If you aware of, VLC(Video Lan Client) is one of the coolest media players available today. I recently digged out a way to rip Audio CDs to mp3 format using this cute little app. Honestly speaking, with VLC, you can convert CDA files to almost any audio format available.

This is how you can do it:

1) Insert your CD into the drive and open VLC.
2) Select File > Open File. Browse and select the track from the CD.
In the same window, look for Advanced Options


3) Check the Stream/Save checkbox. Click Settings to open the big settings window.
4) In the Output section, check the File checkbox. Click Browse and select your new file name. Check settings I used.

5) Click OK (OK again) to start the conversion
6) Go back to step 1 for the next track (It is simple. You just have to change the filenames - keep the other settings as it is)

Sorry for the Microsoft style explanation; I am on a windows machine. You can always do all these using shell scripts in Linux, I guess. VLC won’t display any progress untill it finishes with the file. VLC supports conversion with upto 512Kbps stream with a maximum of 5 channels.

Don’t have VLC? Download