Cd-paranoia retrieves audio tracks from CDDA capable CD-ROM drives. The data can be saved to a file or directed to standard output in WAV, AIFF, AIFF-C or raw format. Most ATAPI, SCSI and several proprietary CD-ROM drive makes are supported; cd-paranoia can determine if the target drive is CDDA capable.

In addition to simple reading, cd-paranoia adds extra-robust data verification, synchronization, error handling and scratch reconstruction capability.

This version uses the libcdio library for interaction with a CD-ROM drive. The jitter and error correction however are the same as used in Xiph's cdparanoia.