1. Why use Max Audio Converter?
2. How to use Max (Free) extract high-quality from compact discs or files on Mac?

Two of the most prominent free audio converters for Mac are Max and XLD. Let's go with Max.

Max is one of the more popular CD-ripping utilities for Mac. In addition to that, it is also a pretty decent audio converter. It supports all of the popular codecs (FLAC, APE, AAC etc.) and about thirty more.

Max is an application for creating high-quality audio files in various formats, from compact discs or files.

When extracting audio from compact discs, Max offers the maximum in flexibility to ensure the true sound of your CD is faithfully extracted. For pristine discs, Max offers a high-speed ripper with no error correction. For damaged discs, Max can either use its built-in comparison ripper (for drives that cache audio) or the error-correcting power of cdparanoia.

Once the audio is extracted, Max can generate audio in over 20 compressed and uncompressed formats including MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, AAC, Apple Lossless, Monkey's Audio, WavPack, Speex, AIFF, and WAVE.

If you would like to convert your audio from one format to another, Max can read and write audio files in over 20 compressed and uncompressed formats at almost all sample rates and and in most sample sizes. For many popular formats the artist and album metadata is transferred seamlessly between the old and new files. Max can even split a single audio file into multiple tracks using a cue sheet.

Because of that, setting up the output format is pretty confusing. It is so highly configurable that it has several OGG, MPEG4 and AAC output formats; and plenty more formats which I've not heard of.

Tips:
How to extract audio from DVD to MP3, AAC on Mac?
How to extract audio from videos (MP4, AVI, MKV, MOV, etc.) on Mac?

Requirements:
Max requires Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) or later.
You can download Max from: http://sbooth.org/Max/#download, Install it by double-clicking it, then double-click the Mac icon in the folder.

You may choose one or several output formats but beware, if you select more than one, there isn't a prompt selection window just before decoding. Max will decode the files in all the formats selected resulting in one file but with several different formats!

It provides you with the option to edit filenames before decoding them, along with customization of ID3 tags and album art via Amazon Album Art downloader.

Max utilizes multi-core processing and it will decode/convert two songs at the same time, speeding up the process for those who can't wait to listen to their spanking new songs. And again, bringing XLD to shame, Max allows me to cancel a batch convert with a single click.

If you have questions, you can go to max forum for help.