[X4U] importing audio CD as AIFF

[Ean Kingston]

On April 28, 2005 12:33 pm, Kirk McElhearn wrote:
> On Apr 28, 2005, at 6:30 PM, Michael Winter wrote:
> > If you want an "exact" copy, can't you  just put the CD in, grab
> > the aiff files that show up in the Finder and drag them over.
> > AFAIK, as with any Finder copy, if even one bit can't be read,
> > you'll get an error.
> >
> > I'm still struggling with why that wouldn't work in practice.
>
> Because that'll give you a data CD with AIFF files, rather than an
> audio CD that'll play on an audio CD player. There's more to an audio
> CD than what you see.

I'm trying to keep my big mouth out of this but some of you seam to be talking 
about AIFF files as if they are the native format of what is on a music CD. 
they aren't. The raw audio on a CD is 16bit 4.1khz headerless PCM file. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_CD.

<rant>
As far as there being a problem getting the exact data off an audio CD, that 
is not a problem on any system that lets you at the raw device (AFAIK only 
the free OSes do this). I rip my audio CDs by putting them in a PC running 
FreeBSD and extracting the raw audio, and adding the appropriate header.

I have tried repeatedly pulling the same audio track and using multiple 
checksum algorythms against the copies. The checksums are identical so the 
files are bit-for-bit identical. I never get pops or crackle or anything 
indicating any sort of problem with the raw audio.

Finally, computer cd drives are much higher quality than cd players. This is 
why they add error correction and such to the stereo components. If you have 
an older scratched cd you might have problems in a computer before you do in 
a cd player because the computer cd drive doesn't have the same 
error-correction technology (which isn't true error correction but just 
guessing).

Most of the recently produced audio ripping and playback software (especially 
from OS manufacturers) has extra crap in there to make it more difficult for 
us to copy our cds. This is corporate politics and has nothing to do with the 
capabilities of the technology.
</rant>

-- 
Ean Kingston

E-Mail: ean AT hedron DOT org
URL: http://www.hedron.org/
I am currently looking for work. If you need competent system/network 
administration please feel free to contact me directly.