For fifteen years, Exact Audio Copy (or simply EAC, as it is widely known) has been the Holy Grail that audiophiles and "professional rippers" - if there is such a thing as a pro ripper - have knelt down before with utter reverence. It doesn't deserve less. EAC is probably the best - if not the only - audio ripping and editing tool, the one that can guarantee perfect, unblemished, error-free CD rips. The version reviewed here, though, was released in September 2011 – it is considered by the developer the first stable 1.0 version of the program, and it hasn’t been improved since. Not that it needs it, though.
It offers you all the tools you need not only to create perfect clones of the tracks of any of your audio CDs and save them on your system, but also to burn exact replicas of your discs. Thus, it will read, test, and copy not only the audio on your discs, but also the exact amount of silence in between tracks. All this information goes into a CUE file that you can later load in EAC to burn a sector-to-sector copy of your original audio discs. Audio tracks are saved as WAV files by default, though you can also tell the program to compress those tracks into various formats on the fly for either archival (FLAC) or distribution purposes (MP3).
Though revered by audiophiles and audio-freaks alike, this tool can actually be used by anyone. You can install it and start ripping your discs almost right away, though EAC will not be able to guarantee you paranoid-perfect results. The ripped tracks will look fine to you and me, but no audio-freak will accept an EAC rip without a "secure" label on it. EAC offers you the best algorithm there is to detect and circumvent nearly all possible errors you may find when trying to make a sector-by-sector copy of an audio file. This includes scratches, stains, read and playback errors, and almost any other hurdle it may encounter on the way, which actually means that this app is capable of making a perfect copy of a defective audio disc as it was when new.
EAC also offers you a battery of useful utilities to tag, classify, inspect, normalize, and batch-compress your audio tracks, as well as to check your CD drives, create CUE sheets, record audio from vinyl and radio, edit your WAV files, remove glitches after extraction, etc. From whatever angle you look at it, you will hardly find a tool that offers you not only this amazing collection of tools, but also perfect clones of your valuable CDs. Guaranteed, and for free.
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