Dave, I think you might still be happier using EAC for the ripping. My understanding of the technology is that EAC is meticulous about reading and rereading as necessary to get every bit of the WAV file correctly. Other, single pass, rippers may interpolate or skip altogether parts of a CD they have trouble reading, so the WAV file may or may not be an wxact copy of the original. If EAC can't create an exact duplicate it at least gives you a report showing exactly what problems it had and where in the file.

Having the WAV file as accurate as possible is critical for encoding to other formats, including mp3.