looking for catchall CD ripper, WMA -> MP3 converter (1 Viewer)

[Alex-C]

I am looking for a program that will rip cds to mp3 and also convert WMA to MP3. Once in MP3 I am home free.
I have done some searches on some sites and I keep finding programs that will do one or the other but not one that will do both.
Any thoughts ????

 

[Kimmo Jaskari]

I have one seriously meant suggestion; whatever you are using now - if it isn't Exact Audio Copy and Lame, ditch it and get those two. Both are free and will give you really good quality MP3's, not the mush that most other codecs turn out.
They won't convert WMA to MP3, but they will give you maximum sound quality at minimum size. IMHO, having to use these for making your own MP3's and then another tool to convert WMA to MP3 (if such a thing exists, I don't know) is a small price to pay to get the best possible quality in the conversion.
I strongly urge you to visit http://www.r3mix.net
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/Kimmo

 

[Alex-C]

thanks....I saw the LAME one somewhere. I will definitely check it out. I could probably get by without the WMA->mp3 converter, and yes it does exist. I just need to re-rip those CDs again into MP3s.
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http://www.geocities.com/chets808/home_theater_begin.html

 

[Kimmo Jaskari]

Well, if you can convert directly to MP3 from the CD's then I would definitely recommend it. You will almost certainly get higher quality files that way, rather than convert from WMA to MP3.
Lame even integrates into EAC, so you can have EAC invoke Lame to compress the WAV files to MP3 directly after ripping. Very convenient.
You can get EAC at:
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de
And a Lame binary file at:
http://www.hot.ee/smpman/mp3/
And if you want to use Lame directly and prefer something more user friendly than the command line (I know I do) RazorLame works very well as a frontend:
http://www.dors.de/razorlame/
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/Kimmo