eac vs itunes ripping


i am not clear on the reason for some itunes users taking the trouble to use eac to rip before apple lossless storage in itunes. i have failed to successfully implement eac for ripping after some frustrating attempts, and then began ripping into itunes directly. is there good evidence that itunes ripping with error correction is inferior?
wkraft

Showing 1 response by nhendley

EAC has acquired a sort of mystic status which is not based on reality.

Sure, if you have a particularly bad CD, or your optical drive does not have C2 error correction then it has its place.

I use a Plextor PX-708UF drive and rip to WMA lossless using Windows Media Player which is a heck of lot more convenient that fiddling around with EAC's cumbersome functions.

When I binary compare with files ripped by EAC there is precisely no difference in the audio bits. Some of the header and footer information shows up as being differnt but that is all. I have tried this with old CDs that need error correction and the result is the same.

I'm sure iTunes can do just fine too. Don't believe the hype - check it out for yourself.