It can automatically hook up to online music metadata databases too, and it supports just about every audio file format under the sun. If a particular disc is damaged, dBpoweramp can perform the optical equivalent of scouring the disc surface in an attempt to recover as much information as possible. I decided to use the FLAC file format, given that it’s open source and so less likely to be vulnerable to the whims of hormonally challenged lawyers in the futureīetter still, it offers a facility whereby your freshly ripped file can be checksummed and the result compared against those of lots of other users who’ve ripped the same song: if you obtain the same checksum then you can be sure your file is just the same as theirs, and logic suggests that this was therefore a good rip and one that can be trusted. It understands that different CD/DVD drives work in slightly different ways and can compensate for these differences.
A further internet search revealed that the best software to use for CD ripping is a package called dBpoweramp, a flexible and powerful product that allows you to make a huge number of twiddly adjustments to the music data (and, not coincidentally, a program that forms part of PC Pro’s benchmarks).
