CD digital audio ripping tool for OS X that has accurate extraction, error detection, and verbose reporting?

Question

I'm almost ready to say I have found a good OS X replacement for every piece of software I use on Windows (excluding some Windows development tools), but there's still this gap to fill:

For CD digital audio ripping / extraction, I use a tool on Windows called EAC - Exact Audio Copy. I like EAC because:

• it supports a very reliable extraction mode by default,
• it takes advantage of drive features like C2 error correction
  (and will tell you if your CD-ROM drive doesn't have it)
• it validates tracks were ripped accurately by consulting an online database, and
• it reports verbose details about potential issues, when they arise, and I can then listen to the track to see if the issues are perceptible or not.

In a nutshell, I can be confident whether a track was reliably ripped or not when using EAC.

I don't get this sense of confidence from iTunes. iTunes has an option under Import Settings to Use error correction when reading Audio CDs, but that seems to be the extent of reliability-oriented settings in iTunes. Currently, I'll use iTunes if the disc I'm ripping appears pristine and without scratches – otherwise I turn to EAC.

Is there an application for OS X that, like EAC above, focuses on reliable CD digital audio extraction and provides detailed information? Thank you.

Answer 1

XLD

It started out as decoder/encoder/transcoder tool but it's branched out in to ripping in recent years (version 20080812 and above have ripping features) and it supports most of your criteria:

• Uses the AccurateRip technology, comparing MD5 sums against known-good library of rips to ensure the rip was done correctly.
• Uses cdparanoia 10.2 as the ripping and error correction library. Can be used on drives that don't have Accurate Stream and utilize C2 error pointers.

(Source for above)

I can't comment on the "verbose details when errors arise" request because I've never encountered an error ripping with it.

It's free. It will multi-thread to speed up encoding of albums. And it's pretty fast. It's been my encoder/transcoder of choice for years now.