Ripping audio CDs has several advantages. This practice helps preserve the original discs from scratches, eliminates the need of a CD reader and, most importantly, makes the songs playable on portable devices, such as smartphones and USB players.
It’s a misfortune that the program’s default interface is rather unattractive. In my opinion, its grayish colors and the boring use of the typeface don´t go with the overall purpose of the application, which is closely related to entertainment. Luckily, you can make the program look a little better by changing the skin.
The tool supports various audio output formats, such as WMA, MP3, OGG, VQF, FLAC, APE and WAV, and you can set the desired quality parameters depending on the chosen format. Besides, it can normalize volume as part of the ripping process. One of the main conveniences of this application is its support of ID3 tags, and more than that, it can connect to an online database (Freedb) and download the info needed to fill them automatically using preset rules.
In general, FairStars CD Ripper is not very different from other programs with the same purpose. When tested, the application ripped a music CD without any difficulty whatsoever even when I had chosen the maximum ripping speed, something that is likely to cause more reading errors.
Pros
- It is easy to use
- It supports various audio formats
- It can fill ID3 tags automatically
Cons
- Unattractive interface