What does it mean for a CD rip to be bit perfect?

Posted by: nbpf on 24 January 2017

The notion of "bit perfectness" pops up over and over again in this forum, for instance, when discussing features of CD ripping software. I do not know precisely what it means for a rip to be bit perfect and I have the impression that other contributors might be in a similar situation. Thus, the aim of this thread is to achieve some shared understanding of what it means for files obtained by ripping CDs to be bit perfect. To this end, it seem to me purposeful trying to answer the following questions:

1) Is it possible to decide whether a file obtained by ripping a CD is bit perfect or not?

2) If the answer to 1) is positive, do we have reliable tests of "bit perfectness"? Can we share such tests?

3) Do bit perfect rips need to be identical?

4) If the answer to 3) is negative, which relations have to hold between two different bit perfect rips A and B?

What's your take on bit-perfectness? Do you think that the answer to 1) is positive or negative? What could be other questions that can help better understanding the notion of bit-perfectness?

Posted on: 26 January 2017 by nbpf

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:
indeed - so my point is that ripped files may be not always be bit perfect with each other but they will be a bit perfect subset of the CD (assuming no errors) - and this is what Naim are saying too I believe.
The original thread was that Unitserve and the Core rips for a given CD were not bit perfect with each other and this fits with the above statement.
S

Yes, I agree. Thanks for wrapping it up short and clear.