Quickest/Easiest way to rip a large CD collection ?

[BeelzebubUK]

I've been meaning to do this for a few years now. I want to convert my CD collection to archive quality MP3 for easy burning to DVD's for my car and access from the internet radio upstairs and the media PC in the living room. Have somewhere between 400-500 CD's to rip though so its a bit of a daunting task.

Last time I tried ripping at that quality it took about the same time it takes to play them but that was a few years ago. I'm hoping it can be done a lot quicker now.

Was thinking about a few other options like buying some sort of CD jukebox/carousel that can be used on a PC so can do more than one without having to change discs or maybe using one of the ripping services I've seen advertised....anyone used one of those before ?

Apart from that what software would you recommend that easy to use (ie set the naming format and quality and press Go sort of thing) and will give a good quality error free rip. Last time I looked into this 320VBR was a good rate to use ?

Should I even be looking at MP3 or use another format like FLAc or AAC. Was put off doing this before because of compatability issues but I'm guessing that most devices/software support most of these formats now.

 

[badbob]

Multiple computers
Multiple drives
Use flac.

 

[mattross]

As above if you rip everything lossless then you then have the flexibility later on to re-encode to lower quality for MP3 players without needing to get the discs out again. I had to do my 600 CD collection, it's not fun, but in the end definitely worth it.

I use EAC with AccurateRip and FLAC and then use SqueezeCenter to stream music to hardware music players around my house.