Making an Exact Audio Copy
One of the advantages of digital audio is the ability to make an exact audio
copy of CDs or computer files. In the past, if you want to make copy of a vinyl
record, about the only option open to you was cassette tape. Transferring from
vinyl to cassette resulted in noisy recordings that degraded even more over
time. Now, we can copy a CD and it retains all the audio information of the
original.
There are many computer programs available that “rip” sound from CDs. You simply
insert a CD into your computer’s CD player and the music is transferred to your
computer's hard drive. If you have a CD burner you can make an exact audio copy
of the original CD.
Once the sound files are on your computer's hard drive, there are many things
you can do with them. As we mentioned, you can burn them to a CD making an exact
audio copy of the original CD. You can also convert them to other formats such
as MP3 or WMA which will save space on your hard drive. Although these formats
are not exact copies, they still sound quite close to the original.
The advantage of converting your files to MP3 or WMA is that the files are much
smaller than the original audio files. An MP3 file is about 1/10 the size of the
original audio file, so if you burn a CD with MP3 files you can have the
equivalent of 10 CDs on one. Although the files will not be an exact audio copy,
for most purposes the sound is ideal.
Another format that allows you to make digital copies is Digital Audio Tape
(DAT). Although less common than a few years ago, DAT is still used in
professional recording studios. Recording a CD to a DAT tape using a digital
interface results in an exact audio copy. The DAT tape can be used as a master
for making other CDs.
For most purposes, an exact audio copy is not necessary. Many people cannot tell
the difference between an MP3 file recorded at a high bit rate and the original
CD. If the quality of your audio files is important to you, experiment to see
how much compression you can use to retain the great sound of your CDs in a
small file format.
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