In this day and age of digital madness, have we become secure in the fact that technology has given us the ability to insert a disc, click the mouse a few times, and presto! An error free copy is made? Well, there seems to be some debate on this. Test results are conflicting, there are many variables, and the convenience of fast, seem to all feed off each other.

So where does this leave us? Should we care? Is my time worth the extra few minutes to insure an exact audio copy? The last question's answer is solely personal. But if you're into collecting music, then it seems you have a love for music. So if you love music then wouldn't you want your music to be pristine? If the answer is yes, then why not make sure the music you send out is pristine? A computer is a neat thing. You can set it in motion and let it do its thing as you do other things. No need to baby sit your puter :)

With digital recording and digital archiving available today, then it's safe to say music today will out live any of us. But with digital reproduction, errors can be introduced. I've spent hours researching this. So even though the music may out live us, we need to proceed in such a manner that the music we copy and distribute today will be exactly the same tomorrow.

Many tests have been conducted. The results are contradictory at times. One reason are the variables. CD-R's, hardware, and software all influence test results. Burn speeds also influence contradictory results.

So how are we to insure the copy we made is exactly equal to the original? Most, if not all CD ripping software doesn't guarantee an exact copy of the original. There's only one app that does. EAC is free and takes little time to master.

With EAC you can compare wav files. So after you've ripped a CD and burned an audio with the wav files, you can rip the copied CD and compare the waves. You'll see if they are the same or not. You can do this to satisfy your curiosity :)

As a music trader, you should care about the quality of music you're sending and receiving. It's up to us to preserve the music until the brain trusts of this technology can make CD copying flawless by just inserting a disk and clicking a mouse a few times. If you decide you'd like to preserve the music and use EAC, this link will help in setting up EAC.

Audio & CDR How -To Articles

Now that you've ripped a cd, one more easy step and you can burn a data disc with shn or flac files. This is easy to do. Read my Learning Lossless page on how to convert a wave file to shn/flac.