Having fitted an MP3 head unit I need to convert some CD's.

Whats the fastest way of doing this ?

Windows Media Player will do it.

I swear by CDEx, it's small fast and best of all FREE. Get it here

clicky

If you need more bells and whistles another great CD ripper is dbPowerAmp and you can get that here

clicky

I've tried iTunes and it takes 1-2mins per track. Is that about right ? I was expecting it to do a whole CD in about 5 mins !

So far the best option I've found is Windows Media Player and ripping as variable WMA's.

I also use WMP.

CDex is probably your best choice for speed and convenience. The speed of ripping is dependent on the read speed of the CD/DVD drive and for compressing to mp3, this is dependent on your computer's processor. It will also depend on how clean and scratch-less your CD is.

I hear Audiograbber is good for this

I've tried iTunes and it takes 1-2mins per track. Is that about right ? I was expecting it to do a whole CD in about 5 mins !

So far the best option I've found is Windows Media Player and ripping as variable WMA's.

hopefully your headunit will play variable rate WMA's

car stereo's aren't as universal as computers mate, some will only play a limited selection of file types.

I've found that variable WMA's are the best way to do it. Nice and easy to create and auto-title etc. from Media Player.

Still experimenting to see how low quality I can get away with and not loose quality, also faffing aroudn with the order in which to write Album, Artist and Track details to get them on the hea dunit display correctly