Tom, for the ripper, I've heard nothing but good things about EAC. A lot has been said about it at the 6moons.com site, they consider it the best. I think it is listed in their "Blue Moon Award" section. You are way ahead of me on the options of format, I'm just looking into bitrates.

I am trying to learn about this from my 16 year old grand daughter who just flies through this high tech stuff like it was childs play. Go figure...

"Never, never, never give up "... Winston Churchill