Firstly forgive my n00bness and lack of energy to search for an answer.

Say I buy an album.
Rip the tracks to mp3 using Lame with --alt-preset standard.
Then I use the ripped tracks to make an audio CD [with Nero].

Now I have:

A. Bought Album
B. Burnt Audio CD - tracks ripped from original.

And now the question.
Which is more likely to be the better quality?

A.

First of all I have to say that you MUST search before asking next time!

Logically A is better. How yould the Burnt AudioCD be better than the original? In the best case quality is the same, but fo that you should use a lossless codec like FLAC (I don't know which is the best, so look in the forum). MP3 encoding (and decoding?) loses every time a little bit informations, so you lose quality! If you copy the CD directly (i.e. CloneCD) it should be lossless.

Big_Berny

A

So it's better for me to copy CD to CD, rather than CD, MP3, CD.
That's all I wanted to know.

Thanks!

Yes, that's right.

Have a good day.

Making a 1:1 copy of the CD will result in the copy having the same quality as the source CD (assuming you have a good CD/DVD drive, a good CD writer and a good software).

Copying the CD to MP3 and then from MP3 to CD will result in the copy having the same quality as the MP3 files (possible artifacts, high frequency loss...).

Well I can understand his question, because I have seen some other much worse methods of copying a cd. Like this one guy I found out, when he copys a CD he rips the tracks he wants to 64KBPS WMA then burns a mix of the tracks to a cd

Other people I know (Much older people) rip the tracks to iTunes 128KBPS QT AAC then burn their mix onto a cd

Quality-wise, they are all the same: they are LOSSLESS!

Their features/support are what differentiates them.

He didn't mention sound quality...

A and B(if you rip it lossless) will have the same AUDIO quality

for OVERALL quality, of cource A

1. A is a pressed CD, it could be stored longer than Burnt CDs
2. Every healthy player can play A
3. A looks handsome with its colorful coat

yeah I know I'm talking non sense, but definitely A is better