Alright, about 850 of my CDs ripped, another couple hundred to go. Using Exact Audio Copy http://exactaudiocopy.de/ . I'll just download, when possible, the equivalents of the music in all my boxes full of cassettes rather than spending the hundreds of hours digitizing them in real time. No, I'm not doing yours next. (Well, maybe Anna's, but that's it.)

They all add up to 62Gb so far. I compress to MP3 with lame 3.98.2 with settings of VBR 192 and quality 'V' of 2 (which is allegedly 'transparent' to those seeking it). That setup has a highpass setting of 18.5khz. "So I got dat goin' for me." Probably would sound the same to me with highpass of 17khz.

Yes, yes. I know it's not lossless for those of you who are all crazy snobby about such things (FLACK, APE etc.). I simply know the limits of my hearing. I'm in my early forties which means I've naturally lost a couple thousand hertz on the upper end of the frequencies my ears can hear. (You lose about 1khz per decade starting after you're 18 or so). Plus, I've a history of ear problems since childhood, ruptured eardrums included.

Can I hear the difference between the product of ripping a disc in, say, the rather vanilla and inexact iTunes (with limited ripping and compression options) versus Exact Audio Copy which takes advantage of the capabilities of your CD drive and uses something called AccurateRip to help make sure you're properly grabbing all those 1s and 0s?

Uhhh... probably not. But it makes me feel wicked cool inside that I've superior rips compared to the great unwashed and undiscerning. I sleep better at night and my golf game is better than ever. Also, chicks dig me for my wicked awesome MP3 collection.

Things are going to start happening to me now!