I'd recommend at least a little caution or careful planning before deciding which lossless format to rip to. The one drawback to using iTunes to produce lossless files is that playback of AAC lossless files is not widely supported - you can play them in iTunes, on your iPod, and through an AppleTV appliance, but everything else will be hit and miss. Likewise, FLAC is not supported by all players.

When using USB to the 990 or the 2150, the sound card isn't in the signal path. The 990 actually acts as a giant USB sound card.

Good point gonk. I chose flac for some of the reasons you stated, AAC not widely supported. Also while I have an iPod and have used iTunes, I'm not a fan.
Just to give a clear picture why I chose flac:
- Mediamonkey, winamp, squeezebox all support it
- the codec is opensource, improvements are still being made
- The tools are improving, and getting more plentiful. I use EAC to rip my CDs with an Autoflac plugin.
- No loss in quality of the data
- more an more devices are supporting it
- You can convert back to a wav or any other format without degredation of the original.
- with cue sheets you can reburn a true copy of the orginal CD

Most of all, it save up to 40% space while preserving the quality of the music.

Curriegroh brings up a good point. Storage capacities are increasing rapidly. The video iPod was created to store videos but hardly anyone I know uses it for that. We use it to store uncompressed audio. No doubt some people have 10,000 songs to store. I don't know anyone like that. My iPod has a mix of nearly 3,000. It would take over two weeks to listen to everything one time...if I listened my entire waking hours.

I have a difficult time understanding the bad rap given to portable music devices no matter what format of music saving they use. Although some brand these devices as antisocial I don't feel the desire to be social when I'm traveling. Music makes the time fly when I'm flying. A 9 hour trip to Europe whizzes by. A 14 flight to Shanghai is much more tolerable when I can soothe my soul with music from an mp3 player. I'm one of those people that waited to get one until the storage capacity was large enough to rip music at higher bit rates. I regret that when I think back to how many flight delays I suffered through when I could have had some respite at 192kbps. A lot of us grew up listening to surface noise and tape hiss. What's a little compression when you're sitting in queue on the tarmac for 3 or 4 hours? Plus the fact you're probably using $80 ear buds instead of your high end speakers?
And as stated previously, for listening while puttering around the house the compressed format...whichever one is used...is good enough for me.

Today you can buy a hard disk that will store the uncompressed content of 1000 CD's for less than $300. Buy another to back up the first. You now have a huge music library available without ever opening a jewel case. You can create play lists for any occasion. For someone who remembers 78RPM records it's a dream come true.

Now...how do we get SACD's and DVD-A discs on that computer...hmmm...

I agree that vilifying MP3 is excessive. As with most technologies, it has its place. I've used MP3's at work for years now to try to drown out the horrible muzak - the original CD's won't sound any better on $15 computer speakers fed from a cheap sound card, and it eliminates the need to bring CD's in to work.

At least some of the ire directed toward lossy audio compression algorithms seems to be a reaction to the way the general public has embraced the MP3 and the iPod - it's a reasonable solution for music portability (certainly no worse than any other previous portable technology, considering the quality associated with portable CD players or - gulp - our old friend the cassette), but it simply isn't the equal of other technologies for quality. The notion of people misunderstanding MP3 and considering it an equal substitute for CD (or even worse, for newer technologies like DVD-A, SACD, and the lossless TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio formats) will inevitably cause the audio enthusiast to cringe - and may lead to severe convulsions for audiophiles.

I chose to use FLAC for the same reasons stated by gband. Two reasons stand out though. 1) I can certainly tell FLAC music sounds better than mp3s at 192kbs when played on my HT gear and 2) I can create burned CDs that are the same quality as the original. However, I really like my iPod for air travel, when I'm doing yard work, on backpacking trips or plugged in to my old Kenwood receiver in my garage when I'm woodworking. In those listening environments the iPod playing mp3s is awesome. I've gone so far as to duplicate my FLAC library in mp3 for easy transfer to my iPod using iTunes. I'm a supporter of mp3, however for me its all about enjoying music with a technology that is appropriate for the location. To paraphrase Dirty Harry: "A codec has to know its limitations".

- That's beautiful.

AvFan
I'll drink to that!

BobZoom
I agree, the flights to Europe were much more tolerable since my iPod.

BTW while I have Flac for my Squeeze Box, its 192K MP3 at work, in the car, iPod, etc. Just too convenient and the sound is good enough, even through PA speakers.