I planned on ripping audio CD with the sound quality as highest as possible. Size is not the problem here, as long as the quality is perfect the size doesn't matter.

I want to know which codec is the right one for lossless quality. I heard of the FLAC codec, but I'm not sure if that's the best one yet. Plus, will the quality varies through different CD-ripping software? I want to know which software works best for ripping audio CD with highest quality possible, I don't care if it's a paid program.


Thanks in advance,
Nattawat

Many people use FLAC. My personal favourite is the Monkey's Audio format also known as APE. It compresses to approximately half the original size.

I use Exact Audio Copy in Secure ripping mode for ripping and encoding Audio CDs - it will encode to APE format if you configure it properly.

quality does vary slightly among diffrent cd ripping software but not by much , for most accurate extraction use exact audio copy in secure mode+right drive offsets , , theres 2 ways to get the offsets
a) you could use eac to perform offsets detection test if you own one of the reference cds thats listed in "technology" section of eac's site (must be original cds)
b) just look up your drive in this database
http://www.accuraterip.com/driveoffsets.htm or use google

heres a comparison of loseless codecs
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index....ess_comparison
wavpack seems to be the overall best

try dBpoweramp's R12 reference ripper for the most powerful and secure CD ripper. Also much easier to set up and use then EAC. If you use either dBpoweramp or EAC, be sure to use AccurateRip.

Encode to a lossless codec like FLAC, WavePack, or MA.

Some good info, however I am curious...

Wouldn't lossless mean zero compression? Most of the lossless formats seem to compress the data by more than half. I assume something must be dropped to get a compression rate that high.

Lossless audio formats (such as TTA and FLAC) provide a compression ratio of about 2:1

Lossless compression formats do not remove information from the audio, Where as Lossy compression formats do ( IE MP3,AAC ).

FLAC is also a popular archive format for owners of CDs and other media who wish to preserve their audio collections. If the original media is lost, damaged, or worn out, a FLAC copy of the audio tracks ensures that an exact duplicate of the original data can be recovered at any time.

Concerning ripping -- besides EAC very good CD-ripping can be done with Plextor drives using PlexTools software, coming with the drive (newer versions can be downloaded from plextor site). With Plex drives this combination (Plextor drive + PT; at least amont a few I tried) gives best results.