CD Ripping Software

MikeSofaer · December 7, 2003, 9:12am

What software do you guys use for ripping/encoding?

I have always used Exact Audio Copy but I hear there are better ones now.

BrianRubin · December 7, 2003, 10:58am

I use Nero Burning Rom for all my burning and ripping needs. It’s probably the best piece of CD recording/encoding software I’ve used.

MikeSofaer · December 7, 2003, 11:55am

Sweet. That came with my new machine, I didn’t realize it ripped as well as burned. It has good mp3 algorithms?

Severian · December 8, 2003, 7:13am

I use CDex at http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/. You must enter an email address to use the remote CDDB, but the email address doesn’t have to be real. It’s freeware

John_Many_Jars · December 8, 2003, 9:47am

I use dBPowerAmp Music Converter and related tools, with excellent results:

http://www.dbpoweramp.net/

It’s free.

Sean_Tudor · December 8, 2003, 12:22pm

I use CDEX and have been slowly converting my music over to OGG format.

Nick_Hyle · December 30, 2003, 2:41am

I’m trying dBPowerAmp, but it’s ripping at about 2x - a far cry from the 5x-7x I was getting from Musicmatch, but then, it doesn’t lock my machine up randomly, either. :D

(Is this to encourage me to register - is it faster if I pay?)

CDex, on the other hand, is not random at all - it bluescreens me EVERY time I try to run it.

So, any suggestions for a fast ripper?

WhollySchmidt · December 30, 2003, 3:07pm

I’ve been pleased with the PC release of iTunes.

Jakub · December 30, 2003, 3:48pm

Gah, deleted my post instead of editing >_<

CDex? I’ll look around for it, thanks.

Kalle · December 30, 2003, 3:50pm

Damn, saw you deleted it, and deleted my own post because it suddenly made no sense.

You can find CDex at http://www.sourceforge.com

Sourceforge is down for maintenance at the moment, so I can’t find a direct link to CDex there right now.

Jakub · December 30, 2003, 3:57pm

http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/

Fortunately the CDex site is still up. Google is king :)

Thanks again Kalle. I think we may have played the first-ever game of message-delete/reply-delete tag. :)

anonymous_user · December 30, 2003, 4:28pm

I belong to a hardcore album-trading forum and mostly everyone there uses EAC with LAME 3.92; apparently it’s still the best as long as you use at least -aps to rip your files.

CDex is the #2 preference, and surprisingly enough iTunes comes in third.

Case · December 30, 2003, 4:54pm

I want to put in a plug for lossless compression.

I’m using Windows Media 9 lossless compression, but non-Microsoft alternatives exist, like Shorten, FLAC and others. You get anywhere from 2x - 5x compression, so you’ll need more disc space than MP3 encoding. But the audio quality is much better, and you can always convert to something more compact if you want to use a music player.

Brad_Grenz · December 30, 2003, 10:26pm

I belong to a hardcore album-trading forum and mostly everyone there uses EAC with LAME 3.92; apparently it’s still the best as long as you use at least -aps to rip your files.

CDex is the #2 preference, and surprisingly enough iTunes comes in third.[/quote]

EAC relies on the command line version of LAME which I hate. Great, it creates a LOG for the anal to review, but guess what? If you run out of disk space it will just write the unfinished MP3 to disk without bothering to mention there was a problem… And CDex in full paranoia mode has been better at correcting errors, and getting all the way through scratched discs than EAC for me. In closing CDex rocks and EAC can suck it.