Itunes Error Correction

Steve N.,

Funny you should mention EAC, because I just started using it a few days ago. I can't say with certainty that EAC sounds better than iTunes with correction, but I do know that in secure mode, discs that are in not so great shape that generate EAC error reports (the red boxes light up) sound dramatically better.

One disc I had was in such bad shape that EAC actually read a substantial part of it at .2x speed to extract the data. (secure mode, c2, no buffering) iTunes on the other hand was reading it at 2x-4x speed. The EAC version sounded cleaner, quieter with greater instrument separation and low level detail.

If you use a program called "iTunesEncode" you can actually configure EAC to perform the actual rip, automatically launch iTunes, use iTunes' encoders to change the file to any format supported by iTunes (.aiff, .alac) and automatically import the disc into your iTunes library, tags and metadata in tact. I also find that files tagged by EAC with ID3 tags display more information on my Squeezebox than files ripped by iTunes. Once configured the entire ripping process takes two clicks.

Happy Holidays all!

I'll also chime that there are ripping programs out there, such as EAC, which will give you better sounding rips than Itunes.

My customers are reporting the iTunes even with correction on is not as good as EAC on a PC. Try it and decide for yourself.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

I hate to revive a thread that is like over a year old, but you should know that I experienced a similar problem ripping discs with iTunes. At first I thought my CD drive was busted so I had it replaced. No change. I wound up updating all of my system drivers, including video card and motherboard chipset and that solved the problem.

This particular system had an Nvidia chipset and video card.

I have exactly the same experience as the original poster. I'm using the current version of iTunes in WinXP/SP2 with all current patches applied.

If you rip CDs into lossless format, iTunes just skips the data from all tracks if you check the error correction option. I've experienced this with several drives from different manufacturers.

If anyone finds an answer elsewhere, I'd appreciate it if they'd post the link in this thread. Thanks!

I have a Mac and I use error correction with no problem on iTunes ripping to Apple Lossless. Have you tried different CD's to try to isolate why iTunes isn't working on your PC? If you search for advice here and elsewhere, you'll discover that EAC (exact audio copy) is the best ripping software for the PC. Since it is not available on the Mac, I just use the iTunes error correction software, with good results.

Error correction is a big deal, since you want to get all the data as correct as possible when you rip a CD. Even on a clean CD, the laser may not read the data correctly without error correction software, which involves multiple passes of the laser. Since it doesn't cost extra and doesn't take much time, error correction seems worth the effort.

Even though I'm unqualified to address this topic, I'll off my 2 cents. What kind of disc drive are you using? Perhaps iTunes error correction is designed to work on the drives that comes with iMacs or maybe it's OS dependent. Anyway, after reading about EAC and the advice given by the designer of the Wavelength (?) Brick DACs, I enabled my iMac's error correction. It seemed the prudent thing to do. I've had no problems with it and I'm not so impatient that I'd rip a CD at the fastest possible rate at the expense of sonic accuracy. I'll make another stab. Maybe error correction only works when ripping in WAV or AIF files. BTW, I'm only a bicycle mechanic.