EAC is a so-called "
CD ripping" or "
CD grabbing" program. It is similar to programs like
CDex that extract audio information from
audio CDs. The information is passed through the
CD-ROMs data cable, ensuring better quality than through the
audio cable. What is so special about
EAC is that it not only uses standard
jitter correction, it will read every bit very carefully, and if it detects an error (like a scratch in the CD) it will report back it's exact position to the user. This makes the
extraction process somewhat slower though, but heightens the quality of the resulting
WAV file. The downside to the program is that it is pretty buggy, and is not updated all to often by the author.
Update 23.06.02: EAC is updated fairly regularly now and is still under development.