With the rate of reduction in Memory prices, I fail to see any reason to use anything less than Lossless on ANY occasion.

The typical uses for Ripped Music files in today's world are

...Critical Listening on Meridian systems
...Ambient Listening at home on Meridian and other "family" systems and speakers
...Mobile Player whilst travelling on Planes, Trains, Taxi's etc.
...Listening whilst travelling in our Cars (and rental cars)

I don't see why one would want to maintain TWO sets of Music Files, one for critical listening and one for "Mobile Player" use. Like many here, I assign Track Ratings to my Albums and Tracks, as well as creating various Playlists etc. I certainly would not like to be doing that twice!!!

Take for example the 160Gb Apple iPod at $250 (and there are other cheaper players). Using Lossless files, you will find that each Minute of a Lossless track will occupy 6.3Mb. This means your 160Gb Player will contain the following when using Lossless files

** 414 Hours of Music without any repeats
** 17 Days of Music
** 500 Albums approximately
** 5,000 Tracks approximately

Surely that is enough for almost anyone to carry round at any one time!!! Using the various Music Management Programs out there (dBpoweramp, iTunes etc.) it is extremely easy to "Swap" another e.g. 50Gb of Music to your PC whenever you sync the next time.

If you want to carry more music, then maybe buy a 2nd player. Let's face it, $250 is not a big amount when we compare to typical Meridian prices

The other suggestion I would make is to purchase good quality headphones. These can make a HUGE difference versus the standard earphones that come with the player, and make it much easier to hear differences between Lossy and Lossless files.

You mention use for 7 months of the year. I would strongly recommend the Shure E530 Earphones at about $320 (after shopping around) Not cheap in absolute terms, but compared to Meridian prices.............

Stereophile Review here

Long story short, life is too short to maintain two sets of Music files for different listening situations. Use Lossless for all situations and pay a little extra to exploit that extra resolution with top quality earphones. All IMHO wink

In about 2 years time (possibly less) there will be 1Tb Mobile Players available and we will wonder why we ever bothered to have anything other than Lossless !!!

Last edited by Ronnie Hurley; 2009-09-14 09:11.
-