"Diesel" wrote in message
...
"dadiOH" Sat, 24
Sep 2016 20:44:29 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

wrote in message
...
I have a few CDs that are "touchy". In the car CD player they
might
"skip" or error. But on my computer they play fine. I'd like to
save them as MP3 songs before they get worse.

Windows Media Player 9.x (for XP) has an option to save them as
.wma files (which is Windiws Media Player's own format). But I
dont want to be locked into WMP.

I want them to be converted to a standard format (MP3).
What FREE software can I use for this? (Must be compatible with
Windows XP.)

CDex
http://cdex.mu/features

Audiograbber
http://www.audiograbber.org/

Audiograbber might be a bit more user friendly for you.
-----------------------------------

The process is called "ripping". You need to specify a bit rate
when doing so, it determines the degree of compression. I would
suggest 128 kbps for you as it results in files which are a bit
more that 1/12 the size of the song on the CD; it also provides
decent sound.

I have to respectfully disagree with you. 128 kbps sounds like ****
compared to VBR anyday of the week. The VBR results in slightly
larger mp3s, but, still much smaller than the original source .wav
they were generated from.

VBR can certainly effect an improvement depending on the target bit rate.
Same for ABR. Joint stereo can improve too.
------------------------------

You can hear a big difference for yourself in the quality. Also,
neither of the apps you suggested offer secure mode rip as EAC does.
Without that, you can't guarantee the rip to be dependable.

The only ripper I have ever used/heard that consistently did a bad job was
Audiocatalyst.