Is it ERC or AAC.......

[Porscheguy]

First of all, I love my ERC-1. It's the best CD player I've owned hands down, not that I've ever owned a mega price $2500.00 one, but in relative terms it has been top notch.

I've taken a couple of really well recorded CD's which include , Diana Krall's greatest hits, Fourplay's Elixr and a Billy Mac Glaughlin CD - downloaded them into iTunes and played them through my system from my iPod.

I am not an audiophile. I don't even know what one is except someone that spends prodigious amounts of of money chasing the holy grail of sound reproduction, mostly perceived in my opinion. I would like to think I have a pretty good ear though and can recognize good high fidelity, soundstage, imaging and dynamics.

I did not do any double blind comparisons, I merely played one song thru my iPod Touch and then thru the ERC-1 or vice versa.

To be really honest, I have hard time telling the difference between the two. If I had to critique, I'd say that the iPod ACC files lacked little air or clarity and a minute amount of dynamics compared to the CD. For casual listening (and more), the iPod and iTunes is perfectly acceptable in my view.

Unless your sitting in the "selfish seat" really analyzing, I think AAC files (can't comment on others) are more than acceptable.

Am I going deaf?.......

[littlesaint]

Most people cannot tell the difference. I'm sure we will see a bunch of posts refuting that, but good AAC rips are pretty damn good, and human hearing isn't as good as people think. The brain compensates a lot, and that's why psycho-acoustic compression like MP3 or AAC works so well. If you want even better results, use something that will rip to True VBR AAC. I think you need a Mac (and XLD) for this though. Some music is discernible, as there are some instruments or more to the point, frequencies that suffer, but again the brain does a very good job and filling in the gaps. In the end, it's your ears. Listen to whatever works for you.

[Porscheguy]

Agreed.

Junk in junk out. Great recordings sound great and bad ones remain bad.

For most heavier rock material SQ is indistinguishable.