"Best" CD ripper for KDE 4 / for Linux?

[homoludens1000]

Hi all,

I've seen a couple of posts on this forum on CD ripping, but they're pretty old, so I hope no one minds if I start a new thread.

... so, what's the general opinion on the "best" CD ripper out there for KDE 4 -- or for Linux in general if others are considered better? (I define "better" here mainly in terms of audio output quality, not in terms of user friendliness or such).

So far I've come across:
(1) KAudioCreator
(2) SoundJuicer
(3) RubyRipping
(4) Grip

No. 4 doesn't seem to have been updated for a long time, but perhaps it's still good?

From what I've read, RubyRipping seems to deliver very good quality (and it compares itself to Exact Audio Copy EAC on its website ... )

[caf4926]

I use k3b
or ffmpeg (cli)

jripper seems quite nice too.

[ReferenceSeete]

As far as native KDE4 goes, you can use K3b or Audex. I use the latter, although I used K3b in KDE3.

As far as thoroughness goes, rubyripper is your best bet. Me, I love music but when it comes to fidelity I know I have limits. Audex (like many other programs including Grip) use the cdparanoia library and that's plenty good for me along with a decent codec and bitrate.

I will go FLAC one day..when I have more HDD space to give!

[geoffro]

rubyripper is a gtk (gnome) app. I use k3b and it works really well for me.

Geoff

[Kiwi_Baldrick]

Asunder does it for me.

Great sounding audio, and a very easy to set up the way you want it & a nice interface to boot - couldn't ask for more!

[homoludens1000]

Thanks for the posts, everyone. I found them very helpful.

So it looks like cdparanoia is actually the most popular ripping application (used through different frontends: KAudioCreator, SoundJuicer, Asunder).

@ReferenceSeete:
Any reason that you are not using RubyRipper despite its thoroughness?

geoffro wrote:

>
> rubyripper is a gtk (gnome) app. I use k3b and it works really well for
> me.
>

K3B 0.8 worked well for me but I've had nothing but trouble since it was
upgraded(?) to version 1. The latest bit of lunacy is that when it tries to
verify the recording, it says I haven't got a CD/DVD drive. Dunno what it
thought it was using to make the recording!

--
Graham P Davis, Bracknell, Berks., UK. E-mail: newsman not newsboy
"I wear the cheese. It does not wear me."

[darwin412]

Nero is still superior by far....

[Kiwi_Baldrick]

Originally Posted by darwin412

Nero is still superior by far....

Heck, I didn't realise there was a Nero for Linux version..

[ReferenceSeete]

Originally Posted by homoludens1000

@ReferenceSeete:
Any reason that you are not using RubyRipper despite its thoroughness?

I don't use RubyRipper despite its thoroughness for three reasons:

1. My media are well taken care of. I don't need my ripping software to restore what would otherwise be lost to scratches.

2. My CD library is sizable and cdparanoia's error correction alone is nothing to laugh at. Using RubyRipper would only make a long process even longer for negligible gain (IMHO).

3. I'm more of a musicphile than an audiophile. I don't need a rip to be bit-perfect since in most cases no one will know the difference. In fact for a personal library, the ripped copy will likely become the 'reference' material to one's ears since the copy is what will be heard the most. As long as the rip doesn't have noticeable errors, I'm fine.

The reason I'd like to re-rip my collection in the future to FLAC is for convenience down the road. When I first ripped my music I did it all to LAME 128 CBR. When I got more serious about listening to my collection on my computer, I moved away from the basic speakers that came with a PC - remember when "multimedia PCs" were all the rage? - and I also upgraded the quality of my files by re-ripping my CDs: This time OGG Vorbis q6 through q8, depending on the material. What stinks is if I want to move everything to another format or quality level, I'll need to rip discs for the third time.

So when I have time and another HDD, I'm going to rip to lossless so future re-encoding will be less painful. Having it all as FLAC means being able to quickly re-encode batches for whatever purpose instead of trying to find a compromise between quality and size that may work for one situation (say, a computer with 150+ GiB HDD) but not another (a cell phone with 0.5-2 GiB micro SD).

It just takes way too long to rip a couple hundred discs with one CD drive, so no more ripping to lossy for me.