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Using EAC + LAME - Peak Level?

S

Syric

Weaksauce
Joined
Mar 4, 2009
Messages
114
So, I'm now using Exact Audio for CD ripping purposes w/ LAME doing the hardwork for .mp3 conversion.

I've noticed that after a CD is finished converting, it gives me something that looks like this:

Peak level 97.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %

I get the Track quality...speaks for itself. But, what exactly is the "Peak level?" And, if the track quality is anything less than 100%, is that to say that somehow my pristine CD is flawed somehow and, as a result, the ripped version w/ be noticeably flawed?
 
Peak level is how close the track gets to the maximum digital level. It is more a curiosity than anything in terms of ripping CDs.
 
A peak level of 100% would generally be considered a bad thing in technical terms, meaning that at some point the signal reached the maximum amplitude (loudness) allowed by the CD audio format. 97% is a good number. As far as track quality goes, yes less than 100 means less than perfect rip, usually due to dirt/damage on the disc. Whether you can notice the error or not during listening depends on how serious of an error it was, and how the ripper deals with the missing data.

Dustin
 
No, 100% is not a bad thing. A large amount of tracks are normalized to 100% peak level, to ahve maximum dynamic range.
 
dustNbone said:
As far as track quality goes, yes less than 100 means less than perfect rip, usually due to dirt/damage on the disc.
Click to expand...
Track quality is a misleading statistic, actually. A perfect rip is possible when the track quality is less than 100%, as the number only signifies that a re-read was executed on a given sector (re-reads are okay). An imperfect rip is possible if the reported track quality is 100% as well: the gaps may be incorrectly handled, not detected at all, the leading and trailing blocks deleted or the drive's read offset being configured incorrectly. The rip won't have audible errors, but it will result in an AccurateRip mismatch for that particular pressing of the disc.

And, yes, as Sycraft said, 100% peak level is not something to be alarmed about. It merely means that the track reached 0 dBFS at some point, and there's nothing inherently "wrong" with tracks that reach 0 dBFS (it used to be an issue for older D/A converters, but it's not a meaningful issue any longer).
 
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