I have got the smart computer but What is the best way to import CDs?
Although I can't stand iTunes, importing a CD is pretty easy, just pop in the CD and hit the import button and away it goes, creating a folder and importing the music, titles and all. Is there a way in MM to import music as easy as this? (I would LOVE to completely uninstall iTunes all together.)
How about Windows Media Player?
This free digital music management software allows you to copy the music off of your audio CDs and onto your computer’s hard drive ..
For best 'quality' make sure media player etc is set to import in a lossless format e.g. .WAV, .WMA. A compressing format such as MP3 is good but the compression will reduce quality.
Allow me to recommend my personal favorite program. CDEX.
It is about the simplest interface that you are likely to come by. Once you have set the options that you like, ripping can be done with only a couple of mouse clicks. Also, you can save the files to nearly any format that you like.
For lossless encoding, WAV is good if you have the hard drive space or you can rip to FLAC for a somewhat smaller size. For compressed encoding, MP3 will play back on almost any hardware/software or you can rip to OGGvorbis for greatly improved sound quality (but then you have to have a program and/or a music player that can use that format.
You will lose some quality whenever you convert from CD to MP3, but you can create very high-quality MP3s by importing them at a high bit rate. The higher your bit rate, the closer to CD quality you get. It also means, though, that the songs will take up more space on your iPod, so there is a trade-off on quality and quantity.