With the MP3 encoder, who knows what choices the designers have made about the content of the data stream and their strategies on damaged symbol data?

MP3 encoders and decoders assume that the data is undamaged. They input and output streams of 16-bit numbers, each number representing the position of the speaker cone at a given point in time. That's all. They don't try to error-compensate the audio data stream.

A properly ripped .WAV file from a CD should have no symbol errors. I agree that a .WAV file ripped from a CD will sound different than the CD audio track, but only because the DAC which plays the audio track is different than the DAC which plays the .WAV file. Not because of symbol errors.

The ideal situation would be to create your MP3s from the same original raw wave data that was used to create the CD master, bypassing the ripping process altogether. This would remove any possibility of introducing symbol errors before the MP3 encoding happens. That's one reason I like the idea of artists making their own MP3s and distributing them.

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Tony Fabris