Not true! Like I said, listening to the tracks in my tiny Miata with all the road noise does not lend itself to a reference listening environment. All of the tracks that I have ripped from CD's have been done in WMA format and are absolutely fine to listen to. It is the downloaded tacks that I want to re-convert into WMA in order to free up some drive space. Finally, I will never know of sound deteriation until I actually do it, speculation on the process notwithstanding!!!

Thanks again for all your help!