Identifying CD's with Pre-Emphasis (Mac)

[Axiom05]

This topic has come up before but I haven't seen any recent info; searches have not turned up what I am looking for. Does anyone know how to determine if a CD is mastered with pre-emphasis? I don't have a CD player anymore with a de-emphasis light so I can't go that route. Ripping these discs with XLD produces an overly bright recording. A de-emphasis curve can be applied using xACT but you need to know which discs have the pre-emphasis. I just spent half the day undoing a bunch of re-rips that I did using XLD only to find that these discs had pre-emphasis which is why the iTunes rips did not verify with XLD (iTunes applies a de-emphasis curve). I would like to use the AccurateRip of XLD and apply the de-emphasis afterwards. There must be another way other than doing an A/B comparison between an iTunes and an XLD rip!

[mansr]

Does anyone know how to determine if a CD is mastered with pre-emphasis?

 

The TOC on the CD should indicate which tracks have pre-emphasis. Most ripping programs I've used could display this information one way or another.

[Axiom05]

The TOC on the CD should indicate which tracks have pre-emphasis. Most ripping programs I've used could display this information one way or another.

 

How I wish this were true, at least on a Mac. Maybe I am missing something but XLD does not provide this information. I have only found xACT to provide this info, however I am having an awful time getting xACT to rip properly/consistently.

[SteveS1]

How I wish this were true, at least on a Mac. Maybe I am missing something but XLD does not provide this information. I have only found xACT to provide this info, however I am having an awful time getting xACT to rip properly/consistently.

 

Rip with XLD, then use xACT to remove the pre-emphasis. A little tedious, but so few discs are involved. There are lists on various music forums of the discs involved. Usually old 35 matrix early Japan discs and some reissues of them under different numbers.

[Axiom05]

Rip with XLD, then use xACT to remove the pre-emphasis. A little tedious, but so few discs are involved. There are lists on various music forums of the discs involved. Usually old 35 matrix early Japan discs and some reissues of them under different numbers.

 

Basically, that is what I am doing (yes, very tedious). So far I have identified 21 discs with pre-emphasis. To ID the discs I rip one short track with xACT and look at the log. All of the discs that I am dealing with are classical, no good listing for these. I don't think I have a single non-classical disc with pre-emphasis. I know that a lot of people think pre-emphasis is a non-issue, however I have several classical recordings from the mid-80's that I could not live without.

 

One question: when I apply the de-emphasis with xACT on an AIFF file I lose all tags, is this normal?

[SteveS1]

Hi,

 

I don't recall losing any tags - but the word 'deemph' appears after each track.

 

[Axiom05]

FYI, I identified 29 CD's mastered with pre-emphasis in my classical music collection, the most recent dated 2006. This is more than I anticipated.

[SteveS1]

FYI, I identified 29 CD's mastered with pre-emphasis in my classical music collection, the most recent dated 2006. This is more than I anticipated.

 

That is surprising, the 2006 part. Are you sure you are not getting any false positives? Actually I suppose that could be a straight re-issue of an earlier release.

[alfe]

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/drutil.1.html

[Axiom05]

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/drutil.1.html

 

Awesome, thank you. Wish I had this a few days ago. This also confirms that the 2006 disc was not a false positive.