What is a good CD to MP3 ripping software?

[Helevitia]

What about OGG, I've never listened to it before. Should I consider it?

Dave

[Helevitia]

Wow! I just went to the ogg vorbis listening page and compared all of the formats. There is no comparison. OGG is hands down way better than the rest! So what are the drawbacks or limitations? First thing that comes to mind is the ID3 tags? How does it work with OGG?

Here is the listening page in case you want to compare yourself.

http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/listen.html

[piaxVirus]

Exact Audio Copy (free) or Feurio.

EAC should support any audio encoder you want.

I was originally doing all of my music collection in Ogg (quality 8), but I have since switched to using FLAC. Ogg sounds better then MP3 when using 192 or less. Any difference above 192 is minimal. Ogg is good for high compression (lower then 128), but I am finding that MP3 Pro sounds better above 192. I haven't done a blind test of them yet, so I am not 100% sure on that.

[Helevitia]

Originally posted by piaxVirus
Exact Audio Copy (free) or Feurio.

EAC should support any audio encoder you want.

I was originally doing all of my music collection in Ogg (quality 8), but I have since switched to using FLAC. Ogg sounds better then MP3 when using 192 or less. Any difference above 192 is minimal. Ogg is good for high compression (lower then 128), but I am finding that MP3 Pro sounds better above 192. I haven't done a blind test of them yet, so I am not 100% sure on that.

Cool, thanks for the info. FLAC eh? I doubt my mp3 player will play that file format. I'll look into it though. It's all about the firmware upgrades I'll check out EAC.

Dave

[TransformX]

I love PlexTools + lame.

[PAugustin]

If you have a Plextor, use Plextool it is as efficient as EAC (www.exactaudiocopy.de) if the CD is in good shape.
Otherwise EAC has no competitors, it is by far the best exctractor and it works with any encoder you want.

[TransformX]

I moved my old plextor out of my computer but I still use PlexTools

[MP]

I've been using CDex. It's free and supports various formats such as MP3, Ogg, ...

[Gurm]

Drawbacks to Ogg? Slow acceptance in commercial MP3 players. That's really about it.

You could dicker about what's better at high bitrates, etc.

But OGG is just plain ol' better than standard MP3.

- Gurm

[Helevitia]

OK, I started using DBpowerAMP. Anybody have an opinion on this program? I really like the simple, easy to use, interface.

[Helevitia]

Also, there is a 'rip to ram' option in the shareware version of this program. Anybody know what that is?

Dave

[PAugustin]

I used DBpowerAMP, it's very easy to use, but it is not as efficiant as Plextools or EAC. If it suits your needs then it's fine but it won't give you the best quality possible. And I didn't like the fact that you needed to install their own codec packages.

[Helevitia]

Originally posted by PAugustin
I used DBpowerAMP, it's very easy to use, but it is not as efficiant as Plextools or EAC. If it suits your needs then it's fine but it won't give you the best quality possible. And I didn't like the fact that you needed to install their own codec packages.

What do you mean by 'it won't give you the best quality possible'?

Thanks,

Dave

[UtwigMU]

IMO:

MP3 - compatibility, installed base

APE (Monkey Audio) - lossless, quality

OGG has better quality than MP3, but it's not lossless and it's installed base (portable players...) is lower

Hard drives are cheap, so the filesize is no longer the issue.

[PAugustin]

Originally posted by Helevitia
What do you mean by 'it won't give you the best quality possible'?

Thanks,

Dave

Well it usually goes very fast and doesn't check for errors. Besides it only uses basic settings that suits all drivers but are not opimal.
EAC can be configured with many settings that will allow you to make a perfect copy of a CD. It checks for errors and if ther is a doubt, it will read the needed sectors several times to get it right. You also have different exctraction methodes, secure, burst... That wil suits different needs.
It is also possible to fine tune it with settings like offset correction and so...