[Five]

Originally Posted by Andy L

Hmmm... I never play the original CDs, I just rip them once then store them away. I used to convert all my CDs to LAME alt-preset-standard MP3s, but when I discovered lossless, I re-ripped and re-encoded my favourite albums in APE format. I doubt very much I could tell the difference in an ABX test (I've never tried), but... I dunno, it just makes me feel better to know that I'm listening to an exact copy of the music on the original CD. That's just placebo though. It helps when you have 400GB of storage available, but even that's going to be limiting me soon!

I rip a couple of my favorite commercial cds to APE and keep them on my drive. After a while I delete them and rip a couple different ones. The reason for this is because of the cpu drain my CD drive causes. I can tell the difference in an a/b test most times, especially with headphones. But mostly I just want to pleasure my ears as much as possible. I went to the coffee shop on my way home today and they were playing Rush YYZ thru their piece of shit donut shop speakers and I enjoyed it tremendously. But whenever I can, I'll take the high road (as in high sound quality).