I sm tired of Apple Music/iTunes not able to correctly import my cd’s and really only want to play them in Audirvana anyway. I have XLD but it’s not grabbing the artwork sometimes. Is there another Mac app that can rip my purchased cd’s into Flac files for playing in Audirvana?
Sure, you can buy dBpoweramp, but don’t forsake freeware XLD because of the cover art issue. I have ripped at least a thousand CD’s, and have downloaded high-quality art for nearly all of them from albumartexchange.com. Google Images and Discogs are also good resources to find album art.
I also use XLD and I’m very happy with it. Sure, ever now and then it misses the cover art or doesn’t recognise the CD, but it’s pretty good. There are many sites from where to fetch the missing cover art or metadata. You can always take a picture of the CD booklet and crop it as desired.
Very much appreciate all the responses. I’ve got XLD and like it. Have used DBPoweramp before but it used to be a bit pricey for ripper. Question: I know how to get artwork but where do I add them? Audirvana?
Oh, and what is easiest way to clear out current Audirvana library to start new clean one.
In XLD. Just right click on the image placeholder and select the image.
To erase Audirvana library and create a new one: In the Finder, hold the option key, and pull down the Go menu. Select Library to open the hidden user Library folder. Select and delete the Audirvana folder. Next time you open Audirvana, it will ask you to create a new library, and replace the trashed folder.
Question re bit rate and sample rate. i just ripped a cd using Xld told it to use defults and using my Superdrive. I did set the output file type to Aiff. They still ripped at 16/24. It the highest XLD would do is 24/96. Will tun it again with 24/96. Since my Schiit Modi 3 dac will do up to 191kz sampling do i need to b using a better drive to read the cd or it a limitation of any cd at 16/44?
Hi Randy. Ordinary CDs only have 16/44.1 data on them, (16 bit, 44.1kHz) so there is no way to rip data off at higher formats. Note also that 16/44.1 can contain all the information that humans can hear (refer to 24/192 Music Downloads are Very Silly Indeed to learn why higher resolutions are a scam). Your Schitt it will probably run at 24/44.1 but that will make no difference to the sound. Since the Schitt is a good DAC (I use a Schitt Bifrost “Uber”) I recommend no upsampling at all. Stick to exactly 44.1 and not 96, since that is likely to resample and lose information. Enjoy your Cds—if they are good recordings they will have the best music you can expect. 
P.S. I never could get my superdrive to read audio Cds properly. I switched to a cheaper LG portable DVD drive which reads them perfectly. I suspect this is part of Apple’s push to get us to buy music from them, or my drive might just have been a dud. In any case it gave me many frustrating hours till I worked out what was going on.
Thanks for the detailed and informative info. I do like the Schiit products. Someday will upgrade to higher models but the Modi 3 at the 99.00 price can’t be beat. I can stream higher res on some music via services like Amazon Music or Qobuz, but you’re right doubt I can hear higher.
You’re welcome. If you use headphones I recommend adding a Schiit LOKI graphic equalizer to your stack of Schiit. It let me avoid bying new headphones, allowing me to ‘shape’ the sound signature to cover their flaws instead.
As others have mentioned, there’s no point ripping a CD higher than 16-44.1. You’ll actually degrade the sound if you go higher because the software will be forced to resample it. If you rip it at 16-44.1 though, you are getting an exact copy of the CD audio.
BTW, I’ve used XLD to rip hundreds of discs. For artwork, I simply do a google image search and literally drag the desired image into the XLD window before ripping.
I use SuperDrive to rip CDs and I don’t have any issues. Your drive must be faulty.
Good to know, thanks Bitracer. My superdrive ‘seemed’ to be reading the disks properly but the results were poor—it was losing out on the data somewhere. If one was faulty there are probably others.
What was AccurateRip reporting?
If you need to edit the metadata or add album art, Yate is very handy on the Mac: https://2manyrobots.com/yate/
I’d never heard of AccurateRip till now, so no idea sorry. My ears were all I needed to know it was off. These days I’m using Tidal so I’ve not done any ripping for a while. I wonder if they use it.
When you RIP the CD using XLD it’s validated using generated checksum against other results generated by users that also ripped the same CD. It gives you a reliable feedback if the CD was ripped bit-perfectly.