[vhiner]

I've been told I can improve the quality of cd's when ripping them. Would anyone be willing to get together to walk me through this process? I'm as good with computers as I am with cars...which is to say I can fix a flat but don't expect me to change the spark plugs. 

I've lurked on some forums but the steps make my head spin. I believe it involves a program called XLD and Nero. I know I want to make bit perfect rips. Beyond that, I'm lost. Any help and advice will be appreciated...but I'm better at learning in person than by a laundry list of commands.   

[Blackmore]

I understand the XLD part but what does Nero do?  I thought it was pc only?  I use Nero a lot at school on our Windows 7 machine.   How inaccurate is your Mac ripping with error correction enabled?  Seems xld can verify bit accuracy. 

[ptempel]

I've been told I can improve the quality of cd's when ripping them. Would anyone be willing to get together to walk me through this process?  I've lurked on some forums but the steps make my head spin. I believe it involves a program called XLD and Nero. I know I want to make bit perfect rips. Beyond that, I'm lost. Any help and advice will be appreciated...but I'm better at learning in person than by a laundry list of commands.   

Try changing the import settings in iTunes.  Maybe this article can help:

http://www.macworld.com/article/156861/2011/01/howto_rip_cds.html

I'm currently using Apple lossless (ALAC) for the file format.  You will need more space, but its the same quality as the CD since its not lossless compression.  I can also recommend Max:

http://sbooth.org/Max/

to convert from flac to Apple lossless and other formats.  Haven't tried XLD, but looks like it should be able to do the same.  I don't know what your referring to with Nero.  Toast is the popular tool for burning data and other disks on MacOS.  But the built-in finder can do data disks as well.  I just use iTunes playlists to burn audio CDs.

[vhiner]

The Nero would be for burning copies if I ever want to...probably should've left that part out. Stereophile just published an article about ripping cd's and all the forums I read say avoid Apple lossless and go with AIFF and that to get a truly bit perfect rip one needs to use XLD and that there are a multitude of settings to consider..I'm really out of my depth here so please don't flame me. 

I'm not going to a server until later next year but I thought I'd get my feet wet before the nightmare of creating a library, etc.

I also hear PureMusic is the best for streaming.

Thanks for the links.    I'll check them out.

I have a friend in Miami who has a pc system and he says you can get a WIDE range of quality by using various rip methods...ITunes being the worst. I'm abandoning my PC and want to go with an all MAC system.