Andy, that's a good point that you bring up. I forgot the mention that the reason that everyone goes nuts over EAC is because it is supposedly the only program that can gaurentee perfect rips. It really does a good job with CD's that have been in a car (the load mechanisms on most car CD players do hell to CD's) and older CD that have been shuffled around a lot. I've even had a few brand new CD's that have triggered EAC's error correction due to less than perfect pressing.

I used AudioGrabber too and like it. I was having a few damaged CD's that weren't ripping correctly, so that's why I went to EAC. That was after paying the $20 bucks or so. (EAC is free, as is Lame).

On the subject of damaged CD's, I highly recommend the "Skip Dr." device. It buffs a small layer of the plastic away on damaged CD's (much like you can buff scratches out of a car's paint). I've had great results with it. The $30 I spent on it saved about 50 CD's so far.