I have currently been ripping my CD's to Wavpack using EAC.
I am about 95% sure that I have it set up properly.

However, It takes about 1 & 1/2 hours plus to rip the CD's properly.

Winamp can rip an entire album in 5-10 minutes.

I have a very large music collection, and I can't help but wonder if I am just wasting my time with EAC.

What am I really gaining by using EAC, wouln't Winamp also detect errors on the CD's if it cannot rip properly?

Are there any faster alternatives with quality error detection ?
Is there any way to speed up EAC without compromising the rip ?
Is 1 & 1/2 hours considered to be a normal lenth of time to rip
an album ?

Anybody's insight wold be greatly appreciated...

EAC stands for Exact Audio Copy. If you don't want an exact copy of your audio file, you can use Winamp. Of course, Winamp can possibly rip an audio file with no errors but it can also rip an audio file without reporting any errors.

Also, how you preserve your CDs is another thing, if they're (heavily) scratched or dirty, EAC will take much more time to read the data due to error correction.

You probably don't have EAC configured properly. It only takes EAC 5-10 mins to rip a CD on my computer, just like winamp.

Have a look at the guide in my sig.

Hmm... that's a little much. I did rip a bunch of very scratched CDs a couple years or so ago, and some of them, I had to let EAC work on for days on end, literally. But that's not normal.

Usually burst mode is very fast, and should complete in less than 5 min. Secure mode may take about three times as long. If it's taking more than half an hour for CDs with no obvious defects or scratches, something is wrong... perhaps try a different CD reader if you've got one.

With a decent non-caching drive you should be able to rip a CD in secure mode in about 5 minutes (or less).

IMHO, 5 minutes is a little too quick for secure mode. My NEC ND-3540A drive takes about 15 minutes per CD. Is that too long according to you?

Winamp sucks at ripping. I mean, yeah, is REALLY fast but that is actually a bad thing.
I've been a Winamp user for ripping so I can really tell the difference. I've ripped scratched cds on Winamp 5 and older versions and the mp3s skipped a lot. Then when i switched to EAC i've ripped the SAME cds and I can't notice any skips or noises... it was impressive.
Yeah, it takes a lot longer, but it worth it.

It just seems kinda wrong to use a program like Winamp for ripping. EAC does a great job and is very specialized for it. It's also completely free... so why not?

Also, if you can dig up an old version of EAC from before Andre got a little paranoid of legal action, you can find functions helpful for copying protected CDs that you legally own and just happen to want to listen to on your computer.

I know my EAC is configured right, and it takes mine about 10 to 15 minutes to rip, (or 15 to 20 if the disc has some wear).

The answer is simple: do you want fast or do you want accurate?

Yes, actually, it is for my NEC drive. Your mileage may vary.

surprising no one has yet suggested to do a bit comparison of the wav files produced from eac to those from winamp - especially for tracks on which eac is particularly slow.

Surprising that someone actually suggested doing a bit comparison of the wav files produced from eac to those from winamp when people have already stated that EAC takes up to 20 mins to rip files SECURELY from a clean CD, and that lengthy rips are due to error correction and repeated reads on damaged CDs.

The latter rips will almost definitely be different between EAC and Winamp.

Your not using the -x option in your Wavpack command line are you?

ok slow down mr.surprising.
I was only emphasizing the fact that eac is slow because of error correction that will be not be done by winamp and that a bit comparison will only serve as proof to the fact. Sometimes people need to see it by their own eyes to believe it, especially when they really don't (or can't) "hear" a difference between the rips.

bit comparison... isn't that what accuraterip is for?

In my setup I've never seen it take 20 minutes to securely rip a brand-new CD. More like 5 minutes. For brand new CDs it's even faster just to use burst mode and test for CRC matches.
In that case usually there's no errors, so no need to use secure rip. If there are mismatches for some tracks you can always re-rip them in secure mode.

Have you thought of trying the secure ripping feature in foobar2000 0.9? I've been using it quite a bit and it really is very good.

There's some users that have been comparing the results with EAC and it's faring nicely.

Yes it is quite slow on my system but I don't care I want the audio to be ripped properly with EAC, Winamp is an audio player IMO and I have never ripped a CD with it, IMO it is rather quite Lame at ripping (excuse the pun)