Aye, a lot of good information here.
To chip in regarding EAC vs CDex, they both do some pretty advanced things to minimize jitter, etc, but EAC has what is called "Secure Mode"* where it reads each part of a CD at least twice and compares the result-- if it doesn't get the same both times, it carefully reads that part over and over to get the correct result. If that fails, it'll tell you. I find it a bit slower than other rippers because of this, but it's worth the peace of mind to me.
There are a few more features of EAC that I don't believe CDex has, but that's the major one.
*I'm almost sure that CDex doesn't do this, and I checked the webpage, but it's quite possible that I'm wrong.
Regarding VBR vs constant bitrate, I agree with NH that there's no quality gain from going VBR over just going 320k. However, for, say, a 192k file, VBR will be hugely better. Another way to look at the debate is "constant bitrate is variable quality, variable bitrate is constant quality". VBR got a bad reputation because of some early bugs in MP3 encoders and players, but all that's over now. It's good stuff, especially LAME's implimentation.
Reply to Bren following soon.
