hope ya'll can help me out.

i did a bunch of research and have decided to use EAC with Lame encoder to rip my cd collection, as it seems they would yield the very best audio quality.

i think I've installed both programs correctly and have used the settings that many seem to recommend on this forum.

the problem is this:

after i rip my cd, i can't file my newly encoded mp3's, only wav's - even though i've selected somewhere to "delete wav after compression", the black window pops up and the status shows: "copy track, reading track, compress track by external program, and audio extraction complete." it all looks like it's copied alright, then encoded to mp3, but i can't find any mp3's, only wavs.

i read on the eac faq's that there's a setting (within wav editor options maybe?) to make some sort of change to wav settings and select mp3, but that window is all grayed out.

can anyone point me in the right direction?

thank you!!

When the black DOS window pops-up, it should show progress during the MP3 compression. I forget exactly what it shows you, but you should see it "doing something" for several seconds (for one song).

I found this on the EAC FAQ:

Q: I use the Fraunhofer Codec or an encoder DLL (in this case LAME) to compress to MP3, but the resulting File has the file extension “.wav”. What is wrong?

A: EAC will write WAVs when using codecs (EAC emulates a codec for the MP3 DLLs). This has the advantage that it will play with any media player, when any version of the Fraunhofer codec is installed (even the free one, called “advanced”). If you want “pure” MP3 files (without the WAV header in front of it), just select the option “Do not write WAV header” and specify the appropriate file extension below (”.mp3″).

This sounds like it might be the issue I'm having but the Waveform window (EAC/Compression Options/Waveform) is greyed out.

If anyone can tell me how I can access this window, I'd be mighty grateful.

Looks like your taking a wrong turn here. You really, really just need to take your time. Myself, I went through a few guides before I got it right.
1. Make sure your getting the right lame bundle from the right place, for windows: lame 3.98.2 from RareWares
Extract that bundle to a new sub folder in Program Files. Then your going to tell EAC about the lame.exe in that new sub folder, not the lame_enc.dll.
2. Use this guide: EAC Configuration Start at to top of the list and go step by step.
Stop after finishing the WAV Editor Options, you shouldn't need to do the EAC Configuration Wizard being you just did everything.
3. From the sub guide here's the ID3v1 and ID3v2 tagging string: -V2 --add-id3v2 --pad-id3v2 --ta "%a" --tt "%t" --tg "%m" --tl "%g" --ty "%y" --tn "%n" %s %d
This will make a much better turn. Me think.

IMO, this is unnecessary complication.

-V2 %s %d

and allowing EAC to tag is by far the simplest solution.

My recommendation to the OP: please include a log file and screen shots of the EAC external compression options in order to help us help you.

I was going to recommend the same thing greynol. I have always used EAC for tagging purposes when ripping to Lame mp3 files. It is just easier to let EAC worry about the tags. I haven't come across any issues with compatibility (I think it uses v2.3 now) or missing information. I think it is easier for new users to just let EAC do the tagging. Not only does it drastically shorten the command line but it is one less thing to worry about.

It sounds like the OP hasn't setup EAC for Lame encoding and is either using a built-in encoder or doesn't have an external encoder setup. The guide that marcusm linked to should really help, there are also plenty of other free guides out there that can easily be found by conducting a Google search.

Either way, unless you (dead zone) can't figure out what is wrong, you will have to post up logs and screen shots of EAC if you want us to further help you.

thanks for everybody's help!

i was pretty close, i think i put in a lower case v into the code, when i should have capitalized the V!