CUETools Verification Guide
CueTools is a handy set of program tools for verifying, ripping, and splitting lossless audio files. This guide gives a quick overview of the "Verify" function which checks CD rips against both the AccurateRip (AR) and CueTools (CTDB) databases. This feature is very handy for checking if Exact Audio Copy (EAC) and X Lossless Decoder (XLD) rips have been ripped correctly. It also outputs the track CRCs (with and without null samples), peak levels of the audio files, and compares EAC log track information.
Database Comparisons
AccurateRip - ARv1 and ARv2
- Older database in use since 2003 with more than 2 million discs
- Two flavours available: v1 and v2
- v1 has more submissions, but flawed implementation (ARv1 has a flawed algorithm that skips 3% of audio data in calculating track checksum.)
- v2 addresses the shortcomings of v1 with an improved algorithm
- Drive offsets are part of the CRC calculation for AR submissions (i.e. a badly configured offset or shifted samples may result in inaccurate results.)
- Contains an authoritative collection of drive offset values
- Rips containing the same data but different offsets are called "Pressings"
- At least 10 common CD ripping programs support AR integration and checking
CUETools DB - CTDB
- Newer database that started in 2011 with fewer discs than AccurateRip
- Offset is not calculated in checksums, so drive offsets do not affect database match results.
- CTDB stores checksums for both disc TOCs and individual tracks.
- Can indicate the closest match to your track and also indicate which samples are different.
- Includes features to "repair" tracks with errors. A CTDB confidence rating of 2 or more is a recommended safe choice for patching files.
- CTDB Ignores disc pre-gaps, so no recovery for HTOA or hidden tracks.
- Has special CRC comparative functions with EAC logs only.
- Available in less CD ripping programs (as of 2017, EAC and CUETools only)
Installation
- Install CueTools on your system. Simply unzip the .zip archive into your desired folder. For most purposes, the current stable release is the best version to pick.
- CueTools will run on both Windows (.NET) and non-Windows using Mono. The Mono version can only read WAV files, so ensure your FLAC files are uncompressed if verifying your rip with this library. (The lossless plugins have not been ported to C#.) . UPDATE: Linux/Mac users do NOT need to convert to wav to use CUETools. The mono version can read and write FLAC (and ALAC) files since it has an encoder/decoder written in C#. However it is not enabled by default. To use go to Settings -> Formats -> flac and for both encoder and decoder select 'cuetools'.
- CUETools can be easily started by double-clicking on the CUETools.exe. If running the program from Mono, you can only launch the .exe file within the CueTools program folder. In Windows, you can create shortcuts to the program.