Need FLAC ripping advice, Total newbie Options

[marvel]

Hi folks,

Years ago I ripped my entire CD collection to high bitrate VBR MP3 using EAC. These days drive space is dirt cheap and I have Squeezeboxes connected to some decent audio equipment, so I want to re-rip my entire collection to FLAC in hopes that I'll never need to rip these CDs again (lossless is lossless, right? So I can re-encode to anything else at will without pulling the CDs out of storage again?). I'm looking for some basic information:

1. A link to a good guide for EAC to FLAC ripping to help me get the various settings right.

2. I want to know more about ripping an entire album to a single file. I didn't even know this was possible until literally 5 minutes ago. How does this work? It sounds ideal but I still have some concerns, mainly:

2a: Can my Squeezeboxes see and play individual tracks this way?
2b: Can I drag & drop individual tracks into a program like Nero for making custom CDs?
2c: What other possibilities does this open up? Embedded album art, id3 tags, ??
2d: Other pros / cons to this method vs. individual tracks?

I thank you in advance for your responses to these generic newbie questions.

This post has been edited by marvel: Oct 19 2008, 00:26