Exact Audio Copy is the best CD ripper...

Foobar is the best music player(also a very good audio converter to convert from .wav to .mp3

As a tool to convert from any format to any other format, the Foobar2000 may be best audio converter

EAC GUIDE

Installation
The very first step is installing EAC. You need to download v 0.95 beta 3. You also need a working
ASPI layer. If you have Nero installed you can copy wnaspi32.dll from the Nero installation folder
(C:\Program Files\Ahead\Nero) to your EAC installation folder (C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy)
after the installation has finished. If you don't have Nero you can download the needed file here.
• After installation is complete, copy wnaspi32.dll and run EAC.
• If it prompts you to run the Configuration Wizard, click cancel then restart EAC.
Configuring the options
Press F12. You can enter your own email address if you like or you can leave the uber@ubernet.org as
the default email. Select a server from the dropdown menu. The default server is highlighted but as
you can see there are multiple servers located all over the world. Select the one you want and click OK.

Press F9 and select the 'Extraction' tab. Check 'Fill up missing offset samples with silence' and
'Synchronize between tracks.' Also change the Error recovery quality to High.
On the next tab General check following options:
• On unknown cds automatically access online freedb database: When you insert a cd in your
drive EAC will automatically lookup the performer, album and track titles from the online
freedb database. That saves you a lot of typing work if the cd is found in the online
database. This option makes only sense if you have a permanent Internet connection like
DSL or cable.
• When using the Power Down feature wait for external compressors.

On the third tab Tools you also must set a few options:
• Use CD-Text information in CUE sheet generation
• Create '.m3u' playlist on extraction and the sub option 'Write m3u playlist with extended
information.' This will make EAC add additional information to the playlist like the track play
time.
•
• Automatically write status report after extraction. This makes EAC write a status report (log
file) after extraction in which you can find possible errors and the used settings.
• On extraction, start external compressors queued in the background. This controls how
many compressor windows will open and encode while you are ripping. It is unnecessary
to select more than one.
•
•

• Select the Normalize tab.

• If Normalize is checked, then deselect it.
 •

Select the Filename tab. You'll notice two input fields with text in them. Below you see %N - %A -

%T in those fields. EAC generates filenames using this string which would look like Number - Artist
- Title. You can experiment with the various combinations for the filename construction. In any
case, please keep the filenames simple and put the track number (%n) first.
Select the Interface tab and tick 'Installed external ASPI interface.' This would be the wnaspi32.dll
file you copied to your EAC folder after installation. This section is complete. Select Ok.

Verifying or setting the drive options

This is one of the most important parts of the EAC configuration.
• Press F10. Select the warning dialog box away.
• Select the 'Extraction Method' tab. Secure Mode *must* be enabled!
• Check 'Drive has 'Accurate Stream' feature' and 'Drive caches audio data.'
Select the Drive tab.
• Select the dropdown menu and select Autodetect read command.
• Select Autodetect read command now. After a few seconds EAC returns the correct read
command for your drive
Select the Offset/Speed tab
• Check 'Use read sample offset correction'
• In the input field below, enter the offset correction value for your drive which can be found
on this site.(www.accuraterip.com/driveoffsets.htm) (. If you don't know what drive you
have or what to look for, your drive will be listed at the top of the window below. It's likely
to be easier searching for the model numbers. (e.g. DRU-720A)
• Check 'Allow speed reduction during extraction' and 'CD-Text Read capable drive.'
Select the Gap Detection tab
• It is recommended to use Detection Method A, and Secure here. Some drives may not use
these settings, if this is the case when you are detecting gaps, try changing them.
• Select secure in the detection accuracy dropdown list.
Setting the encoder options
The configuration of EAC and the drives is done. Next step is to configure the encoder settings.
These differ from compressor to compressor, but the four steps lists below will remain the same.
• Press F11
• Select External Compression
• Check 'Use external program for compression.
• Select User Defined Encoder from the Parameter passing scheme dropdown box. Use the
links below to advance to your preferred encoder.
1. LAME mp3
2. FLAC
3. Monkey's Audio
4. Ogg Vorbis

LAME mp3
The first thing you need to do is get LAME. (This version is recommended by the experts at
Hydrogen Audio).
• Open the downloaded zip file. Extract the lame.exe file to the EAC installation path.
(default: C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\)
• Back in EAC set 'Use file extension' to .mp3 (including the dot in front). Next we need to set
the path to the LAME executable.
• If you stored it in the recommended location, you can just copy and paste C:\Program
Files\Exact Audio Copy\lame.exe.
• Further set the last four options on the tab as shown in the screenshot below.
On the External Compression tab enter one of following command lines in the Additional command
line options input field:
• -V 2 --vbr-new --add-id3v2 --ignore-tag-errors --ta "%a" --tt "%t" --tg "%m" --tl "%g" --ty
"%y" --tn "%n" %s %d
• -V 0 --vbr-new --add-id3v2 --ignore-tag-errors --ta "%a" --tt "%t" --tg "%m" --tl
"%g" --ty "%y" --tn "%n" %s %d
• -b 320 --add-id3v2 --pad-id3v2 --ta "%a" --tt "%t" --tg "%m" --tl "%g" --ty "%y" --tn "%n" %s
%d
List of recommended settings

Bitrate
Switch Preset Target Kbit/s Bitrate range kbit/s
designation

-b 320 --preset insane 320 320 CBR 320

-V 0 -- --preset fast
245 220...260 V0
vbr-new extreme

-V 2 -- --preset fast
190 170...210 V2
vbr-new standard

• For those who are still used to the older --alt-preset settings, here is a short overview. -V 2 --
vbr-new equals to --alt-preset standard, -V 0 --vbr-new equals to --alt-preset extreme and -b
320 equals to --alt-preset insane. Just ignore the Bit rate field and the high and low quality
selectors.
• I've been made aware of a few people who have problems with LAME.exe not encoding the
 .wav files to .mp3. Apparently there is a problems with bad genre info causing lame.exe
not to work properly. I've added a fix for that to the command lines above.
• Check if the settings on the ID3 Tag tab page match the settings of the screenshot below.
Saving the compression options to a profile
You've just set the options for your preferred encoder and now it's time to save that configuration
to it's very own profile so you don't have to go that setup again. This is especially convenient if
you want to use several different encoders because each time you change the compression
options in EAC the old settings will be lost. You can use one of two ways to create your new
profile(s).

1st Method
• Press Shift+F2

Enter a name for the profile. I suggest naming it after whichever encoder it is configured for. That
way, there will be no confusion on which is which later down the road.
Now choose a save location. There is a Profiles folder in EAC's default installation folder.
(C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\Profiles\)

2nd Method best

• In the status bar on the bottom of the EAC main window you'll notice Load, Save, New and
Delete buttons. With these buttons you can manage profiles in EAC.

Select the New button. Provide a name for the profile, check All Compression options and select
OK. You've created and automatically saved your profile to C:\Program Files\Exact Audio
Copy\Profiles\.
Your new profile should now be added to the dropdown box on the left of the buttons. If you have
several profiles in the list you can switch between those by selecting one from the list and
selecting the Load button. The second method is the better of the two for it's simplicity and time
saving effectiveness. You may now continue setting another compressor or another profile, or you
can start using EAC.

FLAC

• Open the downloaded zip file. Extract the flac.exe file to the EAC installation path. (default:
C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\)
• Back in EAC set 'Use file extension' to .flac (including the dot in front). Next we need to set
the path to the FLAC executable.
• If you stored it in the recommended location, you can just copy and paste C:\Program
Files\Exact Audio Copy\flac.exe.
• Further set the last four options on the tab as shown in the screenshot below.
On the External Compression tab enter one of following command lines in the Additional command
line options input field:
• -V -5 -T "artist=%a" -T "title=%t" -T "album=%g" -T "date=%y" -T "tracknumber=%n" -T
"genre=%m" %s
• the red text is all one command line:
-8 -A tukey(0.25) -A gauss(0.1875) -b 4096 -V -T "artist=%a" -T "title=%t" -T
"album=%g" -T "date=%y" -T "tracknumber=%n" -T "genre=%m" %s --sector-align

• Just ignore the Bitrate field and the high and low quality selectors. The bitrate of the
compressed files will be "Lossless" no matter the compression (5/8) level used.
• Check if the settings on the ID3 Tag tab page match the settings of the screenshot below.
Ogg Vorbis
The first thing you need to do is get Ogg Vorbis.
• Open the downloaded zip file. Extract the oggenc2.exe file to the EAC installation path.
(default: C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\)
• Back in EAC set 'Use file extension' to .ogg (including the dot in front). Next we need to set
the path to the OGG executable.
• If you stored it in the recommended location, you can just copy and paste C:\Program
Files\Exact Audio Copy\oggenc2.exe.
• Further set the last four options on the tab as shown in the screenshot below.

On the External Compression tab enter one of following command lines in the Additional command

line options input field:

• -q6 -a "%a" -t "%t" -l "%g" -d "%y" -N "%n" -G "%m" %s
• -q8 -a "%a" -t "%t" -l "%g" -d "%y" -N "%n" -G "%m" %s (Recommended)
• -q10 -a "%a" -t "%t" -l "%g" -d "%y" -N "%n" -G "%m" %s

• Just ignore the Bit rate field and the high and low quality selectors.
• Check if the settings on the ID3 Tag tab page match the settings of the screenshot below.
Select OK to save the settings. SEE Saving the compression options to a profile

Using EAC
Insert the cd you want to rip in your cd-rom and wait for EAC to request the cd information in the
online freedb database. Verify the titles because the information is sent in by volunteers to freedb
and often contains typos.

Ripping an audio cd
This is the most common used extraction method. Repeat this process each time you rip a disc.
• Select only the wanted tracks, or none at all if you wish to rip the entire disc.
• Press F4. EAC will now detect the gaps between tracks of the entire disc and shouldn't take
very long.
Create a CUE Sheet by selecting Action > Create CUE Sheet > Multiple WAV Files With Gaps...
(Noncompliant) from the menu bar.
• Save the .cue in the same folder you plan to save the compressed files in.

EAC will now start the extraction process. It will test read each track for errors and
then read, copy and then compress the track using the external compressor. You
will see another pop up during extraction. This is the external compressor
encoding the file. It looks just like the window you get by clicking Start > Run and
typing cmd. Do not close this window! It will open and close as it begins and
finishes the compression, respectively. During extraction you'll sometimes notice
red dots lighting up in the extraction dialog window and after the extraction
completed you get a log with things like Peak Level and Track Quality. When a
Read Error or Sync Error occurs, there's an uncorrectable error in the read audio
data. After extraction you'll get a list of the exact locations of the suspicious
positions.
EAC has now completed the extraction process.
Click OK. Do not close EAC because the external compression quite possibly be a track or two
behind the extraction process. Be sure all encoding is finished before exiting EAC. Open the folder
where you saved the compressed files. There will be a .log file. This file contains information such
as the output format, the command line which was used, pre-gap lengths, peak levels, track
quality, CRC checksums, and any errors that occurred during the extraction. You may want to
compare the CRC checksums in the .log to the ones listed in EAC to make sure they actually do
match. In the same folder, there should be an .m3u playlist which you can drop into the player of
your choice and it will load all of the tracks for you. Congratulations! You've just made a proper
rip.

CONVERTING with EAC

I have to do is drag and drop the wav's into EAC and they start compressing to mp3 immediately.

Foobar vs eac for converting to flac

If you are re-ripping your CD's, then EAC can be a more secure rip than fb2k, though both rip secure.
If you already have the WAV files on your HD, then use fb2k. The encoding part makes no difference
which program is used, as both call the external FLAC.exe. It's the ripping part that requires the
decision to use either EAC or fb2k.

I'm using EAC to rip and have no intention of changing that. I like to have a separate file for each track
and I don't plan on changing that either. I'm not worried about the tagging since I use mp3tag to adjust
the tags after creating the flac files.
I was just wondering if it made a difference if I let EAC or fb2k do the encoding. I like to rip the tracks
as waves first and then encode them using fb2k since the interface looks much more user friendly.
Not taking tagging into account, this still sounds like extra work to me and hence not as user-friendly.

Step1
Find the music files you want to convert and select them, then click "Open." If there's more than one
file you want to add, hold down "Ctrl" and you'll be able to select multiple items at once.
Step2
Click on "File," then click on "Open Audio CD," if you'll be converting music on a CD to a different
format, such as mp3 or AAC.
Step3
Select the files you wish to convert in the Foobar2000 main menu, again using either "Ctrl" or "Shift"
to select more than one file at a time.
Step4
Right-click on the files you've just selected, then select "Convert." This will open a menu with a few
conversion options, but the simplest and probably right one to pick for regular file conversion is
"Convert to..."
Step5
Choose the format with which you would like the converted files to be encoded. If you're converting a
CD, both mp3 and AAC are good choices for use on personal audio players like the iPod or Zune.
Step6
Specify the location where you would like the new files to be placed by selecting a folder in the
"Browse for Folder" window, then click on "OK."
If you're using Foobar2000 to encode music from a CD, definitely consider using the FLAC code
instead of either the mp3 or AAC codes. FLAC is a lossless encoding format, which means you can
compress a file's size significantly without suffering a loss in audio quality.

Many people recommend against ripping from foobar because it doesn't have error correction. EAC is
often considered to be a much better option.

Foobar vs eac

If you are re-ripping your CD's, then EAC can be a more secure rip than fb2k, though both rip secure.
If you already have the WAV files on your HD, then use fb2k. The encoding part makes no difference
which program is used, as both call the external FLAC.exe. It's the ripping part that requires the
decision to use either EAC or fb2k. I hope that helps.

Neither foobar2000 nor EAC have any immunity against consistent errors, but EAC has AccurateRip
support and as such has an advantage that is considerable. For drives that provide reliable C2 pointers
which either don't cache or accept FUA, EAC again has an advantage.

With drives that provide C2 pointers (regardless of reliability), neither of these programs can compete
with dBpowerAMP.

How exactly does Foobar2000 handle drives that cache (including during re-reads in the event of a
mismatch)???
Knowing this, I may be able to make a case demonstrating even greater superiority with dBpowerAMP.

EXACT AUDIO COPY

EAU is better at ripping old damaged cds. It has better error correction.

I use foobar, but would not rip with it, it is after all a media player. I have to object to the many
ignorant people using iTunes, Winamp, WMP to rip CDs. They may rip, but doesn't mean they're any
good...Jack of a lot of trades, Master of none.

If it is not sure that the audio stream is correct (at least that it can not be said at approx. 99.5%) the
program will tell the user where the (possible) read error occurred. The program also tries to correct the
jitter artefacts that occur on the first block of a track, so that each extraction should be exactly the
same. On drives which have the “accurate stream” feature, this is guaranteed. Of course, this
technology is a little bit more complex, especially with some CD drives which implements caching.
When drives cache audio data, every sector read will be read from the drives cache and is that way
always identical. Basically there are several ways to clear the cache. In newer versions it will overread
sectors, so that the cache contains sectors from a position elsewhere on the CD.

EAC has several secure read modes, depending on the features of the drive. One really fast mode
(nearly burst mode speed) is for drives with C2 error pointer support, accurate stream and are non-
caching. Another mode (up to half of maximum speed) is for non-caching, accurate stream drives
(without C2 support). If caching need to be defeated, the secure mode will be much slower, when no
read errors occur it will usually something around a third to a fourth of the drives maximum speed.
This program is really quite slow in secure mode in comparison with other grabbers, but the program
checks every sector over and over to get the correct data with high certainty. If you don’t like this
feature of EAC and prefer fast copies instead of secure copies, you are able to use the fast or burst
extraction option in the drive options menu. But of course in fast mode, the program will no longer be
able to find read errors. Only if a read error occurs in a sector synchronization area, a sync error will be
displayed. Fast mode is sector synchronized with 2 synchronization blocks of 23 total blocks. Burst
copy is even worse, no synchronization is performed at all, enabling extraction at maximum speed of
the drive.
No error checking of any kind is done. For burst mode there is at least a small indicator of the extracted
track quality. If the stream ever breaks, it will tell the user in the status report by showing up suspicous
positions. Of course this is only an heuristic; there needn’t be any errors on these positions; moreover
there could be errors that are not found at all.
• Some older CD-ROM drives will perform better on DAE when updating the firmware.
• The WAV comparison feature could also be used to determine a combined reader/writer offset
for exact audio duplication. This offset can then be used for each pair of reader/writer.
To determine the offset, you need an already copied audio CD where the WAV files were extracted with
0 offset.
Now extract the same range (somewhere in the middle of a track) with your prefered audio drive of the
original and the copied CD.
When extracted both files call compare WAV files and have a look at the number of the first
missing/extraneous samples. This number will be the combined reader/writer offset. To determine
whether the number should be positive or negative, you have to look if the samples are missing or are
extraneous. If the original wav file has extraneous samples at the beginning, the offset should be
negative otherwise positive (if the file of the copied CD has extraneous samples the offset should
otherwise be positive, etc.)
To check the correct offset, you could enter the offset value in the options and extract again the same
range from the copied CD and compare it again with the range of the original CD, both should then be
the same…
• With the WAV editor it is also possible to compare the actual file with another WAV file on the
hard disk. This has the advantage that the differing positions could automatically be selected by
double-clicking the position in the list box. This will make correction of badly read tracks very
easy.
• On some systems EAC will not find a matching read mode. In that case select the correct read
command in the drive options menu manually. If your drive seem to make a bus reset (blinking
LEDs for some seconds) or still does not find a matching read mode, please send an email!
• If a CD has songs from various artists, you could select the option “Various Artists” on the main
screen. This will enable splitted track names. The first part of each track name is the artist name
and the second part is the song title. Both parts are separated by the character “/”. For example:
Metallica / Nothing Else Matters
 • freedb servers require an email address in the freedb options, you can also enter this information
in the configuration wizard. If a server times out or does not respond, you can select another
CDDB server from the list supplied in the list box. From time to time you should update the
server list by pressing the button below that list box.
• If your computer doesn’t show any drives or shows an access violation after starting EAC, it is
often the ASPI interface. There are many ASPI versions available which will work (more or less
reliably) with EAC. Changing the interface setting could also help. To install a new ASPI, you
should choose one from Nero® which can be download for free from Ahead®.
If this still does not help, also try the Native SCSI setting in the interface options.
• You can open two instances of EAC, enabling you to read audio data from two different CD-
ROM drives simultaneously. But make sure that you start both instances from different
directories, otherwise some unanticipated side-effects could occur.
• To exactly position the sliders in selecting a range to copy, you could move the sliders
secondswise by clicking left or right side of the sliders (same as pressing the <page up> and
<page down> keys) and blockwise by pressing the <cursor left> and <cursor right> keys.
• If your drive caches audio data, you have to use the appropriate extraction mode, or if you still
use the old secure mode, you have to enable the option ‘disable CD-ROM drive cache’. If not,
the result will be the same as using “Fast Extraction” (having no error detection).
• EAC is able to copy ranges of music data, not only tracks
• Automatic speed reduction on read errors and fallback to a higher speed afterwards (depends on
the used drive)
• Volume normalization of extracted audio to a given percentage
• Usage of the Windows Audio Compression manager (ACM Codecs) for direct compression to
e.g. MP3 waves
• Support for the LAME DLL that is usable like an ACM Codec for on-the-fly MP3 compression
• Support of external MP3, WMA, flac and OggVorbis encoders for automatic compression after
extraction (supports multi-processor environments)
• Batch compression to WAV files and decompression of supported encoded files to WAV
• Compression offset support for exact compression/decompression
• Detection of pre-track gaps (positions where negative track times runs towards 00:00:00)
• Detection of silence in pre-track gaps
• Automatic creation of CUE sheets for Burnnn, Feurio, Nero or even EAC, which can include all
gaps, indicies, track attributes, UPC and ISRC and also CD-Text for an exact copy
• CD player functionality and prelistening to selected ranges
• Automatic detection of drive features, whether a drive has an accurate stream and/or does
caching
• Sample offsets for drives with noaccurate streams, including the option of filling up missing
samples with silence
• Synchronizing between tracks for non-accurate stream drives
• Trackname editing with local/remote CD databases support and more features like ID3 tagging
• Browse and edit local database
• Certified Escient ® CDDB(TM)Compatible
• Local CDDB support
• Record and loop record functions for recording from LP, radio, etc.
• Automatic renaming of MP3 files accordingto their ID3 tag
• Catalog extraction function (e.g. first 20 seconds of a track)
 • Multisession (CD-Extra) support
• CD-Text support
• CD-Write support for some drives (internally and using CDRDAO)
• ID3 V1.1 tag editor with drag and drop ability from track listing and CD database browser
• Glitch removal after extraction
• Small WAV editor with the following functionality: delete, trim, normalize, pad, glitch removal,
pop detection, interpolation of ranges, noise reduction, fade in/out, undo (and much more)

EAC is an audio ripper, which means it pulls the audio off the disc in its native .wav file format. After
that, EAC hands off the file to the encoder of your choice.
USING EAC with FLAC

from within EAC, click the EAC File menu and select Compression Options and then the External
Compression tab. Check Use external program for compression box, change the Parameter passing
scheme to Use Defined Encoder, and type in the .flac file extension.
In the next window the software asks for the program, including the path, used for compression. Point
toward the flac.exe file you've just dropped into the EAC folder. Finally, uncheck the Use CRC Check
and Add ID3 Tag boxes, and then paste this string into the command-line option box:
-T "artist=%a" -T "title=%t" -T "album=%g" -T "date=%y" -T "tracknumber=%n" -T "genre=%m" -5
%s
Hit OK, and you're ready to get started.
To rip a CD, you place it in your drive and launch EAC. Once the app sees your disc, you can click the
CD icon to grab the disc information from the online database. Then you click the MP3 icon (yes, that's
confusing, but most people are using it that way). A Save Waveform dialog box appears. Don't type in a
file name, but be sure you save the files to a location you'll remember, and then click Save. The
program will now start its work.
It's pretty interesting to watch EAC rip a file, deal with error corrections when necessary, and then feed
the file to the external compressor. Once it completes a full rip, you have the option of creating a log of
the process, which details the success (or failure) of each track.
For those who would like to get even more out of EAC and FLAC, an EAC fan named Jared Breland
has created a great little add-on program called AutoFLAC. In addition to automating some of the EAC
process, the program restores a few features that break when you use FLAC instead of MP3 with EAC.
The most important of these features is cue-sheet generation. A cue sheet is a text file containing track
details about a CD; with a cue sheet you can create an exact duplicate of the original .wav-encoded CD
using your FLAC file. You can read more about AutoFLAC, and download the free app, here.