When it comes to CD rippers, however, there are only two programs we recommend – one free, and one premium (but still reasonably priced).Įxact Audio Copy (opens in new tab) is the free option, and it's so good, many audiophiles prefer it to paid-for CD rippers. Usually we’re spoilt for choice when it comes to software, with dozens of programs approaching the same task from different angles. The best free CD ripper for Windows if you have time to invest in the setup

Image cIdit: Andre WiethoffAndre Wiethoff (opens in new tab) 1. These are the CD rippers we’d trust with our own tunes. There aren’t many of these reliable tools around, and you don’t want to use something that would render your favorite music completely unlistenable. You can also encode copies using lossy codecs for playback on devices with limited storage.Ī 'secure' CD ripper ensures audio files are free from errors by reading each sector of the disc several times, and comparing the results with data collected from other users.

While this requires a lot of space, the plummeting price of storage has made it feasible for anyone to keep those files as a backup, and make copies for everyday use. That’s why it’s vital to use a CD ripper that keeps the audio files as close to the original CD as possible, with complete and accurate metadata, encoded in a lossless format (usually Free Lossless Audio Codec, or FLAC). The quality of those ripped files will never be as good as the original discs due to errors when data is read, and compression when it’s encoded. Of course, not all CD rippers are the same.

Simple cd ripper