Hi Res ripping software for Mac ?

Funny, I've never thought of CDs as being hi res, but I suppose they are, in relative terms.

I run an all digital system. In fact, I don't even have a CD player right now (although this is digital too). I do most of my casual listening through a Sonos and use a Squeezebox Touch for files over 16 bit and/or 48khz. All of my stuff that is in 24 bit 96khz and above is usually downloaded in flac format, so I just download those straight to my NAS. I do all of my CD ripping with iTunes.

I just have my iTunes setup so that it keeps its library on my NAS, so that when I rip CDs, the files go straight to the NAS. I really like iTunes because it makes it really easy to deal with things like album art and maintaining the library. I just rip everything to AIFF format.

I've used iTunes, XLD and Max. I've found that when using CDs that are in good shape, it really doesn't matter which you use. I've also found that XLD and Max have their issues. Neither is as refined as iTunes.

Why would one want to use XLD instead of I tunes? I tunes does lossless copies.

Antigrunge,

It all depends on CD. Regular real time CD player reads only once and when sample is bad (bad checksum) it corrects (Cross Interleaved Reed-Solomon error correction code) or interpolates. It has ability to correct errors smaller than 4mm scratch (along the track), interpolates between 4-8mm and skips (gap) over 8mm. My MAX set to "do not allow to skip" goes forever over bad sector until it finds right checksum sometimes never finishing (never interpolates) and Itunes is perhaps somewhere in between - making few attempts, then interpolating. On good brand new CDs all programs might do very good job. Sonic differences (interpolation) will most likely show on heavily used older CDs. I use MAX because it makes me feel better to have perfect copy.

What's wrong with itunes with error correction?
I can't tell the difference to XLD in AIFF

I cannot hear a difference between transcodes (converting FLAC to AIFF) and extractions (importing CDs) I have done in MAX versus XLD.

Mwheelerk, Is it because of rip quality or ease of use?

I have used both XLD and MAX. I prefer XLD.

Thanks for your responses. Has anybody compared MAX to XLD ?

XLD:

http://tmkk.pv.land.to/xld/index_e.html

Steve N
Empirical Audio

XLD I was told by Mac users.

Not a mac user but i've heard NMP3 Ripper is good.

I use MAX (free) with option "do not allow to skip". It rips to any format and translates from any format to any format. I use Apple Lossless ALAC and Itunes. Itunes work quite well in Mac and poorly with PC - at least that's what I've heard. MAX also can rip directly to Itunes, even importing albums. You can also "get metadata" from Itunes and transfer to MAC.

http://sbooth.org/Max/