My personal pref is loss-less flac encoding using Exact Audio Copy. EAC does verification on your rips to make sure your getting the best possible from your CD's. Flac is supported via many players (mediamonkey, winamp, J Rivers, Foobar2000, and some portable players). I am currently playing all of my flacs using J Rivers with a M2Tech EVO and must say it sounds very good.
My EAC settings: -6 -V -T "ARTIST=%a" -T "TITLE=%t" -T "ALBUM=%g" -T "DATE=%y" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%n" -T "GENRE=%m" -T "Album Artist=%a" -T "AlbumArtist=%a" -T "BAND=%a" %j--picture="%i"%j %s -o %d
Yes, I know some of the meta tags are redundant, but it makes the flacs compatible with more players. Also be sure to uncheck the add ID3 tag option if you EAC. There is tons more information on the setup at http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/
Good luck!
My EAC settings: -6 -V -T "ARTIST=%a" -T "TITLE=%t" -T "ALBUM=%g" -T "DATE=%y" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%n" -T "GENRE=%m" -T "Album Artist=%a" -T "AlbumArtist=%a" -T "BAND=%a" %j--picture="%i"%j %s -o %d
Yes, I know some of the meta tags are redundant, but it makes the flacs compatible with more players. Also be sure to uncheck the add ID3 tag option if you EAC. There is tons more information on the setup at http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/
Good luck!