Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler FLAC vs MP3 (Stereo, Joint Stereo, Dual Channel)

Here’s a pretty good explanation of how EAC works.

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Exact_Audio_Copy

It also uses Accuraterip to verify the accuracy of your rips.

http://www.accuraterip.com/

In a nutshell EAC takes a lot (and I mean a lot) longer to rip than Media Monkey or any other ripper that I know of. Unlike any other ripper I know of when EAC is done you will know if you have a 100% perfect rip of each track or not and it will leap tall buildings to try and get one.

I started using it because the general consensus was that it’s the most accurate CD ripper available. Since I wasn’t in a hurry to rip everything I have (which isn’t much) and I’m ripping not just to listen but to archive/backup my CD collection I wanted to be as sure as possible I was storing accurate rips.

Based on my personal testing if I were copying just to listen I would use Stereo MP3 at 320 bits. But since I’m archiving I chose to use FLAC so I can recreate the original data if needed. This has already paid off since I dropped my Chill out in Paris case the other day and gouged one disk. Since I have a perfect backup I just burned a new copy to replace the damaged one.

Now I just need to find a way to rip my SACDs before I damage them.