[Five]

99% of the time, if 0 is the offset value, EAC wasn't set that way. I saw one guy posting that his drive truely has an offset of zero samples, but that's a pretty damn rare case.

For my drive that I could find listed the numbers were accurate compared to what I got by doing all the coaster factory stuff. I used a cd from their list (Zeppelin's BBC Sessions) and ran it several times on both cds to test it. Came up with +98. Some of my earlier seeds you can see in my .log files that my offset was not adjusted (i.e. 0), but you can also see that the extraction quality is 100.00%. Somebody really tedious could look up my drive and shift everything over by exactly 98 samples then the files would theoretically be exactly the same as an offset-adjusted rip. When I've got some time on my hands I'll play around with this. Knowing that the files are otherwise identical by checking extraction quality in the .log this is a nice detail to watch but not exactly the end of the world (don't quote me on that!).

I believe the coaster factory is linked by RainDawg all over the FAQ, check it out.

Originally Posted by tgc225

Also, a number had "Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : Yes", while most had "No". What's the difference between that?

I'll have to look that up... does anybody know this offhand?

Originally Posted by tgc225

Anyway, I think maybe that AccurateRip database link should possibly be stickied somewhere or linked in the FAQ. I think some newbies are reluctant to start off with EAC because of the need to configure it, and the offset part was a little lengthy and confusing. With the AccurateRip database, it's as simple as copying and pasting the number and that's it, so maybe more people will take advantage of that feature.

I would rather if ppl took the time to actually test the real offset values for their specific drives. There is possibility for variation even with the same model drive so the only truely accurate way to configure EAC is to do those tedious tests. Even then, some drives will have different offsets at different times of the day! In this case, an average has to be taken by the user and manually entered. Thankfully, this is a rare occurance. If ppl are lazy and just punching in a number it's implied by the .log that they have actually tested their drive several times to arrive at that number. If that's not the case I would rather just see a zero. I'm not sure if everybody would agree with me on this.

Then there are some cases where the coaster factory says your configuration necessitates using the undesirable comined read/write offset which means true exact audio copies would only be possible on the computer the cd was ripped on. So at this point we are demanding EAC and strongly (and I mean strongly!) recommending you visit the coaster factory and take a couple hours to set your offsets properly, which is not possible for 100% of the drives out there. Still, ripping with EAC is always better because of the error reports and strong probability that you can get your offsets perfect if you just take the time to do the tests.

If advanced users want to write tutorials they will be welcomed with open arms! There's not enough hours in a day to write all of the guides we want for the site, so if anybody so inclined is reading this, go for it! Unless the technobabble mods (and technobabble postwhores) find misinformation we will use it.