"Ripping" CDs

To Doug Schneider,

Your article on computer-based audio is interesting; however, I don’t understand why you use the word “ripping” CDs instead of recording. What are you “ripping”? Are you tearing something apart? Or are you recording information from one format to another?

One doesn't have to be an English major to know when using such terms as “ripping” instead of recording it is a bit much! Is it wrong to use a more accurate word than one that has become THE term accepted by so many in the audiophile community?

Thanks,
Saleh Sadiq

The formal term for the process is actually digital audio extraction, or DAE for short; however, nobody calls it that, and nobody calls it recording, either. Instead, ripping is the preferred term that most people use to describe the process, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the audiophile community that made it up. As a matter of fact, audiophiles can be considered to be pretty behind the times when it comes to computer-based audio -- non-audiophiles having been ripping CDs for a lot longer than most audiophiles. So, like it or not (and whether it’s accurate of not), the term “rip” is pretty embedded in the language of computer audio, so much so that Wikipedia has an entry for “Ripping” and the command in Media Center (the Windows-based software I use) is Rip.