if i burn my mp3s to a cd then rerip then, would i lose any quality?

If you were to do this and left the re-rip's in a lossless format; wave, flac, wavpack, etc., they would or should still have the same quality as the original source mp3's, the quality will not improve however.

If you were to transcode into another lossy format; mp3, ogg, mpc, aac, etc., you will probably notice a degradation in quality.

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!

hehe.. sorry.

transcoding is not good if you care for quality. very not good.

the bottom line is that second time around, the encoder doesn't know how much compression was applied in what bands for the original encodes. this means it will use less accuracy in pretty much the same bands as the last encode did, meaning that the noise level will be up to double the level intended. it takes a rare and beautiful codec to not completely b0rk the sound quality in these cases.

there's a song around here about transcoding... i forget the link.

Adding to what has already been said regarding transcoding, try what I have done in the past: if you get music that is MP3 sourced (i.e., online services, free tracks from indie bands, etc.), burn an enhanced audio CD (or CD-extra). In the first session, the disc will contain your decoded MP3 files for use on a CD player. The second session, which will only be seen by your computer, will contain the original MP3 files. That way, there is no reason to transcode if you ever buy a portable, etc. and you can still play the files in a normal CD player!