Even the illegal files comes in FLAC (lossless format preferred by geeks) now. With 500GB costing $100, it's plain foolish to store music for home use on high resolution systems like M. in lossy formats. Portable players like iPod is a different story, though. Lossless is impractical here. Takes too much valuable space and makes anti-shaking buffer less effective.

Thumbs down for iTunes and other online music shops who offer only lossy files. Bandwith is cheap, too. It won't take long to download a typical 2-300 MB lossless-packed album.

Ironically the illegal, closed music networks (who, with encrypted traffic and hidden IPs are relatively safe havens in comparison to the open torrent networks) offer far better quality, faster downloads and broader title range. No wonder the record business is bleeding big time.

Current M-related equipment: DSP7000 (2), G91A FM, Sonos ZP90/ZP80 Zone Players, F80 (kitchen,yellow).