Strange digital artifacts at the end of each song importing via iTunes

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Strange digital artifacts at the end of each song importing via iTunes

I've tried a few variations on archive searches and wasn't able to find an answer to this: In ripping some of my CD's into iTunes (either Apple Lossless or WAV) I've been getting some very odd, brief digital artifacts at the end of each songs on a CD. This sounds like two or three seconds of an audio tape on fast forward. It only seems to happen on new releases (I cannot think of any older CD's it's occurred on). I just got a copy of Mary Gauthier's new album (great CD by the way) and it happened on that one, for example. I tried ripping it multiple times in Apple Lossless, and WAV (always in iTunes) and each and every time it created files where this strange artifact existed at the end of every song. I play the CD I ripped the files from and the artifact is not there. I have several CD's, most of them recent releases over the past five years, that do the exact same thing. Otherwise everything else functions perfectly an the bulk of my 700+ CD library has imported without a hiccup. Is this some kind of anti-piracy technology...or do I simply have some setting off in my itunes preferences (Error-Correction is on, WAV or Apple Lossless is always set to Automatic, have experimented with importing to startup disk and external disk-same results). The artifacts seem to always sound the same too...they never vary, except that they sound different from song-to-song, but the same if say, the first cut is played over again. They are always 2 seconds plus or minus, and always at the end of a cut (the final 2 seconds or so). They do transfer verbatim to my iPod, and also play via iTunes through my stereo.

Anyone have any clues what this might be?

G5 2.7ghz Duo, Mac OS X (10.5), Iomega 1tb USB 2.0 external for TM

Posted on Nov 17, 2007 8:07 AM

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MacJax Author

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Nov 20, 2007 6:24 PM in response to MacJax

As a follow up, I went to the Genius Bar for a bowl of Mensa Stew, but only got some tepid broth. Here's what transpired:

The girl I was speaking with suggested that the artifact was the software misinterpreting information between the cuts. It was only a theory. She had not heard of any other incidents to relay. First she suggested I rip as MP3's. I explained that wasn't an option for me. She listened to a few cuts on a CD I'd brought with, or rather the ends of the cuts and confirmed there was a problem with the rip. She went through my settings, and asked if I'd tried it with Error Correction turned off. I explained I hadn't and that I preferred to use it. She suggested attempting to rip one of the cuts with it turned off just to see how it did. We did that and no artifact was there. So her 'solution' was to either leave error-correction turned off always, or turn it off for those problem CD's that produce the artifact (I'd estimate about 5% do on my laptop). This did not explain why it was doing it, nor why my g5 tower, which is running a carbon-copied system with all the same iTunes settings, does not produce the artifact with Error-Correction turned on.

I'd be interested to hear of anyone else who's been having problems importing hi-rez files in iTunes. I know of at least one other instance where the artifact produced (on a MacBook) is dis-similar to mine in that it takes the form of brief electronic beeps moving from channel to channel.

Anyone else?

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