I’ve ripped a lot of CDs to my newly acquired NAS recently to serve up files to the also newly acquired ND5XS2. i’ve used dbPoweramp for the vast majority of them because it is fast and gets the metadata more or less right and needs very few edits. I have the occasional CD that it won’t rip and for those I’ll try ripping with Exact Audio Copy and often that will do the job where dbPoweramp failed.
I’ve now started on the good lady’s CD collection. It is fair to say her CDs haven’t been looked after as well as I looked after mine, a few of them have a lot of scratches or bits of gunk stuck to them. I’ve had a couple of these CDs that both dbPoweramp and EAC have just refused to read and had the CD drive grinding for hours. The one piece of ripping software that did manage to rip them successfully and quickly was the old Windows Media Player that has been bundled with Windows for ages and still comes with Windows 10. Not only that it was the only software that would rip Dido’s Life For Rent which is a copy protected CD. so if all else fails, try Windows Media Player, you might well be surprised.
I have just one CD I’ve been unable to rip successfully: Pat Metheny’s Still Life Talking. When I play back the rip the music is nearly drowned out by a horrible grungy noise. I presume it’s Nonesuch’s copy protection, but it also means I can’t play it on any device at home bar my CD5XS. I’ve tried lots of suggestions found online: different ripping engines, different drives, putting black tape on the outer edge etc and none worked. I even stopped listening to any Metheny out of annoyance. Can’t try WMP as we’re not a Windows household. Anyway now signed up to Qobuz and it’s on there, so problem solved at last.
Roger
Many scratches and gunk (paint for example) can be polished out of the disc surface by carefully using Brasso on a soft cloth. Buff off to a shine with a clean soft cloth.
As a last resort, it’s saved a couple of my CD’s and I’ve saved a few friends CD’s using it too.
I don’t think that’s the issue. The CD wouldn’t rip from new. The outer section of the disc looks different from the rest and I wonder if this includes copy protection. I read a suggestion of placing a piece of black tape to stop this section being read, but couldn’t make this work. Anyway, solved by Qobuz now.
Roger
It’s possibly a hybrid with computer data on the outer edge - extra content as they used to do.
I just checked and they were referred to as an “Enhanced CD”…
Maybe Plextor pro ripping software? It’shareware .
I have ripped a few ‘enhanced’ cd’s using dbpoweramp and everything worked ok so I’m not sure what the issue is here.
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