You're right in that the initial rip is a very important part, and that often the ripping software is a critical component.

But something that Hybrid8 began his statment with is that he was using a Plextor drive for his rips. The Plextor drives are known for being reliable rippers regardless of what software you use. They have additional circuitry that can do block-accurate addressing on audio CDs, making the error-correction routines in EAC unnecessary.