There are a few things you will need to download first:

Exact Audio Copy (EAC): http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/
This is the recommended grabber because of its ability to do secure mode audio ripping which prevents skips/glitches/errors.
Lame: http://www.rarewares.org/files/mp3/lame-3.90.3modified.zip
It's considered to be the current stable compile of LAME. Its has quality tweaks for the presets and has been rigorously tested. Its also safely tuned for speed.
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The mp3 scene has, fairly, recently shifted from a CBR standard to a VBR standard. Now what is this CBR and VBR nonsene I hear you ask.

VBR stands for Variable bitrate. In this encoding mode, you choose the desired quality on a scale from 9 to 0. Then encoder tries to maintain the given quality in the whole file by choosing the optimal number of bits to spend for each part of your music based on the sample complexity. More bits to the most complex samples and less bit rate for the less complex. This allows the quality of the mp3 file to remain constant. There are no wasted bits here for example when there is complete silence the bit rate is at its lowest and when an orchestra and percussion come into full affect the bit will adjust upward.

This encode mode is different from what most people are used to i.e. CBR (Constant Bitrate) the previous scene standard. The bitrate will be the same for the whole file in CBR mode. This means that each part of your mp3 file will be using the same number of bits no matter what. Whether the music sample is a difficult one to encode or an easy one, the encoder will use the same bitrate, so the quality of your mp3 is variable. Complex parts will be of a lower quality than the easiest ones. The easier parts (like pure silence) will get too much bitrate conversely which is simply wasted space.

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Now that you understand what VBR mp3s are I will tell you the correct method of encoding them from a CD to ensure the best possible quality.

Ripping and Encoding Using EAC

Hit F11 or go to menu EAC > Compression Options > External Compression tab
Check 'use external program for compression' and the parameter passing scheme to be: 'User Defined Encode"

Set the path to where you saved the extracted lame.exe, on your hard drive. (I put mine in EAC folder, yours will be different probably).

Additional command line options put in: --alt-preset standard for vbr encoding.

Basically this will point EAC to your lame.exe (version 3.90.3 of course) and use --alt-preset standard as the command line. where the % point to the respective file names for EAC's use.

NOTES: on the options at the bottom.

-Setting the bit rate from this drop down menu is moot because that is always taken care of by whatever preset you choose i.e. We are using VBR so it wont matter what its set on.

-Delete WAV is optional (after it encodes a track it will delete the ripped wav and moves to the next)

-Use CRC CHECK is NOT recommend.

-Add id tag is optional

-Picking high or low quality wont matter what its set to because again this is all taken care of via the presets

Once you set this up you will never need to touch it again.

Then go back to the main screen highlight all the tracks and hit the mp3 button on the left side. Select a save to location and let it go. This will have EAC rip a track's wav then pass it onto lame.exe (a dos window will open during encoding) then move to the track next.