How do I rip from CD to WAV?

[steve_1979]

What's the best software to use to rip music from my CD's into lossless WAV files.

I need to use WAV instead of FLAC because I have a Sony A-Series Walkman which won't play FLAC.

 

[Anonymous]

windows media player will rip to wav, although i use roxio creator

 

[Anonymous]

EAC (Exact Audio Copy) can rip to WAV as can iTunes. I understand you may not want to use iTunes as your media player of choice but you could simply copy the files once ripped?

 

[steve_1979]

Do WAV files ripped by EAC sound identical to WAV file ripped by Windows Media Player?

 

[spockfish]

No they don't. EAC is capable of 'secure ripping' which basically 'guarantees' you that you get a 'bit perfect' copy. It has advanced algorithms for that. So Media Player is not suitable for proper ripping your CD to WAV.

 

[spockfish]

No they don't. EAC is capable of 'secure ripping' which basically 'guarantees' you that you get a 'bit perfect' copy. It has advanced algorithms for that. So Media Player is not suitable for proper ripping your CD to WAV.

 

[The_Lhc]

EAC is not the only ripper that can do that, dbPoweramp can do it, although it isn't free. Note you won't get proper tagging with WAV though.

 

[Lee H]

EAC is not the only ripper that can do that, dbPoweramp can do it, although it isn't free. Note you won't get proper tagging with WAV though.

+1 to this. I use dbPoweramp and find it very good and, as stated, you won't get tagging to work well with WAV.

 

[Alec]

EAC is not the only ripper that can do that, dbPoweramp can do it, although it isn't free. Note you won't get proper tagging with WAV though.

+1 to this. I use dbPoweramp and find it very good and, as stated, you won't get tagging to work well with WAV.

+2, plus this: The rips will sound the same, IMO, from WMP and from EAC, but EAC can help you overcome any doubts about the integrity of your rips. However, I have known people lose patients with EAC ripping a difficult disk, then try in another ripper, et voila. So EAC is good, but not necessarily the second coming in software form.

 

[steve_1979]

If I use EAC to make WAV files there are no tags but if I use Windows Media Player to make WAV files the tags are there. Why is this?

 

[Alec]

If I use EAC to make WAV files there are no tags but if I use Windows Media Player to make WAV files the tags are there. Why is this?

Even with WMP these are not actually tags. That is, only the file name is really saved to the file. If you took the file and put it on another PC, non of the supposed tag info (artist etc) would show up, as it has not been saved to the file like a "proper" tag.

As stated above, you will struggle to tag a WAV file. Without knowing the technical ins and outs, its not really possible, which is probably why EAC has not tagged them.

 

[steve_1979]

Even with WMP these are not actually tags. That is, only the file name is really saved to the file. If you took the file and put it on another PC, non of the supposed tag info (artist etc) would show up, as it has not been saved to the file like a "proper" tag.

As stated above, you will struggle to tag a WAV file. Without knowing the technical ins and outs, its not really possible, which is probably why EAC has not tagged them.

Thanks for the explanation. The tags in the WAV files made by Windows Media Player do work perfectly on my Sony Walkman though, so this will be fine for my needs.

I have all my music collection (about 2200 tracks) saved onto my Walkman in 320kbps MP3 format which takes up about 25GB of the 32GB available space. So I want to fill up the last 7GB with high quality WAV versions of my favourite songs because I can hear the difference between MP3's and WAV when using professional quality Westone UM3x monitors.

 

[Alec]

Even with WMP these are not actually tags. That is, only the file name is really saved to the file. If you took the file and put it on another PC, non of the supposed tag info (artist etc) would show up, as it has not been saved to the file like a "proper" tag.

As stated above, you will struggle to tag a WAV file. Without knowing the technical ins and outs, its not really possible, which is probably why EAC has not tagged them.

Thanks for the explanation. The tags in the WAV files made by Windows Media Player do work perfectly on my Sony Walkman though, so this will be fine for my needs.

You're welcome, but now I'm confused. Heyho.

 

[Anonymous]

As a matter of interest, would you do me a test?

download foobar http://www.foobar2000.org/download

and the abx comparitor

http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_abx

load up a 320 mp3

and a wav

and see if you "really can" tell the difference.

Would be interesting.

 

[Alec]

As a matter of interest, would you do me a test?

download foobar http://www.foobar2000.org/download

and the abx comparitor

http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_abx

load up a 320 mp3

and a wav

and see if you "really can" tell the difference.

Would be interesting.

Especially with a Walkman or similar.

 

[steve_1979]

As a matter of interest, would you do me a test?

download foobar http://www.foobar2000.org/download

and the abx comparitor

http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_abx

load up a 320 mp3

and a wav

and see if you "really can" tell the difference.

Would be interesting.

Hmmm, that was an interesting test. I did blind tests with both my PC setup (see signature) and my Sony A-Series Walkman with UM3x earphones.

When comparing 320kbps MP3's to lossless WAV's using my PC setup I couldn't hear any difference with any of the tracks I tested. No suprise there though as it's only a budget 5.1 AV setup.

When comparing 320kbps MP3's to lossless WAV's using my Walkman I could occasionally hear a difference but only with about 20% of the tracks. Of the 20% that I could tell the diference with I couldn't hear anthing that was specifically different it was just that the overall sound was slightly more 'open' and 'airy' sounding. I did notice that the few tracks that did sound better in WAV format were all tracks that had very high quality recordings to start with such as Michael Jackson, Alan Parsons and the Amadeus movie sound track

So my overall conclusion is that the difference is rarely noticeable and on the few occasions when it was, the difference is so slight that I probably wouldn't notice it anyway unless I was concentrating hard doing critical listening.

 

[Anonymous]

I imagine the "differences" on the walkman are maybe down to the walkman and how it handles MP3 and WAV...the DAC in the 667 is better than the one in the walkman. I have a 667 too and it's incredibly good with music.

By the way. If you wish to surprise yourself even more... rip mp3 at 96, 128, 160,200, 256 and try again...

I would be very surprised if you can pass the ABX at anything higher than 128, and I can pretty much guarantee you won't at 200.

MP3 has had too much bad press, but if you use the right tools (EAC ec and LAME), then it's very high quality these days.

If you want a simple online test... here's one...

http://mp3ornot.com/index.php