Now, select everything in the ‘Additional command-line options’ box and paste the following parameters as-is: Note that this makes no difference to the eventual rip – it’s a logical value used during the ripping process. Click the 'Test Encoder' button to check that all is working this will also set the Bitrate box appropriately. FLAC should be selected and, all being well, set up by default. Head to EAC > Compression Options and open the External Compressor tab. In the UK, despite a brief period of explicit legality, the High Court has made ripping CDs illegal. In Europe, the law varies a little, state by state, but in the main governments compensate rights holders directly for perceived losses if they legally allow their citizens to duplicate media for personal use. In Australia, you’re good to go: the law says you’re entitled to make a copy of media you own as long as you don’t distribute it.

In the US there’s no legal precedent that states whether you are or are not allowed to space-shift your tunes from one form of media (ie CDs) to another (ie MP3 players). LegalityĪ quick note on the law: ripping is, depending where you are in the world, a practice of questionable legal standing. It’s brilliant – but EAC can take a bit of setting up before you’ll get the best out of it. It does jitter correction, and also verifies the ripped audio against the original track to check consistency, as well as performing multiple reads to ensure an accurate duplication. Many audio CD ripping packages perform a little correction for jitter, which helps to reduce the impact of scratches or dust when reading the track, but you’ll need to listen to these tracks back with a careful ear – that correction can potentially leave imperfections in your track.Įxact Audio Copy, our pick for best CD ripper does things a bit differently.

The aim isn’t ‘small and good enough’ any more – it’s about getting the absolute best quality copy possible. Ripping CDs is, believe it or not, a fine art, and it’s changed massively since the golden age of squeezing 128kbps MP3 files onto limited storage.

Audio cd rip software free