CD's are in a changer. I listened to the whole song for all of them. My wife ran the changer. I used my trusty Rat Shack SPL meter to set the level at 90db for each disc. I waited 5 minutes between tests, which also allowed my wife to queue and pause the discs. Again, the results are probably dependent on many things. I used Grip to rip/encode, cdrdao to burn. It's possible my player isn't as good at reading mp3 files as others. I have noticed some recordings sound different between original source and ripped/burned as music discs. I haven't tried any of this using one of the lossless file formats. I have used Lame, Music Match, and WMP to rip, not really noticing any differences, then again I haven't done any 1:1 comparisons of the software as far as music quality. And I certainly don't claim to have golden ears that can hear the creamy-smooth richness of the rhodium-plated contacts of a $2500 power cable vs. the slightly sucked out sound of the $1500 one and the unlistenable harshness of the Rat Shack special. This test is certainly easy enough for all of us to try. I posit that the player is the most likely cause of real differences.
