Rippers

[Armalite]

What are everone's favorite mp3 rippers? I just got rid of a travesty called zortam, utter crap.

I am trying unsuccessfully to find an x64 ripper to take advantage of my processor.

[DIzzIE]

The standard is pretty much EAC (http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/en/index.php/resources/download/) with LAME (http://www.rarewares.org/mp3-lame-bundle.php). There's a good guide here (http://www.chrismyden.com/bestmp3guide.php) that comes complete with some preset config files that makes the setup a bit easier.

(Note: if you want to be able to use the cfg files, you'll have to install the older version of EAC linked to in that guide. If not, you can play around with tweaking the settings a bit yourself, like making sure to select Secure Mode and so on, there are plenty of other EAC guides floating around. The key feature to enable would be the aforementioned Secure Mode (as opposed to the default Burst Mode) under Drive Options. Other things like the offset value for your specific drive aren't essential but can be found here (http://www.accuraterip.com/driveoffsets.htm) in case EAC fails to detect it.)

[Nox (ADVANCED)]

Is there anyway to copy musoic from a Ipod. Even make it usable on a normal MP3 player.

[Stone]

I don't rip to mp3 anymore. FLAC all the way.

[Armalite]

Yeah, right after I posted this I grabbed EAC and LAME, but the FLAC idea is quite tempting, perhaps I will obtain the FLAC codecs for EAC. Too bad you can't convert your lossy mp3s into FLAC and restore the original quality. :(

I don't know to look for myself, but is EAC setup to utilize multithreading for dual core processors?

[RainKing]

I don't rip to mp3 anymore. FLAC all the way.

What player do you use for flac files? I run only Linux/BSD systems; what would you recommend for flac on these? Thanx.

[DIzzIE]

Is there anyway to copy musoic from a Ipod. Even make it usable on a normal MP3 player.

Try Yamipod (http://www.yamipod.com/main/modules/downloads/), or if you don't want to have to install any extra shit, read the instructions for doing it manually here (http://lifehacker.com/software/ipod/how-to-copy-songs-from-your-ipod-to-your-pc-105256.php).

[Stone]

I use winamp on windows, on linux I use amarok.

[Armalite]

VLC plays FLAC.

[RainKing]

I've been using amarok, but it seems a little bloated for what I need. VLC sounds interesting; it can serve streams as well! I'll have to try it.

[Stone]

VLC is god-like for video, I don't like it for music.