Posted 04/30/2007 at 09:32:22am

Your test can be misleading. Using a cheap CD-drive to grab music data and make them play via "the finest consumer-level soundcard" as reference is not the real quality-alternative to MP3 listening. CD sound is compressed anyway (in term of dynamics) and represents a 25-year-old digital technology (which at the moment of its birth had its compromisses: low sample rate, low resolution). A cheap PC-CD-drive will read only a portion of that low-rate music data, and the software tries to interpolate the missing data (which are missing because of the low sample rate AND the poor disc-reading). It sounds like a lossy compression, isn't? I suggest you a test: Config A: Your PC with that "finest consumer-level soundcard" Config B: A really good consumer-level (not an "audiophile") CD-Player (try a Marantz SA 7001 with its built-in headphone output, or use a decent external headphone-amp with reasonable cables). First, drop in two identical original CDs, and compare the uncompressed PC-sound to the Marantz. You don't need to lean forward to hear the difference... And if you switch to MP3 on the PC, that difference will be more clear (watch the trebles, the stereo room-rendering, and the body of the instruments). Use acoustic music and human voice to reveal the unnatural sound of MP3. And then drop an SACD into the Marantz (the Miles Davis "Kind of Blue" does the job), and compare to the CD-ripped, MP3-compressed PC-sound of the same music... Now, THAT is the real alternative.