The most ridiculous argument for praising a CD ripping application has got to be “It’s the best because it’s fast!”. Seriously, what a load of bullsh*t.
I’ve had this mentioned to me more than a few times. Not surprisingly mostly by Windows/Itunes users who think it’s important that your CD’s are ripped and encoded in a minimal amount of time. And who seem to think they’ve finally found the ultimate argument for dismissing Linux’s performance (Yeah … right…).
So no, it doesn’t have to rip and encode fast, it has to rip and encode well. Unless you like ending up with squeaking and scratching background noises on your .mp3’s or .ogg’s. Besides, how often do you rip a CD that speed is all of a sudden the most important aspect?
Luckily for us Linux users, most linux CD rippers do an excellent job. In the past, I’ve used several different applications, like Grip, K3b, and Sound Juicer, and they all provided me with .mp3 or .ogg files of sufficient quality.
However, there is one that outperforms them all, and that’s Rubyripper.
