CD to MP3 ripping - What do you use?

[rktboy]

I think i'm going to finally bite the bullet and rip all of my music collection to MP3. While I've certainly ripped CDs before, I've never had to do them en-masse like this. so...

What utility or utilities do you use for ripping to MP3? I know there's a ton out there but I'm looking for recommendations. Ideally, I'd like to do this in one step, as opposed to ripping the CD to a wav file and then converting it or other such nonsense. Also, I'd like to be able to use some sort of utility, perhaps the ripping app itself, to access the CDDB to tag everything with metadata (album, artist, etc) automatically.

Suggestions?

[Angus McFeargus]

I swear by CDex (http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/) . It uses the LAME encoder and is easy to use.

[anthonyX]

Like you said there are several programs that will work. Any should work it just depends on what you need. Lately I have used QCD (Quintessential Player). It is a nice quick free program that gives you options as to what rip your music in (can get plug ins for mp3 -pro,lame , wav, Ogg). I like how it tags the songs. I am sure there are other programs that can do just as well but this is what I like.

[kyleh]

I used to use Easy CD-DA Extractor, but since Windows Media Player has gotten better at this type of stuff I just use it now. Before anyone says otherwise, WMP does not force DRM protection into MP3 files that it rips. av_wink.gif

[enfestid]

Musicmatch Jukebox.

[calvin]

Once I got an iPod, I've used iTunes for everything audio.

Call me a fanboy, I guess.

[One-Winged Angel]

Originally posted by John Austin:
I swear by CDex (http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/) . It uses the LAME encoder and is easy to use. Ditto.

Although iTunes is good as well, and fairly quick.

[Ravenus]

I use something called Freerip. It works fine for me although one minor annoyance is that it does not save the CDDB info and so I need to get it at the same time that I want to do the actual ripping.

If someone can recommend me a freeware ripper which remembers CDDB info and allows me to rip mp3's at 192kb/s , I shall be glad of it.

[rktboy]

Thankyou all for the suggestions. I ripped a bunch of CD's with CDex last night and I agree that it's very easy to use. Pretty quick too.

[Johannes]

Since I have an NW-HD1, I either use Sonicstage (PITA) or Windows Media 10.