybe better.
Any idea of what gives? Both with regard to the inaccuracies AND with regard to fact that the movement gets hung up?
Thanks,
Russ
Posted on: 11 November 2012 by Simon-in-Suffolk
Russ, with regard to your accuracy problem, if your other rips work ok accurately, it suggests that there is a problem with that specific CD. It might be slightly too reflective for your CDROM or off too much centre. Does it take a long time to rip? Does dbpoweramp go through at least two rip/read cycles?
As far as your USB stick it really sounds likea it's either not compatible with your USB reader, it needs reformatting, or you are not checking (or there is an issue with) all files are copied and closed before you remove the USB drive.
Posted on: 11 November 2012 by Foxman50
Hi Russ
Someone on this forum suggested copying any CD's your are having trouble ripping. Ive had quite a few problems with old CD's, not new ones, and copying them with nero then using the copied CD to rip from has usually sorted the problem. No idea how that works but it does.
Cant offer any help with the USB issue, but that normally happens with windows with corrupted files.
Good luck
Posted on: 11 November 2012 by Russ
Thanks, Simon and Foxman. The other rips, all from much older CD s, have indeed worked fine--the only inaccuracies I previously had were due to the fact that i had allowed the external CD drive connected to my laptop to lie upside down during the rip. 
And even then, many of the tracks ripped perfectly! Go figure. But in no case, prior to the CD in question, has the re-rip of the faulty track failed to be fine.
The rip of this CD does in fact take quite a bit longer--two to three times as long as the successful ones. If dbpoweramp is going through more than one cycle, it is not evident--the first track rips, taking longer than usual, then immediately shows as "inaccurate". Then the second...etc. etc. At the end of the rip, there is no attempt to go back automatically and re-rip anything, however, there is an option to retry the entire rip or just individual tracks. I tried a couple of tracks then gave up. Finally, I deleted the files, both in my Music folder and on the thumb drive, and tried again--with the same results.
I suspect what you are both saying is correct--some incompatibility with the drive as well as some sort of file corruption. My plan of action is not yet to try a copy of the CD, (although I now have that in reserve,a nd thank you), but to install dbpoweramp on our much newer Dell desktop with two super-duper bluray/dvd/CD drives, and do the rip there. Failing that, I will copy the CD--something I have never done and frankly dread (as I do every operation having to do with a computer.) Will let you know.
Thanks for the assistance,
Russ
Posted on: 11 November 2012 by PinkHamster
Russ,
don't make yourself mad over single bits and bytes. Some CD's need a re-read on some tracks. Some CD's won't match the accurate rip data base - so what!
If the CD isn't completely rot and you get a normal file from it, then you're fine. You probably couldn't sell it as a bit perfect copy of the CD, but that isn't what you want to do anyway. For personal use the rip is just as good as a bit perfect one. Just think of what you would listen to if the disk was lying in a CD player. There isn't any re-reading here.
Posted on: 11 November 2012 by Russ
I was thinking, Hamster, that what you say might be the case, when I got the second round of "inacuracies" yet what I was able to transfer to the thumb drive sounded so good.
Still have the problems of not being able to get the data to work on the thumb drive, but that seems to be a separate issue from the inaccuracies of the rip.
Russ
Posted on: 11 November 2012 by Forester
Originally Posted by Russ:
The rip of this CD does in fact take quite a bit longer--two to three times as long as the successful ones. If dbpoweramp is going through more than one cycle, it is not evident--the first track rips, taking longer than usual, then immediately shows as "inaccurate". Then the second...etc. etc. At the end of the rip, there is no attempt to go back automatically and re-rip anything, however, there is an option to retry the entire rip or just individual tracks. I tried a couple of tracks then gave up. Finally, I deleted the files, both in my Music folder and on the thumb drive, and tried again--with the same results.
I am hesitant to add to this as Simon is on the case, however a few comments on the above.
Having ripped hundreds od CDs I find predicting the time needed a black art. Some whizz through very quickly whereas others can take three to four times longer. The length of time does not appear to be related to quality as most, slow or fast, just rip first time. The second point is that ripping and re-ripping is done on a track by track basis and is very obvious - at least it is on my PC. If the first rip fails it immediately starts the second rip. If this fails it can then rerip elements of the track. If this happens when it is on a slow ripping CD and it shows that several hundred elements need re-ripping it is either time to abort that track or go watch a film: I tend to lose patience and do the former. Howevever I have noted Foxman's suggestion of copying wayward CDs and will try that.
Posted on: 11 November 2012 by PinkHamster
I also don't get it. You have a CD that will not rip. Then you want to make a copy of this CD (probably on the same drive???) and expect the rip of that to be the perfect match to what was once burnt onto the initial CD?
Well the copy may rip without problems, technically. But what you are then ripping will include all the inital problems, i.e. skips, that occured when you first tried to rip the initial CD.
Just for my understanding: Is the fact that your drive is re-reding a track for a second or third time the criterion for you to say, that this is a bad rip?
Posted on: 12 November 2012 by Pev
I too have had "unrippable" CDs. I normally use a swish Blu-ray drive but found many of the problem discs were better ripped by the drive in my laptop which is nothing special - go figure...
I now use DBPoweramp but I used to use Exact Audio Copy. Using EAC you get a detailed report on ripping accuracy - some tracks that took 3 or 4 hours (really!) to rip ended up as 98% perfect but with dubious readings over at most 1 or 2 seconds in one or two places in the track. They still sound fine to me. I can't imagine I could detect this in the most critical listening so I now take the view that if it sounds fine it is fine. It's only a small minority of CDs anyway and the odd track on those. Cleaning has sometimes helped.
All this helps explain to me why ripped CDs sound so much better streamed than the same CD played on a CD player. To play music in real time off the optical disc there must be a hell of a lot of guesswork going on!
Posted on: 12 November 2012 by Russ
Well, Hamster, there are a lot of imponderables here that would seem to cause even a sound engineer to rip his or her hair out. Who knows whether my cheap add-on CDP is "right" in its assessment that this CD is inaccurate. Which also brings up the question whether it was correct in its assessment of the six CD s ripped as "accurate". As a matter of fact, if I re-rip OR copy, it will be on a different drive on a different computer--a 5K Dell with sooper dooper pooper scooper blu-ray drive, as opposed to an old, clunky laptop with add-on CDP. That may or may not show a different result.
"All this helps explain to me why ripped CDs sound so much better streamed than the same CD played on a CD player. To play music in real time off the optical disc there must be a hell of a lot of guesswork going on!"
Pev does indeed make a lot of sense--and I assume, without knowing, that a machine like the 555 CDP puts a lot of its production cost (and price) into eliminating all that guess work. But even, so, if true--that you can replace a $25K device with failable moving parts with a throw-away unit for 1/10 of one percent of that price plus thumb drive (or better still, a ripper/streamer, it would seem to spell the death of the CDP--oh wait!
"...so I now take the view that if it sounds fine it is fine."
That was my impression after copying what I could of the "inaccurate" Tchaikovsky rips to the thumb drive and playing them on the SU. They were magnificent.
I wish I had time to work on this problem today but I do not. But at least I have something on which to concentrate my clumsy fingers and dangerous little mind! If anyone is interested, I will post the results after I install dbpoweramp on the desktop and re-rip, or failing that--copy and rip.
Best regards,
Russ
Russ
Posted on: 12 November 2012 by McGhie
Hi Russ
There's a configuration guide on the dBpoweramp website, which should explain how to set the software to behave when it doesn't get an accurate rip first time. I've followed it (can't recall what the default settings are) and mine rips once and if it gets an accurate rip (i.e. there's a match vs. someone else's rip of same track) then it says so, if not it rips again and, I think, if the second rip matches the first then it marks it as secure but if not it starts to rerip individual (bad) frames (there's a setting to abort if more than a certain number of frames need reripping). This can take a while. I've got two profiles I use for ripping - a default one (which aborts fairly quickly) and one for troublesome CDs, which will try harder. I rarely use the latter (although it does sometimes achieve results there are often many bad frames and it's supposed to stress the optical drive if it goes on too long - so this is my last resort).
A couple of observations:
I have found (very occasionally, maybe only once) that having repeatedly been unable to get accurate rips of a few tracks, they all ripped fine following a reboot.
I have found big differences between optical drives. I'd say that 98% of CDs rip perfectly first time on my Samsung drive on my PC but I can get accurate rips for the small number of exceptions via the (older) Pioneer drive in my Dell laptop more than half of the time, and the remainder require fewer frames to be reripped.
So, if you don't get a perfect rip first time it might be worth trying another drive, and it's possible if it repeatedly fails to get good rips of new CDs that a reboot might improve matters (this may well have been a one off for me though).
Before you do too much ripping (unless you are consistently getting good results) it might be worth following Spoon's guide (CD Ripper Secure Ripping Setup Guide) under
http://www.dbpoweramp.com/spoons-audio-guide.htm
Cheers
Ian
Posted on: 12 November 2012 by Russ
Well, folks, nothing yet to report on the "inaccuracy" front. (I place that in quotes just because I have no way to know whether the CD had inaccuracies or not.) Tomorrow, when I am able to beg computer time from the better half on the desktop, I will try installing dbpoweramp there and ripping on the "higher quality" CD/DVD/Bluray drive to see if I get the same ripping results. If I do, then, I will try the copy solution. (Pinkhamster--I know! I know! 
) But I do have to say that even if the copy rips beautifully on the original drive, where the original did not--that would not necesarily prove that one is better than the other--and the Hampster-Meister might well be right.
But I did manage to "solve" the copy problem to the thumb drive. (And here, I place the word in quotes because by "solve" I mean, not that I was able to figure out what was wrong, but rather that I was able by hook or crook to eliminate the issue. First, I took an old technology 9 gig thumb drive with the insulation on the outside virtually melting, and scratched all the files on it. I then moved the nine tracks and album art from the inaccurate rips over to it with no problem. Then, I took the offending thumb drive and deleted all of the files that came on it, leaving only previous successful "accurate" ripped albums. I moved the same file over to it and Voila! Success. Now, I will try both thumb drives in the SU to see how they sound. After that, I will erase and destroy the old, melting drive so that terrorists and extremists will never gain access to Beethoven's Fifth--or the album art of Linda Ronstadt before she got fat--with short shorts on sitting in a pig pin. I would not be that cruel to under-sexed terrorists.
Russ
Posted on: 13 November 2012 by Foxman50
Originally Posted by PinkHamster:
Here we go again. What exactly is a reburn if a CD supposed to be good for?
What makes you think, that if you cannot rip it, it would become better by reburning it? This simply doesn't make sense.
As Rich said please do try it if you have a CD that wont rip correctly. I have no idea how or why it works, but after using NERO to copy the CD and using the copied disk to rip with, dbpoweramp will usually rip correctly giving good accurip results.
I say usually because on occasions i do get the AR logo with a tick on some real troublesome tracks.
Its only a CDR so give it a go.
