Windows media player 10

Hmm... People seem to be conflating two concepts... EAC is a ripper... It just takes what is on a CD and renders it into WAV files (basically, straight PCM data in a wrapper) on your computer, and with "secure" mode set, it does it very, very well. It has a hook in it that allow you to specify an encoder that will take those WAV files and compress them to create files of a different variety--mp3, Apple Lossless, whatever.

I think you have to differentiate between the ripping function and the format conversion/compression function. WMP10 may be set up to combine those functions, but its still two discrete functions. You can separate the two functions as well--you could use EAC if you are concerned, and then separately change the WAV files into WMA Lossless files. (The only issue there being whether you will preserve track/artist/etc information in the transformation; I suspect there is a way of calling a WMA Lossless converter from EAC that will preserve the data--that is what I do with iTunes, its automatically called from EAC.)

The widows media player #10 uses the WMA lossless system for ripping. According to the experts it is about 97 or 98% as good as the EAC system. If the new user of EAC is not computer savvy EAC can be a pain in the butt.

Charlie

Yes, it offers a lossless format. Open Media player, click on tools, options and then click on the tab "Rip music". Look at the pull down menu for "rip settings". Here you will find 4 choices with one being Windows Lossless. I do not check the 3 options below this tab. Below this, you will find an 'Audio Quality" slider option, I select the Best Quality.

The sound quality is as good or better than playing from a CD player. I did listening test and I'm very happy with this.

I'm also using a Linksys wireless Media Center extender that is connected to my sound system. I have put all my CD's into the PC on an external 300 gig hard drive, have 5000 of my favorite songs and still have 70% free space on the hard drive. I have backed up the ripped music on the main PC, just in case the external would ever fail. My CD's are now all available from a remote control with many options of playlist, artists, song, ect. I'm using Windows XP Media Center 2005 software on my main PC.

This is what I use but there are also other good methods of getting your ripped music to your system.

EAC with Accurip is the gold standard. There are numerous threads on this topic.

No suggestions here but have been considering asking same question. I would like to move into the inevitable future but don't want to lose data.