This is all pretty much a moot point - the protection degrades the digital audio anyway. So IF someone is totally anal about true digital audio quality sound ..... buy the Audio CD, play it, and don't even bother ripping. You're not going to get that perfect digital quality anymore anyway.

Yeah - you can buy the expensive digital equipment .... but talk about overkill. Why do I want to buy a thousand Euros worth of equipment when I can get a decent sounding MP3 by jacking my Discman into my soundcard and converting it in a few minutes? I like music, but not to that point. And the MP3 portable players - they're nowhere near high-end stereo systems. I guess you'd have to have hearing like Superman (and anal) to hear the difference on them.

A lot of people will groan .... they own the CD, they want it on MP3, etc. But seriously, almost half the people I hear groaning - *don't* own the CDs they're ripping.