I am soon to embark on a massive ripping and encoding crusade of my CD collection, and I understand the technology pretty well, and I think that VBR is the way to go, but I am interested to hear what fellow Empeg users prefer for such a task. Is LAME the best? I prefer something that is GUI based on a WinXP system. Is there a tool available that will also add the artist/track, etc. information via CDDB?

I have both a Plextor CD-ROM and CD-R drive, as they are praised for their extraction capabilities. I just need some advice as to the best software tool for the job. It doesn't have to be free (although that would be nice!)

I have heard some unsavory things about MusicMatch (ads, spyware, etc.) so I am not too keen on it.

Thanks,

Rob