"Colin B." wrote in message
...
Geoff@work wrote:

"Bill" wrote in message
ups.com...
I could use some advice.

I am a semi-audiophile with a decent stereo system that is
getting long in the tooth. I am considering going digital,
i.e., ripping my CDs to either a PC-based or an integrated
stand alone "music manager". I would be interested in opinions on
the following.

In which case you are nowhere near an audiphile.

Ah, yes. Computers are the tool of the devil and lo-fi reproduction.

No, but mp3, wma, and cronies are.


That's just silly, without some context. If he rips to FLAC or even
uncompressed WAV format, then the only difference before the sound card is
likely due to flaws in the reading of the CD, in the standalone player.

And what do you think the chances of that being the scenario are ? The
common conception is that higher rate lossy encoding (if the user
differentiates between rates at all) is 'CD Quality'.

It's only when it gets encoded to a LOSSY format (mp3 - yuck!) that it
fails
to be as good as or better than the original CD.

I don't have a problem with that reasoning. Just that ain't the way close to
100% of people persuing this route of musical satisfaction think.

geoff