I have some CDs that are . . . uhhh . . . 30 years old. I last touched many of these CDs 10 years ago when I ripped them with iTunes to put on my first iPod. A couple years ago, I invested in dBpoweramp to deal with an imported CD that had one track I just couldn't rip with iTunes. Last year, I began to (very) slowly re-rip my CD collection to FLAC for use with the hard drive attached to an OPPO univeral media player in the living room. I also convert the FLAC files using dBpoweramp's audio converter to Apple Lossless (ALAC) format for use with iTunes. Both file types are a pretty big upgrade from the 128- and even 256- bit AAC rips of years gone by.
Today, acting on one of my New Year's resolutions, I picked up the pace of the re-ripping project. I was determined to get through at least a quarter of my classical CD collection. One short-cut, for the Apple side of the house, is to rip the CDs on both the Mac and PC. However, I ran into an entire CD that I couldn't rip with iTunes. That is where dBpoweramp is really saving the day; and, while It is taking some time, it looks like I am going to get all the tracks off this failed/failing CD. We'll see . . .
LATER: Yep. It worked!