Or better yet, a program like Total Recorder.

An image is quicker because you don't have to listen to the audio in realtime. Just burn to an image as if you where burning to a CD and then rip back from the image as mp3. Both operations are only limited by your CPU/hard drive speed. Of course you still lose quality due to the re-compression.

-Mike

Edit: I should clarify that I haven't actually done this, I have been told that it works with Apple's protected music files using Toast to create the disk image.