I started out using Winamp, I used it for way too long. I was also a Exact Audio Copy snob, and I used it for too damned long as well. I ripped maybe 1300 CDs with EAC. Then I switched to dBpoweramp Reference and I never looked back. It's so much better than EAC, oh my. And no more Winamp either. It isn't even installed on my current machine. Foobar 2000 and dBpoweramp. MMMMMMMM.
Winamp was always fine as a player, but it wasn't really useful beyond that for me. I never used it to rip anything.
EAC required lots of setting changes to get things correct. It works with Accurate Rip so you know when you got it right. dBpoweramp does what EAC does/did and it does a few things better. It grabs CD artwork, it even offers choices of artwork in the current version. It also grabs tag info from no less than four sources and then offers a choice. It rips extremely fast with a decent quality drive in secure mode. (unless the disc is NOT in Accurate Rip, then it takes its time). I normally rip to FLAC, get the tags right with Musicbrainz tagger, then do a batch convert to make additional copies in LAME V0. I use the FLAC files on my computers to feed my computer and main audio (Squeezebox Touch, V3 Squeezebox, and Squeezebox Boom). I use the LAME V0s in my portable devices.
If you are thinking about ripping thousands of discs (as I have already done), I advise you to get an external drive to back up your rips from your internal drive. Ripping takes a long time and you would hate to lose your hours of labor with a hard drive crash. I rip to my internal drive, immediately back up to my external drive, and then take it to my lake place and copy the data from the external drive to a computer there. That way if one home burns, the other has my tunes. I don't want to do it all over again....
As far as MonkeyAudio, I installed and played with that program, but it didn't impress me enough to keep playing with it. Maybe I should have given it more time. Perhaps I will in the future.
And Foobar is no picnic to get started with, but oh is it worth the effort. Yes.