Phile Audio has been ripping my classical CDs for the last several weeks. PA automates much of the process, offers simultaneous reads from multiple drives, and has a relatively simple user interface.
I'm using an array of 8 USB CD-ROM drives, which PA can read simultaneously. Simultaneous reads allow a faster drive or small disk to complete while a slower drive is still working. Ripping at 24X takes about 2-3 minutes per CD. 8 drives would keep me busy full-time!
Before reading, PA presents the meta-tags for editing and album cover art options for selection. PA references either freeDB or the iTunes database with a button click. Being able to quickly switch between these can be handy.
Various import options are available - I'm using Apple lossless with an automatic import into the iTunes file system. FLAC and Ogg are available, but, of course, can't auto-import these into iTunes.
So, Pros: manages an array of USB drives well. Reasonably simple interface. Provides reasonable free database options for metatags, works well with iTunes.
Complaints - a bit too much clicking. It's a welcome change from iTunes to see the metatags before the import; cover art has to be manually selected. A default cover would be preferable.
Bulk editing of metatags would be helpful. Why can't composer = Beethoven be specified for a whole CD full of tracks, rather than one track at a time? (For that matter, why don't the online databases figured out who the composer is?). PA does allow setting of 'Grouping' and 'Comments' on all tracks.
An occasional crash has unfortunately happened, custom CDs and errors in configuring the USB ports seem to be the source in my system.
I have some experience with XLD, a great piece of software. It has more settings for error correction and alternate databases, but is somewhat less user friendly. I have not figured out how to get XLD to open a batch of CDs, which PA does automatically.
The directory structure options are a bit restrictive when creating a folder structure from metatags. I import directly into the iTunes media>Music folder, and in XLD would use a structure like:
'%c/%a/%T/%t' = composer/artist/AlbumTitle/trackname,
storing all my Beethoven in the Beethoven folder. PA does not offer a composer option in its metatag based folder structure, so I'm using:
'%G/%P/%B/%R/%D/%Z %T %A.%X' = Genre/Grouping/AlbumName/AlbumArtist/DiscNumber/TrackNumber TrackName TrackArtist.FileExtension' and paste composer into the 'Grouping' metatag.
Overall pretty good results. My one suggestion is to experiment to make sure the results are correct, before engaging in ripping an entire catalog.
