I haven't piped in before because I haven't been willing to invest the time in troubleshooting this issue. However, I've found MC11 so slow at ripping that I've actually been using other programs for that purpose for the first time since . . . before I found MJ8? MC10 ripped/encoded at, say, 7x at least, and usually much higher. Since using MC11, my ripping/encoding speed rarely reaches 1x. A couple of weeks ago, before this thread was opened, I tried ininstalling/reinstalling MC, adjusting settings (such as the simultaneous rip and encode and analyze audio during ripping), but there was no speed inprovement. On the other hand, WMP, MusicMatch,EAC,Roxio, etc, all had normal ripping speeds. None of those programs had been installed for quite a while now, but now I keep one installed just for ripping/encoding purposes. Actually, like so many minor problems in MC, I really just assumed that you'd discover it on your own and fix it without much ado.
With all programs, I was encoding to mp3, cbr, 320 kbs/sec. So, it seems that the issue may be the particular LAME version, and not MC itself. Later, I'll try a different version of LAME in MC. I suppose that I wasn't all that concerned, as encoding with ape worked fine, and I'll be going ape again when I get a new HD (have to replace an elderly and ill drive).
Media Center Registered 11.0.118 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 11\
Microsoft Windows XP Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Intel Pentium 4 1771 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 523 MB, Free - 230 MB
Internet Explorer: 6.0.2900.2180 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2900.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158) / Shell32.dll: 6.00.2900.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158) / wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping / Drive E: Mode:Normal Type:Auto Speed:Max
Digital playback: Yes / Use YADB: Yes / Get cover art: Yes / Calc replay gain: No / Copy volume: 32767
Eject after ripping: Yes / Play sound after ripping: No
Burning / Drive E: SAMSUNG CD-R/RW SW-252B Addr: 1:0:0 Speed:80 MaxSpeed:356 BurnProof:Yes
Test mode: No / Eject after writing: Yes / Direct decoding: No / Write CD-Text: Yes
Use playback settings: No / Normalization: None