I would have posted this with Chris's blog re his appearance on TWIT Home Theatre Geeks but couldn't find it so am blogging here. I guess it is appropriate because it does illustrate my journey into computer music.

I have always tried to listen with good HiFi equipment but I (& especially my wife) could not justify hi end prices. Anyway I got sick of spending hours (slight exaggeration!?) looking for the perfect CD amongst our collection during a party. Took ages and killed the moment.

OK I'll rip them to iTunes. After googling the best sample rate to disc storage, started medium. Sounded awful. Ok do best mpeg 250K. Sounds ok but my wife, not "a trained listener as per Scott Wilkinson in Chris's TWIT appearance" noted that sounds flat. OK re ripped lossless, sounds great and now no need for CD player.

To Chris it is not just trained listeners who can tell the difference with MPEG3 but my "untrained wife" noted it immediately through a quarter decent system..