I listened to a lot of burnt CDs, which obviously aren't excellent recordings. I would imagine that the M22s will be too revealing, therefore I would probably be better with M80s. Do you concur with this assumption? I love your suggestion but I wouldn't want to have to rely on the M60s the majority of the time and miss out on the beauty of the M22s.

You definitely would be better off with the 80s than the 22s.

However, I don't believe copied CDs sound any different than the source CDs.

Not copied CDs, but rather mixed CDs created from legally downloaded MP3s.

They shouldn't be that bad... what bitrate are we talking here? I use an iPod as a source for my M80s, with mp3s and aacs, generally around 160k to 320k.

They are actually wave files with various bitrates. My 300 disc Sony carousel doesn't play MP3s. Go figure, brand new and still old technology :-). I find that so many burnt CDs are inconsistent with the song quality, even per song on the same CD. My current Paradigm monitor 9's really enunciate this.

If you are interested in doing a lot of streaming, I have been using a SoundBridge M1001 for the past six months and it is really, really good (supports LAN and Wi-Fi).

The only drawback is that, as soon as I had my M80, I started to hear a difference between 320Kbps and lossless... so I had to re-scan my whole 800CDs collection! Darn those M80s and the additional work they generate!!

For streaming from my computer to my stereo (upstairs to downstairs) I use the following.

hi-fi link

Sounds nice, but I really like that I control playback from my living room through the UI of the SoundBridge. The SB is more expensive though...

When I want to really listen I grab the cd and throw it in, otherwise its just background music and 320k sounds good enough, a little more detailed than FM radio, but good enough to fill the house.

I guess I have lower standards than the rest of you, or something. If I'm doing critical listening, sure, I'll throw in the CD, but the ripped stuff sounds about 10000x better than FM radio--even if it is at the 'orrible 'orrible low bitrate.