Exact Audio Copy

Exact Audio Copy (abbreviated and also known as EAC) is a CD ripping app. It was made for Windows OS but it is known to work on recent 64-bit Linux releases when you have Wine installed.

Exact Audio Copy works with all kinds of CD and DVD drives. The program extracts to all file formats as well, this includes WAV, MP3, OGG, FLAC, APE and more options. It finds and fixes read errors accurately.

There are plenty of settings available (see below), for example options to modify compression parameters - this gives you control over the music quality that you want to extract. It fixes audio problems for separate tracks, works great for CDs that have scratches or damage. EAC can manage damaged CDs and it is a great CD ripper for people who care about the quality of their audio files.

Exact Audio Copy Review

The program originally started as cardware (registration with postcard). According to the author, Andre Wiethoff he created Exact Audio Copy because he got tired of other audio grabbers that only do jitter correction, scratched CDs would produce distortions and listening to every grabbed wave file was a waste of time. When you need to extract audio files from CDs and want the most accurate results, Exact Audio Copy gives you tools that other rippers don't have.

If you check other free CD rippers you will notice Exact Audio Copy takes a different approach with its verification technology. What makes this software special is the secure extraction mode, it reads every sector at least twice and keeps re-reading until it gets identical results or reaches maximum retry attempts.

In worst case scenarios, bad sectors get read up to 82 times to obtain best results. The program tells you exactly where read errors occurred (with time positions), so you can check those spots instead of listening to entire tracks.

Other audio ripping tools typically extract in "Burst" mode only and nothing more, users usually need to play track by track to check the quality, but not with Exact Audio Copy. This software uses different technologies like multi-reading with verify and AccurateRip to make sure CDs get ripped correctly.

I might repeat it but what I am trying to say is that this "flexibility" lets you keep control over the quality of extracted music. Music that gets grabbed from CDs using Exact Audio Copy plays back without errors, using a lossless format which means that it keeps the original sound intact.

A few alternatives: free:ac, X Lossless Decoder, CDex, CUERipper, dBpoweramp (paid). There are many alternatives to EAC but I listed only a few of them: free:ac being the most popular, free alternative, followed by X Lossless Decoder which unfortunately is only available for macOS users, CDex (also free but it was discontinued) and CUERipper available only for Windows users - but still free and open source. Another worthy alternative would be dBpoweramp but this is a paid alternative.

Download EAC, install Exact Audio Copy and configure your CD drive:

• the program includes automatic drive feature detection, it checks if your drive has accurate stream capability and whether it caches audio data (this affects which extraction mode you should use).

• secure extraction modes work best, they double-check every sector and re-read or correct when necessary, fast extraction mode is available when you prefer speed over accuracy but error detection becomes limited.

• burst mode extracts at maximum drive speed with no synchronisation, no error checking happens but the program will show suspicious positions if the stream breaks (this is heuristic detection only).

• sample offset correction feature helps drives that can't position heads correctly, the program compares your drive against reference data to calculate offset values, you should test with at least two different CDs to verify the offset.

• gap detection function finds pre-track pauses between tracks (usually two seconds long), this information gets used for accurate CUE sheet generation.

A WAV editor is included with functions for glitch removal (fixes single samples that are out of the wave stream, causes high frequency 'tick' sounds), pop detection and automatic removal, noise reduction (requires noise profile created from pure noise section), interpolation of selected ranges (works on frequency spectrum), spectral display (shows frequencies from low to 22.5 kHz, discontinuities indicate problems) and smooth samples function (filters high frequency parts, useful for LP recordings or clicks). You can also cut sections, remove noise, increase volume or apply filters to the extracted audio.

Managing music libraries becomes easy when you rip CDs with Exact Audio Copy. It adds metadata tags to the extracted files automatically, it generates cue sheets with track information and CD-Text data included. People who love music will appreciate using Exact Audio Copy for creating digital files from their CD collection.

Audio CD writing functions let you burn discs. EAC can create perfect 1:1 copies when you use the correct reader/writer offset combination.

As a conclusion, the main benefits are (not quite in this order) accuracy (secure mode with multiple reads and verification), control (extensive options for compression, offset correction, gap handling etc.) and the last one, which should be first: EAC is free for non-commercial use.

You might notice that the software is quite slow in secure mode compared to other rippers, this is intentional because it checks every sector multiple times. So, when you need fast extraction instead of secure copies, you might want to use the fast or burst mode options.

Finally, if you like this CD-DA ripping tool, consider a donation the author. You can support Andre Wiethoff (the developer of EAC) through his Patreon account or PayPal donations (check the official website for more details).

No release notes available