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I'm searching for an audio converter for mac with wide capabilities. It should be able to:

  1. Convert to flac (not from flac)
  2. Split cue files into separate tracks
  3. Grab audio CDs
  4. Edit ID3-tags in batch mode

Ability to convert different audio formats to MP3 and ALAC would be a big plus :)

If there is no such ultimate tool, could you please provide links to some separate tools that have the different functionalities listed above.

Thanks in advance!

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4 Answers 4

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My favorite converter is XLD. It converts to flac, splits cue files, it supports metadata correction (using CDDB), and embeds album artwork. It is the closest I could find to dBpoweramp.

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    Another XLD user here. Simple, effective. Here's a link to download it.
    – Ian C.
    Commented Jan 31, 2011 at 2:41
  • For having everything in a single tool, I would suggest XLD too. Just don't use CDDB for metadata correction. CDDB is a mess and is only better than no metadata. For proper metadata use MusicBrainz, which is also supported by XLD.
    – lpacheco
    Commented Jan 31, 2011 at 9:29
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    Does the XLD comes with a nice GUI?
    – Johan Karlsson
    Commented Feb 1, 2012 at 13:21
  • I have no idea how to make XLD work since it has no GUI. Same seems to be the case for Johan... Shame when someone has a good idea for an application, that thousands of users could need to use, but doesn't release it with a GUI thus making it unusable for 95% of potential users.
    – MicroMachine
    Commented Sep 25, 2015 at 1:58
  • It you download the disk image (.dmg), the main included application is a GUI, not a command line tool. The app's homepage is deceiving.
    – Jonathan Berger
    Commented Jun 7, 2018 at 15:50
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I use Max converter It can converts to many format but have some cons too :(

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  • What are the cons you speak of? I have 0 problems with Max so far.
    – Jason Salaz
    Commented Jan 31, 2011 at 8:42
  • @VxJasonxV I can't convert some of my audio file that have .wma extension.
    – Am1rr3zA
    Commented Jan 31, 2011 at 8:44
  • That's pretty strange, and quite a big con. Not entirely sure what to say about that, I haven't had a problem with anything yet (except DRM'ed/protected audio files).
    – Jason Salaz
    Commented Jan 31, 2011 at 8:46
  • I vote for Max also. Lately, I've been using SBooth's Rip to rip the CD's to CUE+FLAC and SBooth's Max to convert the FLAC into individual MP3 files. The only con I see is lack of update.
    – lpacheco
    Commented Jan 31, 2011 at 9:32
  • I've tried Max to split a CUE file, but it didn't work. Is this something you Max users have done with Max and can you confirm it can be done? I am not talking about converting from FLAC to MP3 but splitting FLAC to several files it contains. If possible please help me find out how... Thanks
    – MicroMachine
    Commented Sep 25, 2015 at 2:09
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My suggestion is the same presented here previously, but I use them for different things.

Both Rip and XLD are good rippers for Mac. They support AccurateRip and use MusicBrainz for metadata, so you get certified rips with good tags.

I always rip first to FLAC (single FLAC file + CUE) and them convert the rip into individual MP3 files. If I need to rerip, I go for the FLAC file, not the CD.

If I used XLD for both tasks, I would be constantly messing with the configuration, changing from FLAC to MP3, and every now and then would forget and rip to the wrong format. So, I use XLD for the initial rip and Max to convert the FLAC into MP3.

Later I learned about SBooth's Rip and started using it instead of XLD. Rip's advantage is that it adopts a smarter ripping strategy, only resorting to more powerful ripping technique when it finds a problem. So, initially Rip tries to fast rip a CD and match against AccurateRip, if it succeeds it is done otherwise it will try to overrip and else.

So, usually, Rip is a lot faster than XLD and will generate a good rip, but now and then it will rip nothing because the CD has a fatal flaw. For those, I use XLD, that will try a lot harder to make a Rip and produce a file even if it can't rip correctly.

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  • how do you split an single FLAC file into individual MP3s with Max? I am looking for the same for APE+CUE and don't see how to do it.
    – davka
    Commented Oct 18, 2011 at 13:39
  • my mistake - probably invalid cue file or an unsupported tag. Tried another file, worked fine.
    – davka
    Commented Oct 18, 2011 at 14:42
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Max always crashes for me, had it on a few different versions of OS X too but it has a tendency to crash when you select the formats pane in the preferences.

The best fix for this bug that I have found is to trash the files in ~/Library/Application Support/Max then relaunch the application.

Stay away from mediahuman unless you like being infected with adware, it is infected with Nod32, a variant of Win32 /drweb OpenCandy.A/ Adware.OpenCandy.39. It is only adware but the way that it embeds itself deep into the OS X system means that it has root access and could quite easily do a lot more harm.

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