Hi there, I am starting out with dBpoweramp coming from EAC and am impressed by the features and ease of use but have a few questions.
First off I went through the set up using the excellent set-up guide http://www.dbpoweramp.com/cd-ripper-setup-guide.htm (side note it does not mention the "8KB Transfers" yet).
Well upon using a C2 Test CD (as mentioned in the guide) my two older (2004 and 2008) drives (TSSTcorp CDDVDW SE-S224Q Samsung USB Drive and HL-DT-ST RW/DVD GCC-4242N Hitachi LG Laptop-Slim Drive) both register C2 errors as they should about 1/4 or 1/3 into reading the disc.
With the same CD testing for C2, on my new PC the internal BluRay drive LG Electronics BD-RE BH10LS30 shows a C2 error immediately (without even the progress bar showing up!). The drive is in a new (much faster PC) but I guess the drive does not correctly support C2 then? Or could it be that a faster PC with a new drive is more sensitive or reads the CD that quick or catches more C2 errors? It is kinda hard to belive that a drive from 2010 with new technology can't do what a (slim Laptop-drive!) from 2004 could easily do. Especially because if I check under Options and go to CD ROM and then click Technical: it shows C2 as given!
Can I at least be sure that, when I test for the drive cache, it will show 100% (or at least very very likely) the correct cache size?
On the side: it would really be great if AccurateRip would not only include offsets but also info on C2, cache and features such as FUA as a consensus opinon...
Speaking of Offset: it stated that it should use an error free CD to detect the Offset, since I had the C2 error-check disk in the drive, it used that, so I am a little worried and would like to know how to re do an Offset check...
Oh and I am sure that it has been asked many times but: Who makes good drives anymore? (I mean Plextor now does not make their own drives anymore, I heard bad things about almost all others: Lite On, LG, Samsung etc...).
I guess with AccurateRip we don't really need to worry (except maybe about speed) since we can verify the result, but seeing from your tests with different drives a certain NEC drive performed really terrible, but from the Forum here I could see that the best drives where somewhere in the 98% to 99% accurate range and some of the avg worse drives where "only" a few percent less.
This accuracy would also be good in an AccurateRip database btw...
I would also like to know how to enable or set up ripping to two different formats (flac and mp3) simultaneously, as I could not see any settings for this (and I would much perfer to just read the disc once instead of once for flac and once for mp3).
I really think the settings and set up for dBpoweramt is great and straight forward. But when I set up the mp3 encoder it not only has the Quality setting but also an Encoding setting: Normal, Fast (Low Qual.), Slow (High Qual.) is that still used? I thought there used to be -vbr new and stuff but nowadays? I tried Normal and Slow (Slow was actually a bit faster suprisingly... at least with one song tested). So does this setting still apply (or merit being in the program?).
With two drives on the same Computer, am I able to rip two different CDs at the same time? would I need to run two instances of dBPoweramp? Would this affect the quality at all (I mean it does all get verified by accuraterip but could the encoders get a "hickup" or something for instance when both instances encode at the same time)... and thus cause audible glitches? Would it even be possible to add a third (USB) Drive to rip and encode with three drives?
Does it matter if you also use USB drives to rip in general? Is there any difference in the quality?
And a little abstract question: should all drives be dampened? (cushioned or vibration minimized) with extra rubber feet (for external) or with vibe fixers (internal); does it matter??
Sorry for all the questions but, since I will rip quite a large collection I really would like to do it once and be done with it than re do every few years (back in 2001 I thought mp3 128 CBR was the way to go!) so I would really make sure that all goes well, smooth and future proof this time (with the help of dBpoweramp and flac).
Thanks a lot for your advice and help!
First off I went through the set up using the excellent set-up guide http://www.dbpoweramp.com/cd-ripper-setup-guide.htm (side note it does not mention the "8KB Transfers" yet).
Well upon using a C2 Test CD (as mentioned in the guide) my two older (2004 and 2008) drives (TSSTcorp CDDVDW SE-S224Q Samsung USB Drive and HL-DT-ST RW/DVD GCC-4242N Hitachi LG Laptop-Slim Drive) both register C2 errors as they should about 1/4 or 1/3 into reading the disc.
With the same CD testing for C2, on my new PC the internal BluRay drive LG Electronics BD-RE BH10LS30 shows a C2 error immediately (without even the progress bar showing up!). The drive is in a new (much faster PC) but I guess the drive does not correctly support C2 then? Or could it be that a faster PC with a new drive is more sensitive or reads the CD that quick or catches more C2 errors? It is kinda hard to belive that a drive from 2010 with new technology can't do what a (slim Laptop-drive!) from 2004 could easily do. Especially because if I check under Options and go to CD ROM and then click Technical: it shows C2 as given!
Can I at least be sure that, when I test for the drive cache, it will show 100% (or at least very very likely) the correct cache size?
On the side: it would really be great if AccurateRip would not only include offsets but also info on C2, cache and features such as FUA as a consensus opinon...
Speaking of Offset: it stated that it should use an error free CD to detect the Offset, since I had the C2 error-check disk in the drive, it used that, so I am a little worried and would like to know how to re do an Offset check...
Oh and I am sure that it has been asked many times but: Who makes good drives anymore? (I mean Plextor now does not make their own drives anymore, I heard bad things about almost all others: Lite On, LG, Samsung etc...).
I guess with AccurateRip we don't really need to worry (except maybe about speed) since we can verify the result, but seeing from your tests with different drives a certain NEC drive performed really terrible, but from the Forum here I could see that the best drives where somewhere in the 98% to 99% accurate range and some of the avg worse drives where "only" a few percent less.
This accuracy would also be good in an AccurateRip database btw...
I would also like to know how to enable or set up ripping to two different formats (flac and mp3) simultaneously, as I could not see any settings for this (and I would much perfer to just read the disc once instead of once for flac and once for mp3).
I really think the settings and set up for dBpoweramt is great and straight forward. But when I set up the mp3 encoder it not only has the Quality setting but also an Encoding setting: Normal, Fast (Low Qual.), Slow (High Qual.) is that still used? I thought there used to be -vbr new and stuff but nowadays? I tried Normal and Slow (Slow was actually a bit faster suprisingly... at least with one song tested). So does this setting still apply (or merit being in the program?).
With two drives on the same Computer, am I able to rip two different CDs at the same time? would I need to run two instances of dBPoweramp? Would this affect the quality at all (I mean it does all get verified by accuraterip but could the encoders get a "hickup" or something for instance when both instances encode at the same time)... and thus cause audible glitches? Would it even be possible to add a third (USB) Drive to rip and encode with three drives?
Does it matter if you also use USB drives to rip in general? Is there any difference in the quality?
And a little abstract question: should all drives be dampened? (cushioned or vibration minimized) with extra rubber feet (for external) or with vibe fixers (internal); does it matter??
Sorry for all the questions but, since I will rip quite a large collection I really would like to do it once and be done with it than re do every few years (back in 2001 I thought mp3 128 CBR was the way to go!) so I would really make sure that all goes well, smooth and future proof this time (with the help of dBpoweramp and flac).
Thanks a lot for your advice and help!
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