This program has been discontinued by the software developer

Developer: Softuarium
OS: Win 95/98/NT/2000
Installed Size:  1.71MB
Function: Ripping, Encoding, Decoding

N-Koder by Softuarium

From the makers of YAMP comes a new streamlined MP3 WAV converter.  N-Koder incorporates Go-Go NoCoda (based on the LAME encoder) for converting to MP3, akrip for ripping, and mpegdll for decoding, all solid programs.  The encoding is pretty quick at 128kbps and produces nice sounding MP3s.  Encoding at high VBR setting (which LAME excels at) produced excellent sounding MP3s but the encoding process was slow due to LAME's limitations on speed at this quality.  The speed decrease is worth it though if you are going to keep the files around awhile and will be listening to them regularly.  The ripper could be faster but the result was an accurate copy in my tests.  Softuarium graciously replied to my inquiry about this and emphasized the need for quality over speed.  N-Koder features jitter and error correction to help ensure a quality rip even if a CD is scratched a bit or the CD-Rom drive isn't the best.  I found the decoding speed to be average and produced an accurate file to my ears. 

 N-Koder also has some other cool features like email file encryption and decryption, normalizing, resampling, and ID3 tagger.  You can also customize the program to interact with other tools on your desktop including your favorite MP3 player.  Check out the nice "Help" section in the program that will walk you through all the main features.  You can use the free trial 100 times before you need to register.