howdy folks. i know that eac is the hot encoder for the windows platform...is there a mac equivalent? or cross-platform? thanks in advance for answering...!

NMP3 Ripper is the only one i could find.
It doesn't have any secure ripping capabilities like EAC or CDex does.. But it encodes LAME MP3s.

Mac OS/X = FreeBSD. You should be able to run cdparanoia.

Ahem.. i have Freebsd and cdparanoia does not compile yet.. Supposedly a Netbsd port is already done.

I am told that Linux emulation works fine on FreeBSD...

But that would be kind of a strange way to solve the problem.

I have been using iTunes as a front end for LAME and Ogg Vorbis without any problems for some time know. Just rip to AIFF. As a side benefit iTunes embeds the tag information into the AIFF file itself. iTunes and MP3 Rage can read this information, handy for making scripts. If you feel you need a secure ripping function I suggest you look for a copy of "Astarte CD-COPY 2.03" It had a anti-jitter function but has long been discontinued. When Adaptec purchased Toast and Jam from Astarte they left CD-COPY to wither and die. I think Adaptec at the time felt a utility designed solely for ripping compact discs was a little hot to handle. Be sure to check out the great "Convert to MP3 (LAME)" script at http://www.blacktree.com/scripts.html Anyone interested in editing the script to work with Ogg Vorbis instead?

I've also found those BlackTree scripts very easy to use, with iTunes as a front end for LAME, I'd definitely recommend them. You can use iTunes to lookup the track names and it gets fed into the process.

You sometimes have to edit the scripts a little to get just the naming you want, but that's simple enough. I have a couple different versions.