Ask Lemmy

I actually just spent a year or so doing this during break times at work with EAC. I ripped everything to WAV because storage is cheap, it’s a bit faster, and you can tag WAV files now, so I saw little reason not to, though FLAC is usually just as good and has wider support, so it’s up to you (you can easily convert back and forth if you change your mind, since either is lossless).

The key factor with EAC is to use it with AccurateRip (which is built-in to the app, but you need to configure it with your drive properly for it to work). There’s a lot of info on configuring this online but like with anything that touches audiophile communities, there’s a lot of bullshit you have to sort through as well. You’ll see a lot of people saying to set it to the slowest option to ensure a perfect rip, but 99% of the time you don’t need to do this - AccurateRip will compare your CD to what other users have ripped and ensure a bit-perfect match. In the event you have a rare CD or it doesn’t match the database, that’s when you set EAC to run slowly (secure mode) and set it to test and verify the tracks. After ripping, I use MP3tag to search musicbrainz or Discogs to tag the tracks and it’s good to go. In the event you’ve got a slightly defective disc AccurateRip/EAC point out errors in, you can even use an app called CUEtools to scan the database and repair the files.

I was paranoid about getting everything right on my first try, since the last thing I wanted to do was rip every CD I had again (well over a thousand) due to some dumb configuration mistake, so feel free to send me a message if you’ve got any questions. I nerded out and took a stupid amount of step by step notes about what I did so if this post isn’t long and annoying enough for you, I got plenty more where that came from.