Digital Home Thoughts: Ripping the Perfect MP3 With Exact Audio Copy

Back in the main EAC window, click on the EAC menu again and select Drive Options. Ignore the little warning dialog and click OK. In this window, make sure "Secure mode" is selected. I would recommend unchecking "Drive is capable of retrieving C2 error information" if it's checked, just to avoid future complications. Click OK to exit that window.


Click on the EAC menu again, this time selecting Compression Options. In this window, click on the External Compression tab. This is the tab where you'll spend most of your time, if any, configuring EAC in the future. In this tab you can specify which external compression scheme EAC will use to rip your CD to. EAC is capable of ripping to many different formats – any you'd ever wish to use in fact – provided you install the proper CODEC. In this article, we're concentrating on creating MP3s, but really this guide could be used for any format.

We've already told EAC during installation where to find the LAME MP3 compressor, so just make sure that the LAME MP3 Encoder is selected in the Parameter passing scheme drop-down box and that the path shown to it underneath is the same \Exact Audio Copy\lame.exe you specified earlier. Next, select the Bit rate you wish to use. For greatest cross-compatibility, a file that any device can read, I recommend ripping at 256 kBit/s Bit rate. This will give you near-CD quality and a universally-accepted file. Make sure "High quality" is selected and "Add ID3 tag" is checked and click OK. Almost done!


Finally, select freedb / Database Options from the EAC menu. Make sure your email address is listed in the Your E-Mail address field and click the "Get active freedb server list" button. After a brief moment while EAC contacts freedb, you'll be back to the freedb / Database Options screen. Click OK to exit that window.