AnalogSteph
Major Contributor
Actually, EAC is not necessarily slower - it depends on the drive settings chosen. You can set it to burst mode and rely only on AccurateRip and CTDB plugins to verify the rip, which often is going to be sufficient. Only in problematic cases do you need to switch back to secure mode ripping. If that still fails to return a perfect rip, repair via CUETools is still an option (assuming the disc is in CTDB, which rarely isn't the case).As stated in previous posts Exact Audio Copy is fantastic, it just usually take longer than Foobar, so I only use it when Foobar won't rip the disc without problems.
BTW, I never rip above 24X in standard and 16X in slimline drives. The additional noise and wear at full speed just isn't worth it for the bit of time you save.
Yay for laser focus being on the data layer rather than the CD surface.I have sucessfully repaired unreadable CDs by polishing the data side with a bit of toothpaste. It looked worse than before I started, but it read clean.
Still, I would rather recommend using Polywatch / Displex instead (which I reckon is the same stuff made by the same company). A small tube isn't expensive, and you do tend to run across some acrylic to be polished every once in a while.