FEARANDLOATHINGINNJ,

There are plenty of reasons to maintain a lossless lineage, like jameskg has pointed out. Primarily it is so that the recordings that are being passed around are of high quality - particularly important for audiophiles.

However, if a lineage is required for every version (like SBD > APE) then I dont see why posting both a lossless torrent for the above as well as a lossy version (SBD >APE >MP3) is a bad thing. I know, I know, polluting the pool jameskg shouts. But, if a lineage is required then you guys that care about it, and can tell the difference when listening, can still retain the purity of the lossless version and those of us who cant tell (believe me, I have tried and a high quality mp3 rip is indistinguishable to my ears from the CD I rip it from) can save everyone a ton of bandwidth.

Another issue is disk space, especially with the multi-disk compilations. 4GB downloads that would simply be offlimits to many because of disk space and bandwidth considerations would likely be reduced by 1/4 and become much more manageable and accesible to more people.

FYI, there are other sites that offer both lossy and lossless formats, like archive.org that you may want to frequent along with this great community.

Like I said, dont get me wrong... I understand wanting to preserve a 'virgin' copy. I think its important, lossy formats do suck after multiple re-encodings. But I think that people who dont see the use for other formats are a lot like wine snobs who can only tolerate $200 wines that taste just as bad to me as the $20 bottle I bought at the supermarket.

FEARANDLOATHINGINNJ, if you decide you dont need to keep the FLAC files around for your personal use and want a hand converting them, send me a PM and I would be happy to help.

peace.