If I had the iRiver player, i'd install the Rockbox mod (free firmware mod) that allowes playback of FLAC Lossless files. I'd use EAC to rip all of my music to FLAC (Gapless playback as well).
Too bad i dont have the iRiver... or an iPod (also has a version of rockbox for it). I do, however use EAC to rip all of my music to .APE (Monkey's Audio Lossless) format and use Foobar2000 to play them.
Orrrr you can just use EAC to rip a cd to one file like was stated before.
