Proper way to extract audio tracks from a CD. Options

[1loser]

Is it wrong to just extract the tracks from an audio CD to my hard drive with Isobuster and than use lame to convert them to a mp3? Are the tracks digital and when I use Isobuster do they stay digital?

I tried CDex and it works pretty good but is it really necessary to use a program like that to get good results?

[greenirft]

I persoanlly make an image file of an audio cd using Clone CD. Then mount that CD using Daemon Tools, and extract (using EAC in burst mode, but secure gives fast results as well) to wave and convert to whatever format I feel like. This way I only have to touch the original CD once, when making the image file.

I haven't found any quality differences between ripping straight from the CD and ripping from a mounted image file, but I am using new, untouched CD's. I would think that for a "mediumly worn CD" that this method would work just as well (but faster) than using EAC in secure mode. The reason for this is because the image file still needs to have a complete image, so on scratched data CD's someform of filling in the gap has to happen (and whatever method this is works prefectly). On heavily scratched CD's EAC in secure mode would be your best bet.

I still don't quite understand why people fuss so much about scratched CD's. Sure you might have some older ones that you want to rip and encode, but there are ways of fixing that (in all but the worse cases). When I purchase a CD, the first thing I do is make the image file, burn a copy from that image file, then encode with the image file. Then I gently place the CD back into its original jewel case, and stow it away on a self. If I need a "decent" copy of the CD I go to my Ogg -q 5's that I've created (I'd like to move up to flac or MAC, but currently don't have the storage needed), and if I need a "prefect" copy I still have the original untouched CD on the self to image.

But, if your borrowing from friends converting to a lossless format is probably your best bet.