Ripping CD's - Bypassing Computer CD Player

Your entire premise is misguided. The optical disk drives in any recent vintage computer is of sufficient quality to do a superb job at reading the data from a musical CD disc. The ripping software you choose to use has far more effect on the quality of the rips.

Quality of computer CDP has nothing to do with it. Get good ripping software like MAX or XLD for Mac or EAC for Windows. Ripping program reads CD as data instructing CDP to re-read given sector multiple times until proper checksum is obtained. MAX (free) that I use allows to set number of attempts. I set it to "Do not allow to skip" that will guarantee that extracted data is identical to original CD. Some ripping programs even allow you to compare overall CD checksum with database.

CDP operates differently - most of them cannot read the same sector twice because they operate in real time. For small scratches within 4mm along the track they error correct it, between 4-8mm they interpolate missing sector and skip for scratches longer than 8mm.

Also notice, that ripped CD is stored on HD as data (no timing).

The transport in a CD player has to deliver the bits without retries for data errors given the need to deliver the bits in real time. The drive in a computer is not under any real time constraints, so it can resample as much as necessary to get an exact copy, as long as the CD is not really damaged. In fact, the computer drive should do a better job of insuring that all the bits are correct.

That said, there used to be regular reviews of drives for ripping. Not sure if those reviews are still being done or not. In the early days, everyone swore by Plextor drives. But they have not been made since 2005 or so. Latter Plextor drives were just re-badged from large suppliers.

Using a ripper like dBpoweramp you should have no trouble with pretty much any drive in your computer. dBpoweramp will also check your rip against other people's rips, which is an added level of assurance.

Good software for ripping is the key. End of story.

For .wav on WIndows, I found free Windows MEdia Player included in Windows to work very well in general for many years.

I am in trial period with DBPoweramp for ripping to FLAC starting last night with a few CDs ranging from very good to questionable condition. IT provides a lot of useful information and options for ripping. It resorted to a block rip mode for a few tracks on CD that were apparently damaged. This was dog slow when it occurred and I had to skip those tracks. It seemed fast and reliable under most circumstances though. ALso the way it auto tags using multiple database sources and provides supplemental album art choices off the internet as a contingency when needed is the best I have seen so far for tagging at rip time. I would pay to use this over EAC I think in that my recollection is EAC auto tagging may not be as sophisticated? Mediamonkey RIP to FLAC has not floated my boat at all to-date in terms of speed and overall user friendliness, especially for tagging.

Ain't it funny how a $50 computer CD drive does a better job of ripping CDs than a $10,000+ "audiophile" player?

And yes, dbPowerAmp is the bee's knees of CD ripping software. It also does a heckuva job transcoding ripped discs to other formats like FLAC, etc.

Long story short, Nab2, your PC's CD drive coupled with dbPowerAmp will do a fantastic job of ripping your CDs - end of story...

-RW-