...some songs have small errors - blips, glitches, slight fuzzinesses where the read process didn't quite work.

Keep in mind that this thread was discussing a type of copy protection that hasn't actually hit the market yet. I read an announcement that certain record companies were planning on starting to implement it, but none of these CDs are on the shelves yet. (To save for another discussion: Won't it be funny when these record companies start getting returns on these CDs that won't play in everyone's players?)

Your description of the pops and glitches in the MP3s is not related to copy protection. When that copy protection comes out, there will be no way to "return the CD for an unprotected copy" to my knowledge. And the result wouldn't be pops and glitches, the result would be a completely unreadable disc.

So the pops and glitches you are experiencing are normal, and they are the result of either a) A CD-ROM drive which does a poor job of Digital Audio Extraction (DAE), or b) incorrectly configured ripping software. Digitally extracting the audio from an audio CD is a bit of a black art. Some drives have trouble doing it properly, and if your software isn't configured carefully to match your drive characteristics, you'll get the pops and glitches. Here is a discussion of the problems associated with digitally extracting audio from a CD.

If you're planning on getting an Empeg, you should take the time to make sure your rips are good. If your disc drive has trouble performing good rips, the WINDAC32 software is very good at sector synchronzation, and is the most reliable ripper I've seen. I used to use it all the time. However, on my system, I've found that AudioCatalyst does a faster job provided that I leave the system alone and don't do anything else on the system while it's ripping. If I don't leave the system alone, the rips will get pops and clicks in them.

Actually, I've found that a bad rip can have more subtle extraction errors, not as obvious as pops and clicks. For example, on my system, the most common problem is sudden reversals of the stereo image. For instance, an instrument suddenly jumping from the left channel to the right channel. If you're planning on ripping a lot of music, take the time to carefully preview the first couple dozen albums to make sure the ripping process is working perfectly. Do your previews with a good set of headphones at a fairly high volume, so you can detect subtle things like the stereo reversal problem I described. All of the songs I've ripped and loaded onto my Empeg are all perfect glitchless files. It can be done, and it's a good feeling to know that you can listen to your whole album collection without problems.


Tony Fabris
Empeg #144