[SSG Big Daddy]

I know I am a few years behind, but now have an mp3 player. I have about 150 CD's I want to convert to mp3. I have found some converter software that have trail versions and the actual software are rather inexpensive. Suggestions? Should I just download the trail version and see if I can complete the task at hand within the timeframe. or just drop the cash and go from there? Are there absolutely free softwares out there? Lastly, if I do put up the money, which software is the better to choose?

[Horsepower]

there are plenty of freeware apps that will do what you want, probably not all bundled together though. LAME MP3 encoder is free. first you need a ripper to get the songs off the CD. then you need an encoder. i can't tell you what ripper to get, as i haven't done this in a while and am a little behind the times. i do know that if you are converting your ripped files to MP3 format, LAME is hands down the best MP3 encoder. it's commandline so you may want to get a frontend for it like All2LAME. i'll be hunting for a ripper in the next few days. i'l let you know what i come up with.

Some people will argue that MP3 format sucks. there is some truth to that. there are other formats that will produce the same good quality songs at lower filespace. i will tell you this: if you use LAME with the -alt presetstandard switch, it will give you a high quality variable bitrate MP3 that sounds VERY good. the average song will be about 4-5mb. the best thing about it is that this MP3 will play on everything, unlike those other formats. sure the file is a bit bigger than other formats with this quality, but knowing that this MP3 will play on everything to me is worth it.

i use -alt presetextreme when i encode one of my CD's for archiving. the file is a little bigger than the other switch, but not much. i seriously doubt anyone would be able to tell it's not the original recording but at 1/5th the size on disk. so it takes up more room on the portable MP3 player. big deal. at least i have CD quality MP3's in my library that i can grab anytime i want without further work. just get a player with lots of space.

[FCF Bad Karma]

I know some people hate it, but I just use iTunes. I customized the encoder to allow for VBR MP3s and it works very well.

[Stryker412]

I used CDex (it's free), and there hasn't been a CD yet I couldn't rip. It works great.

[SSG Big Daddy]

Thanks Horsepower and Stryker, I grabbed the CDex and am on my way to converting all my CD's. To a little looking and reading to get started, but I think I am on top of it. Stryker, Ignore the IM.

[Horsepower]

i didn't try what you guys are using. i got Exact Audio Copy(EAC). it's a bit complicated to setup which is probably it's biggest con. from what i'm reading though, if you're anal about getting exact copies of your music this is the ripper to use. it can be slower on scratched discs as it will go back and try to read bad areas of you disc up to 86 times. it looks like CDRex is the way to go if you want to jump right in and want speed over accuracy with your rips.

have fun!

[Dvshadow]

yea, it depends on how you like it, i prefer the quality over quantity

[Stryker412]

Originally Posted by Horsepower

i didn't try what you guys are using. i got Exact Audio Copy(EAC). it's a bit complicated to setup which is probably it's biggest con. from what i'm reading though, if you're anal about getting exact copies of your music this is the ripper to use. it can be slower on scratched discs as it will go back and try to read bad areas of you disc up to 86 times. it looks like CDRex is the way to go if you want to jump right in and want speed over accuracy with your rips.

have fun!

How so? I've never had a problem ripping anything.

[Horsepower]

to most of us, we may never hear the errors that exist in audio extraction from CD's. i can't say that i know which is the better program, but from what i've read from comparison tests, EAC will do a minimum of 2 passes over the audio being extracted(many more if your discs are scratched). CDex only does one and can't give the level of error correction EAC can. would you, me or the guy next to you ever hear the difference? hell if i know. i spent a few hours reading yesterday but i am no expert on the topic. some links i've read about EAC:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...ST&f=20&t=3164

As the name implies, EAC copies songs from your CD to your hard drive, and it does this better [more accurately] than any other software of its kind. The downside of EAC is that it's not the easiest program to configure.
http://mp3.radified.com/eac_lame.htm

Exact Audio Copy - EAC - is an audio extractor for the Windows platform. An audio extractor "rips" the audio data from a CD-DA audio CD to the harddisk. There are literally hundreds of these rippers, thus why would you consider EAC over for example AudioCatalyst? The answer is quite simple: Because EAC is the best.
http://users.pandora.be/satcp/eac00.htm#-

[Horsepower]

on a related note, i set EAC to rip Pink Floyd the Wall Disc 2 when I went to work this morning. i've had this set of cd's forever. it's at least 15-20 years old so there's no telling what kind of damage is on the disc. i read the log of the rips and found EAC detected and apparently fixed some bad areas on the disc in one of the tracks. i listened to each song position and cannot hear any artifacts. it did a damn good job imo.

Track 9
Filename C:\temp\Mp3\MP3s\09_-_Run_Like_Hell.wav

Suspicious position 0:02:59 - 0:03:00
Suspicious position 0:03:08
Suspicious position 0:03:29 - 0:03:31
Suspicious position 0:03:35
Suspicious position 0:03:40
Suspicious position 0:03:45 - 0:03:47
Suspicious position 0:03:49 - 0:03:50

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 96.9 %
Copy CRC 4B3AF956
Copy finished