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What's the best audio CD ripper & audio file converter (Freeware)

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d.chatten

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Is there a freeware (not shareware) program out there that can rip audio CD's to any file format, eg: mp3, aac, wma, etc, etc.
Also i need this software to convert from one audio format to another, eg: from aac > mp3, wma > mp3, mp3 > aac, etc, etc.

Does this software exist, and if so, which is the best?

PS: I'm using Vista 32bit.
 
I second Exact Audio Copy. Even if you rip and then convert in a second step the best ripper is EAC.
 
Thanks for the input guys, i decided to go with EAC.

Thanks!
 
I use Free CD to MP3 Converter! You can find it following this link:
http://www.eusing.com/CDRipper/CDRipper.htm
As the program's title says, it can only load/convert music files from cd's! It can't load/convert from folders, unless you have wav files! In other words, you can't select the 'input directory' if you have wma files to convert!
 
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You could also simply use Windows Media Player to do the ripping, and than anything you like to do the conversion afterward.
 
CraziFuzzy said:
You could also simply use Windows Media Player to do the ripping, and than anything you like to do the conversion afterward.
Click to expand...


Windows Media Player can rip but does not remove DRM protection from audio files! Even AnyDVD can't do that!
 
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Personally, I have yet to come across an audio cd that couldn't be ripped with WMP. I do know there are anti-rip methods out there, but their use is, at least as I've seen, next to non-existant.
 
CraziFuzzy said:
Personally, I have yet to come across an audio cd that couldn't be ripped with WMP.
Click to expand...

It's not that WMP can't rip cds; the problem is WMP doesn't do enough error checking while ripping, especially with cds that are borderline defective. That's why Exact Audio Copy is so good.
 
Webslinger said:
It's not that WMP can't rip cds; the problem is WMP doesn't do enough error checking while ripping, especially with cds that are borderline defective.
Click to expand...

What about iTunes? As far as I remember it has the setting for error checking.
I did all my CD ripping with this program. In fact, I was actively using it only for this purpose, that's why I don't currently have it installed.
 
Webslinger said:
Nope. Really, nothing is quite as good as Exactaudiocopy
Click to expand...

I know the thread is about freeware only. However I wanted to note that, technically, nothing *free* is quite as good as EAC. The free version of dbpoweramp, after trial, does not do secure ripping. Secure ripping is a pay feature for dbpoweamp. I've found dbpoweramp does secure ripping somewhat better than EAC in certain circumstances.

And all of the above applies just for windows. On the Mac, XLD secure ripping support is starting to gain some fans.

-brendan

PS - full disclosure - on the side, I write drivers for using CD/DVD duplication hardware for dbpoweramp's batch ripper for single or multi-drive ripping.
 
Webslinger said:
Really, nothing is quite as good as Exactaudiocopy
Click to expand...

Exact Audio Copy does not seem to support unicode: http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/en/index.php/resources/whats-new/planned-for-the-next-release/

This is one of the main reasons I used iTunes: it supports unicode MP3 tags. In fact, WMP also supports unicode tags. But I recognise number of advantages of iTunes over WMP:
1) Using of CDDB database (which is better than Microsoft's, it seems)
2) MP3 tags it creates are more compact (I did tests with existing mp3 files - stripped mp3 tags from them using WinAmp, then added new tags with the same info with iTunes and WMP, then did binary comparison of them - turned out that WMP adds a lot of empty space (0 bytes) to files)
3) MP3 tags are v.2 only - WMP adds v.1 tags as well and in case of unicode text they are not even correct (probably because v.1 is not supposed to support unicode, I don't know)
4) iTunes' tag editor is better.
5) WMP does not support a very common "Year" tag and always adds non-common "Album Artist" tag.
6) iTunes has the setting for error checking (though probably I would not remember this one if you did not mention it in your post)

So, overall, I found iTunes quite good for ripping CDs.
 
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Webslinger said:
the problem is WMP doesn't do enough error checking while ripping, especially with cds that are borderline defective.
Click to expand...

5 mins ago I found an option to enable error checking while ripping CDs in WMP:

Go Options -> Devices. Then select your CD drive, click "Properties". Enable "Use error correction" in "Rip" section.
 

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SuperGoof said:
5 mins ago I found an option to enable error checking while ripping CDs in WMP:

Go Options -> Devices. Then select your CD drive, click "Properties". Enable "Use error correction" in "Rip" section.
Click to expand...

Doesn't matter. Neither WMP nor Itunes come close to the same level of error checking as EAC. Some people still notice skips and pops in their rips in WMP with error correction enabled.

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/en/index.php/overview/basic-technology/extraction-technology/

"In secure mode this program either reads every audio sector at least twice or rely on extended error information that some drives are able to return with the audio data. That is one reason why the program is slower than other rippers. But by using this technique non-identical sectors are detected. If an error occurs (read or sync error), the program keeps on reading this sector, until eight of 16 retries are identical, but at maximum one, three or five times (according to the selected error recovery quality) these 16 retries are read. So, in the worst case, bad sectors are read up to 82 times! But this effort will help the program to obtain the best result by comparing all of the retries.


If it is not sure that the audio stream is correct (at least that it can not be said at approx. 99.5%) the program will tell the user where the (possible) read error occurred. The program also tries to correct the jitter artifacts that occur on the first block of a track, so that each extraction should be exactly the same. On drives which have the “accurate stream” feature, this is guaranteed. Of course, this technology is a little bit more complex, especially with some CD drives which implements caching. When drives cache audio data, every sector read will be read from the drives cache and is that way always identical. Basically there are several ways to clear the cache. In newer versions it will overread sectors, so that the cache contains sectors from a position elsewhere on the CD.

*snip*"

Most freeware programs check for jitter correction. Most programs do not attempt to read bad sectors up to 82 times and check to verify that a number of read retries return the same values.
 
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