AccurateRip Sold (also defending AccurateRip's good name)

[Spoon]

That is right AccurateRip has been sold, for the grand sum of $1 to Illustrate (everyone breathes a big sigh of relief).

The reason for this sale is to bring AccurateRip under the protection of Illustrate which has funds to defend AccurateRip legally if required. Why? all areas of the market are jumping on the secure ripping band-wagon, some of these new-comers like to brandish around facts which are not quite correct, often in the same sentence as AccurateRip, which they see as fair game and a weak target (bash AccurateRip when comparing to their XYZ = sell more XYZ).

This thread will highlight those posts/press releases/pdfs which do not have their facts right, correct their facts and restore AccurateRips good name. Whilst Illustrate would not have normally passed comment on such posts, by having a go at AccurateRip declares an 'open season' - true experts in the field of Secure Ripping will examine the work posted and post commentary.

[Spoon]

Re: AccurateRip Sold (also defending AccurateRip's good name)

Lets start with Naim Audio:

Within their "CD Ripping Engine" pdf:

naim-audio.com/download/Naim%20CD%20Ripping%20Engine.pdf

They mention:

4. Offset Correction
Most computer CD-ROM mechanisms suffer from a symptom where there is a small positional error when playing audio CDs. This is because the calculated position vs. the actual position the laser moves to on the disc is slightly different. The consequence of this is that either the start or end of the track is not captured correctly.
Schemes like AccurateRip have been created which allows users to calibrate their &*blooper*8216;data grade&*blooper*8217; mechanism via their ripping application, by inserting a CD that is known by the AccurateRip database on the Internet. A positive or negative offset can be then calculated to adjust for the offset error. Few ripping applications actually support this and it&*blooper*8217;s hit and miss if the CD mechanism supports this either (i.e. each mechanism manufactured is consistent), as the finer details of the firmware in CD drives are rarely advertised.

Of interest is "and its hit and miss if the CD mechanism supports this either (i.e. each mechanism manufactured is consistent)," off all the drives on sale right now, 99.9999% support AccurateStream, thus have a consistent offset, so hardly a 'hit and miss' and has nothing to do with 'the finer details of the firmware in CD drives are rarely advertised'. Scare-mongering averted, it is safe to use AccurateRip with every drive purchased in the last 3 years (with the exception of 3 or 4 drives which are listed as excluded on AccurateRips drive offset list).

Whilst looking over the document, section 5 (5. Capturing Track Lead-in and Lead-out times) is quite an eye opener, lets see:

MP3s and WAV files have no concept of this inter-track album spacing, which means ripped albums typically lose this information. It is up to the player to add a predefined gap between tracks. On gapless albums, like live concerts, this can ruin the flow of the recording. If this information is not captured at rip time,

Not quite, every PC based Ripping program I know of (I know of the top 15) adds the gap present between each track to the previous track. Gapless albums have no gap so there is nothing to loose! and what do track gaps have to do with the lead in / out of the disc (which is only present right before track 1 and after the end track)? seems there is confusion between track gaps and lead in / out...

** The above quotes are copyrighted Naim Audio, these are posted here without the copyright owners permission under US "fair use" copyright law (for the purposes of criticism or review)