I'll be brief; you can thank me later. :) Steve, I can go into great detail about why you probably made a reasonable choice on speaker cables -- despite all the hype and buzz (pun intended.) And good for you! (I can also explain why some people *can* hear the difference, and why it doesn't matter!) Jason, I'd love to chat with you about the philosophy of why we do or don't need anything better than 44.1kHz 16-bit audio formats. Callum, dynamic range, multi-channel formats, when "more bits is better," -- and when it's not. Poor Mike, who just wanted to listen to his CD in the first place!<g> Perceptual coding (MP3, AC3, blah blah), why the heuristic characteristics of the Human Auditory System render most discussions of "what's better" academic -- all fun. *BUT*, these things are probably better done at the next beer meeting! :) Phil M. Chief Engineer, Hotdish Mastering (now when I feel like it.) Past President, Upper Midwest Section, Audio Engineering Society Linux geek who bought an SGI to get a decent soundcard. :)