Ripping Woes dB Poweramp

Can we assume you went through the calibration procedure when setting up dB?

also you don't mention the condition of your collection or how you treat them / clean them.

I think mr. spoon stated a 2percent rate of non-perfect rips. Mine was nearer 1percent.

On the point of calibration I don't calibrate every cd I rip but I did do so today.

As for my collection most of my CDs are in excellent condition with minimal marks and and I always check each disc before it gets ripped. 

As I explained earlier the problem seems to happen mostly at the end of an album being ripped.

I've always expected some of my cd collection may not rip properly mad indeed some haven't ripped at all but still play on my CD player.

The internal DVD drive I use is around six years old but has hardly been used in that time because I used an external drive because it was slightly quicker but it died a few weeks ago hence my going back to the internal drive.

I've ripped around Fifteen CDs today with no real issues except the aforementioned so I suppose I'll have to live with the problem from time to time.

Mike..

Mike, you are supposed to calibrate the drive and create a known 'error disc' before you start the ripping process for your collection, so the correct compensation can be applied by the software.

As for my 1000 odd I think most errors were at track 1 (about half) so I suspect the drive may have a bearing on errors.

Mmm alarm bells are ringing ! Today, like many other times, I re-calibrated the drive with a cd and I was advised to use the same disc again to calibrate the drive but i haven't followed the advice given.

Well the good news is you only have to re-rip the bad ones, the calibration procedure applies to C2 pointers (I think), so all the good discs are done and dusted! I did my collection in March/April, by the time I finished I'd forgotten my own name!

 I have 2 CD drives on one PC and another PC would one drive on it sometimes both drives one PC will give errors particularly on the last tracks while the second PC will read it fine. 

CDs are read the opposite way to LPs from the inside to the outside errors are more likely to be found on the last tracks which are the ones the CD may be held by. most of my problems seem to be drive issues there are very few CDs that one of the drivers between the three that gives errors. 

most CDs that don't rip accurately will still play fine on a CD player using the CD players error correction, but they won't sound as wonderful as they can. 

If your rips tend to fail toward the end of long CDs, then that does point to a CD-ROM drive at the edge of calibration or starting to fail, so it might be appropriate to get a new drive.

The difference between a good CD ROM drive and poor one can be marked in terms of reliability and accuracy for rips. My current drive on my HP PC is a cracker and probably has to only re rep less than one in three hundred tracks using a second pass. And typically (assuming no disc damage) only the last one on extended play (outside of Redbook spec) discs.

The good thing is dBpoweramp lets you know this, some rippers like iTunes appear to tell you whether it's a compromised rip or not.

Simon

Simon

After converting my music library from FLAC to ALAC, using dbpoweramp, I started to use iTunes for ripping. However, I observed a "volume adjustment" setting was being added to the ripped file which doesn't occur in dbpoweramp. I'm not sure what effect this was having on playback so I've decided to go back to using dbpoweramp for the reasons you state.

Dave

Dave, very wise, as there should be no volume change unless the sample data is being modified.

Simon

dbPoweramp has a DSP setting called replay gain which adds a tag to files that doesn't change the data but can be read by some streamers and so volume is normalised between tracks and albums. Very handy for a random selection on the squeezebox when you choose the "smart gain" setting.

Unfortunately my UniQute does not seem able to react to these tags.

SJB

I believe none of the Naim nor Linn streamers recognise this tag at present.

I've decided to purchase a new external drive so I'll see how it goes.

I was wondering if anyone has the same experience same in that when I've been ripping my CD's the drive speeds up to really high speeds and I can hear the disc, or at least it seems to vibrate inside the casing and yet the ripping speed is around 8 x etc . . Seems strange but maybe that just normal ?

I reckon I've still got around 500 cd's to rip so the new drive will be very busy indeed.

Just one more thing I'm thinking of upgrading my Db Power amp package to the, 'Reference' or, Powerpack. 

Is there any point ?

Cheers..