Hate you? Don't be silly!

I recommend MusicMatch. You can get the Basic version for free. It rips and encodes in one step and is pretty nice for the price! There is even a MusicMatch employee who posts here from time to time in case you have any questions. The popular solution seems to be a LAME enocoder, but it is not as easy to use. I have way too many cd's to be bothered with a 2 step process like LAME, but the sound you get is great. Many people on this board can help you with LAME. Just do a search on it.

As far as an amp goes, there was a recent thread here ...http://empeg.comms.net/php/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=empeg_general&Number=62596&page=1&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=7&fpart=2#Post63782

Congrats on the new RioCar!