Can somebody kindly point me in the direction of a decent audio converter that I can use to rip directly from a CD to a 24 bit WAV or FLAC file?
It would be greatly appreciated. I was using Winamp for a little while but shortly after I realized that it was only ripping to 16 bit it decided to stop working.
It was fate.
Now I must find a decent CD ripping software that can give me good quality.
Even if I have to pay for it.
CDs are 16-bit no matter what so you’re going to have to up-convert to 24-bit, regardless. I use Sound Forge for CD extraction when I need to save something in a different format, bit depth, or sample rate.
EAC will give you the most perfect rips.
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/
And here is where you can check out a ripping guide:
http://blowfish.be/eac/
Also you can try theis great free app called “Audio Grabber” but Sound Forge or Adobe Audition are prettty good if you have the cash… Worth the investment too if you havnt already for your production 
_o0m
MediaMonkey can rip and burn cds in a lot of formats, also is a great alternative to Itunes or Winamp