[shrimants]

you can set your optimization level to have less extremely compressed files and it should take significantly less time (but your files will be gigantic)

 

[The_X]

EAC, unfortunately, is just horrendously slow on this computer.  I don't really have the time to play with every single setting, so DBPowerAmp tends to be more practical.  I'll give CDex a shot.  I have some suspicions that my CD drive might be crappy--it is the built-in unit on my Elitebook 8440p (AD-7568H).

 

[shrimants]

Its probably the built in thing. These cd drives that are built in tend to be hooked up through some sort of IDE or PATA interface, at least my built in one on my Dell is. They suck so bad that I'm strongly considering buying a media bay battery for the dell and also a USB CD/DVD/Blu Ray drive. I dont know how fast USB2.0 is, it's supposed to be 480Mbps (60 MB/s) but with a (cheapo) USB flash drive I get about 15MB/s and with my external HDD (western digital passport) I get about 20/30 MB/s write/read. I can only assume that the USB BluRay drives can manage to go faster than 20MB/s because my current home network is wired for 12 MB/s and is able to get a (horribly compressed H.264) AT&T Uverse HD stream through the wires and onto the TV downstairs.

 

[pedxing]

I use dbpoweramp just because it has a nice interface which more or less saves me time.  EAC didn't agree with my liteon and pioneer DVD drives.
 
I think the biggest factor besides the condition of the ripped media is the optical drive itself.  Unfortunately, all forums and online communities that I know of that use to discuss about which drives are best for ripping have dried up.  As far as I can tell, nobody has documented which optical drive in which laptop works best.
 
If you rip from a USB device, do some research about compatibility.  The USB interface may abstract or remove capabilities found common with SATA/PATA devices, making it impossible to perform a secure rip.

 

[gorb]

Use this guide to properly configure EAC:
http://blowfish.be/eac/

 

[stokitw]

Couple tips for dbpoweramp users.
 
By default, dbpoweramp will use maximum speed for ripping, which would occasionally cause inconsistent reading across different passes.
What you can do is to skip those problematic tracks and use lower speed to re-rip them.
 
 

 

[shrimants]

Im going to be switching to linux soon and I've found quite a few scripts that make the flac ripping process extremely easy. Using a program like Easytag along with the flac encoder is a very nice way to do it. Archlinux, for those who are wondering

 

[kryten123]

I've always used Mediamonkey and have never had any issues. There is also a new('ish) open source app called Songbird, which I believe will rip to FLAC.