...but MP3’s while good just doesn’t cut the mustard for my stereo.


I wonder... Have you tried a more or less blind comparison?

By that, I mean pick a track with a lot of dynamic range, full spectral balance, good clean recording. In other words, a good test track.

Rip and encode to MP3 at a high quality setting -- say 256 KBPS variable bit rate.

Now, set up a test playlist on your empeg. Put the high quality MP3 file in that playlist a half dozen times, and put the same track in the playlist as a WAV file half a dozen times.

Turn shuffle on, and listen to the test playlist without looking at the empeg screen, making notes about whether you think the currently playing track is WAV or MP3.

When you're done, go back and compare your notes to the actual shuffled playlist order and see whether you got them right. I'll be surprised if you can really, truly tell the difference between the high quality MP3s and a WAV files.

tanstaafl.