Ripping slow with iTunes-LAME

[Michi Henning]

I'm running 2.0.9 (34) on a Mac Pro with eight cores. When ripping
CDs, the best speed I get is around 5.5x.
(This for VBR: -v -V 0 -b 160 -h --multi)

On my ancient Windows machine with a single core and 1.8GHz Athlon
Barton core, I achieved 13.5x routinely.

I've checked that this isn't cause by the Mac's SuperDrive--if I copy
a CD image to disk and then rip from the image, it is slow as well.

My CPU meter shows that iTunes-LAME uses only a single core, and that
core is only 60% busy, so I'm ripping with roughly half a CPU.

I'd appreciate it if anyone has any suggestions as to how to speed
things up.

Thanks,

Michi.