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I have to admit I am a bit confused I am using EAC to do the ripping, I had used Lame for MP3, but MP3’s while good just doesn’t cut the mustard for my stereo.

If I were you I would recruit a friend to help me arrange a blind listening test, wav (or FLAC) against different compressed formats and options. As other people said, if you can reliably tell apart original from even "lame --alt-preset standard" mp3 (a bit over 200kb/s on average), you have really exceptional ears. When preparing files for the test, make sure they play with equal volume, otherwise the louder one will sound better.
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Dragi "Bonzi" Raos Q#5196 MkII #080000376, 18GB green MkIIa #040103247, 60GB blue