[GRASSLIST:3984] How to import SDTS DEM into GRASS?

[Steve Kimball]

There seems to be two ways to import USGS SDTS DEM data in to GRASS:

1) Detailed on the FAQ
    
http://www.geog.uni-hannover.de/grass/faq/importing_usgs_7_5min.html
  This uses a stds2arc utility to convert to ascii and then uses
r.in.ascii
  The stds2arc utility reads in all the DDF files for a 7.5min DEM,
which is nice.
  The it creates a single xxx.grd file.

2) Use r.in.gdal command on the *.ddf files.
   There are several DDF files, so is r.in.gdal run multiple times?
   Do you still still need to run r.in.ascii as the above FAQ suggests?

Which approach is easier?
Which works with GRASS5?

Any clues would be appreciated.

Steve Kimball