is there any quality diff between :

a track played directly from an original pressed CD

and

a track ripped from an orignal CD, saved as mp3, then comverted back to wav and burnt into a blank CDR

??

yes there CAN be a quality difference it depends on what quality you save the mp3 as... mp3s compress the original wave file so some of the quality is decreased in the process (especially if you drop the quality below 44hz 128kbps)... converting back to a .wav file does not restore the original quality but simply uncompresses the mp3 at the quality it was saved...

Even if you can't hear it, a lot of quality is lost after the compression process. This loss can appear if you want to expand the stereo image or if you play the mp3 at a very high level on a professional sound system.

I guess the question is, why convert back to WAV in the first place? Most CD players these days play.mp3 music off a burnt CD; or at least, that's been my experience...



(BTW - I like this smilie : )

well, actually i'm ripping some cds/singles and compiling them in a diff order.
assuming that i rip them at 320kb and 48hz, is it still obvious that the quality has dropped ? compared to the original cd itself ?

An audio cd is limited to 44,1kHz. Ripping a mp3 at 48kHz is a waste of time AND disk space.

Just think about how audio compression works. The exact (I wish it was!) image of the audio cd is the wav file. For about 4'00 of music, you need approximatively 40Mb. Now a mp3 converts these datas to a 4~10Mb file. Where are the 30Mb gone? They have been lost, of course! So the answer is : YES, of course, even with a 320kb mp3, there will be a very important loss.

Mpeg layer 3 compression don't uses technical compression algorhythms or physical properties to compress datas, but pure tricks! It works like this : if you have troubles hearing it, then the datas can be removed.
Even if you can't hear it, maybe some programs might help you to hear clearly the difference. Try any stereo expander and you'll hear how crappy the extreme sides get. Play a mp3 with very low volumes in, at a very high volume. You'll hear that it sounds metalic.

Mp3 is not magic, it's just a cool way to keep a lot of files on your hard drive! Of course, if it's much lighter, then some datas got lost.