CD to mp3 rippers
 

What's a good ripper for Windows?

Been awhile since I ripped cd's and I forgot what program I used.

And please don't say Real Player or Musicmatch. I want a real ripper :p

cdex wins hands down.

Yup... Cdex is the only thing I've ever used

Exact Audio Copy with LAME works well for ripping mp3s. Heres a link on how to use it http://www.zeropaid.com/news/articles/auto/10012002d

If you don't have to have mp3 files, use EAC with Monkeys Audio. It has lossless sound quality. The files are bigger than mp3s, but smaller than wavs.

I second KBilly's advice.

I'll add my vote to cdex

EAC w/lame

cdex here, too.

doesnt windows media player do that?

Just a quick question, what is the difference between Exact Audio Copy with LAME and Musicmatch with LAME?

I don't think Musicmatch has an option to use LAME. It's probably possible to do something to convert the .wav files made with Musicmatch to .mp3 files with LAME, but that seems like a lot of extra work to me.

I know that Musicmatch doesn't do a good job encoding to mp3s (uses some crappy codec), but I'm not sure about wavs. EAC is the best in my opinion.

KBilly,

if you are running a version of NT and can see a process list, take a look at the processor hungry application while ripping a track with Music Match.

Or if you are that against Music Match, then here is a screen shot:
http://www.mindlence.com/images/links/taskmanager.gif

I've also located the lame.exe in my plug-in directory for Music Match.

I'm not sure if this is a new addition or what but I'm refering to v. 8.0

It would be nice if all you CDex buffs actually added some helpful links to what you were talking about..

http://www.cdex.n3.net/

Some of us can't read minds..

I'm not running NT. Never knew MMJB was using LAME. I suppose it could be good for ripping mp3s. I remember reading that MMJB was using something else. I guess I'll have to try to find that site.

BTW, this is KBilly, I guess I somehow got banned, again. It's beginng to get annoying. A warning PM or email would've be nice.

Just FYI, version of NT includes 2k and XP...just incase that my previous comment may have been a bit unclear.
Cause I'm running XP.

dBpoweramp ... so far its the best that i have used... can do lame, blade, or just about any other codec extreemly fast.

What is the problem with using MMJB? I've used it for years (so long I bought it when it only cost $19.99 for lifetime upgrades) and I've been able to rip & encode and very high bitrates and quality. The integration with CDDB and the super-tagging feature seem like it'd be a no-brainer choice for ripping except for the current price.

Use CDex or EAC to rip to .wav, and then encode with LAME.

I've been enthralled with this graphical interface for LAME, called winLAME. Grab it at http://winlame.sourceforge.net .

Personally, I encode at VBR minimum 196 (or 256 if it's classical music).

You might also try ripping to FLAC.... http://flac.sf.net/