Apple Computers, Inc. is no more!

[Hill, Greg]

> Yes, but you lose quality by ripping CDs after already downloading
> them.  I'm a sound-quality freak, so as close to the original sound is
> very important to me.

No, you buy the actual CD and rip it.  Not burning a CD from downloaded
mp3s and then re-ripping it.  Or, eMusic offers non-DRM mp3s at 192kbps,
as far as I know, and is far cheaper than ITMS.  Or you can do
allofmp3.com, which has questionable legality and probably sells your
credit card number to the Russian mob :)  You can download them and drag
them to itunes and you're done.  No DRM, no stupid vendor-added
limitations.  My point is, don't buy DRM'ed mp3/aac files and your
problem goes away completely.  Xbox will likely be able to read
non-DRM'ed files, as will your iPod.

On a sidenote, burning a cd from mp3s and ripping back to mp3 does not
degrade sound quality as much as you would think.  But that's a totally
unrelated discussion anyway.

Greg