Fast ripping of CDs (and storage)

[Werner Berghofer]

Lee,

There's a good run down on using XLD here

XLD is claimed to be superior with problematic CDs, but the files it produces are identical to the iTunes rips. Computer Audiophile → Benefits of ripping with XLD versus iTunes.

In large part, the benefit from using XLD’s ripping software (as compared to iTunes) could be labeled 'peace of mind'.

Normally I also use XLD, but when I get annoyed by its slow ripping speed I switch to iTunes. Even with correction of CD read errors enabled, the ripping process in iTunes is much faster. The CDs I rip usually are trouble-free, since this is the first I do after the Amazon package has arrived in my home. With XLD I also noticed that the masking of certain characters which may be problematic in Mac OS X filenames (for example the colon, the forward slash or the apostrophe) does not work reliably all the time. In this respect, no version of iTunes has been causing troubles yet; these characters are replaced by an underscore in the filename.

Like you I’m happy with the iTunes user interface and wouldn’t bother switching to another audio playback software.

Werner.