Yeah, mine are SDAs also, but the 4ft, 100lb "baby" ones.
I didn't mean direct rip bit for bit, I was just meaning to say that everything in my collection comes from a CD that I personally cleaned and touched. No downloads, no files from friends, etc.
And yeah, MP3 is lossy, but I just don't think my ears are good enough once it gets to the 256 point, 320 is just for good measure.
I think people underestimate good speakers comparatively with other things as well. There are certain things about lossy compression that good speakers point out and other things that bad speakers point out.
And some of the new formats are amazing. Last year at CES I was treated to a demo of the new Bang & Olufsen BeoLab5 speakers. They had 4 set up in the Hotel Room as a surround system.
I have never heard anything so loud in my life that didn't create even the slightest ear fatigue, it was amazing. 2500w per speaker built in, and they have a mic that sets their levels automatically based on where in the room they sit with the touch of a button.
And just to prove to us that they weren't like the older models that lacked on bass response, he switched from the Dave Matthews and Classical he was playing to Insane Clown Posse and it was just incredible.
Unfortunately, at $37k for a set, I won't be getting any anytime soon.
Needless to say, it was DVD-Audio, not MP3 at that point.
Got a little off topic there, but this is the forum for it.