News :: 15MR: Alcyone CD Ripper v1.2

Greetings and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Alcyone CD Ripper version 1.2 by Alcyonesoft—An audio CD ripper to WAV, MP3, WMA and Ogg

As Giveaway of the Day states:

“Alcyone CD Ripper has all the basic CD ripping features – you just grab a CD and easily convert its content to the one of the popular music formats (MP3, WMA, OGG and WAV are supported by the program). You can also get artist names as well as the tracks and albums titles using the powerful program database.”

Quick Pros

• Interface is easy to use
• Built-in player handy
• Audio quality acceptable
• FreeDB support is a nice add-on
• While not explained, you can sort into folders using file naming format
• Doesn’t appear to possess the strange stick-to issue that Alcyone Audio Converter had

Quick Cons

• Output folder selection buried in Options menu; No options to sort into automatic folders
• Options for error checking do not appear present
• Slider for VBR has no description of quality selected at all nor min-max for quality
• 2 sets of ‘Play’ and ‘Stop’ buttons? (Big ones are for starting and stopping encoding)

Expansion

With our revisit to the same company in the past two days for software applications, this application has the nice polished look to it of yesterday’s Alcyone Audio Converter—While you will see a repeat of two of my complaints here, there is one that doesn’t exist within this application, which is that the sticky window issue where the application would get stuck on the side of the window. The lack of descriptive or min-max VBR exists within this application as well, and the 2 sets of ‘Play’ and ‘Stop’ buttons could again confuse someone new to the application.

While this application does a good job of what it is meant to. I am assuming the application uses the same encoding applications (As noted by the two separate applications inside the program’s folder. I am unsure why the author didn’t produce a ‘Common Files’ folder for his applications and place these in that folder to minimize space taken up by using his applications. The encoders, while decent, do seem a little on the slow side; This doesn’t matter as much however with direct CD ripping as due to the limiting factor is the CD drive in many cases with ripping and not the encoding itself.

Bringing me to my next point; A lot of people like to use error correction features while archiving their music. This application provides no options to do such. Usually when I backup my CDs, I use error correction of some form, just to ensure the quality. I know with drive quality today its not as much needed but many still like to use this feature.

My last peeves is about the output directory. The application has this buried inside the fourth tab on the options button, requiring 3 clicks to initially change the directory, and still 2 more clicks for each following directory change, just to start the process of changing the directory. On the plus side, you can have the application automatically sort your music files into directories by setting the file naming format to something such as artist – %album\%artist – %title—You may ask what the extra % is for: If you don’t put that there, it does not sort into folders but instead names it one big file name in a row. Just luck I stumbled into that feature as since it isn’t documented and I was about to report that it could not sort into folders.

Final Verdict

As with yesterday’s Alcyone Audio Converter it goes up against an army of applications that do the same thing, for the same price or even free. To compete decently, you have to be top-notch, high-quality and bug-free to do so. While the sticky bug does not exist in this application, there is lacking features that may entice people to go with another application. I feel that while the VBR issue noted from today’s application is an issue to many; VBR does tend to be a more commonly-used format now since MP3 and desktop players support them flawlessly almost all the time now. With nothing but a mere slider with no numerical feedback nor min-max settings is a downfall to this application being accepted by some during the ‘trial’ period. The buried Output folder is a bit of a nuisance as well, considering it wasn’t buried in Alcyone Audio Converter—Most would look in Options, I know, but its the extension of application. This application does show promise though. It is easy to use, easy enough for most ‘light’ computer users, and shows the potential to be strong enough for more hardcore users if the features get beefed up to their levels. This application is great while free, but the price tag of $19.95 in its current state may not be as desirable, but as I mentioned, is possible to match this price-point. Some of its competition is WinAMP ($19.95 for Pro; MP3, AAC, WMA output), AudioGrabber (Just turned free; MP3 output and soon to be more), and FreeRIP (Free; MP3, WMA and Ogg Vorbis output) is going to make it hard to thrive, but it should be able to do it, so long as it can nail down some features.

Posted by BladedThoth on Wednesday, March 21, 2007