do burnt CD copys sound as good as originals?

On Linn's website they mention that when burning a cd using a computer, some burning software, according to Linn, 'discards' or 'ignores' the Least Significant Bit, which may degrade the sound. I might have this somewhat incorrect - Check the CD FAQ at linn.co.uk

Having said that, I can hear no difference between the copy and original. BUT my problem is that sometimes my Shanling won't play a perfectly good CD-R (whereas it plays fine on my Linn Classik).

To all those who say that a PC may not perfectly copy a CD I say this:

TREAT IT AS A DATA CD.

On Nero there is an option to make a duplicate of the original CD. This works no matter what is on the original CD, music or data. It is simply a bit for bit copy.

If you rip to the hard drive then burn to a CD it's hard to say for sure what happened to the data, but if you simply duplicate the original CD then you'll get a ...... duplicate.

Seandtaylor99,
Agree. Can you do this such that the duplicate ends up on the HDD (i am thinking in the network file player world)?
I think that is the intent of EAC (exact audio copy). IT reads the PCM (raw) from the disc and if you configure it, will emply error correction as well. I'm very green with EAC and as for help from you masters out there.

Seandtaylor99,

I have Roxio CD creator (an older version), and it too has a duplicate CD function...but it doesn't say what happens in the duplication process. Can I assume it's a bit-for-bit transfer?

If the "duplicate" feature works on data disks AND music CDs then it must be a bit-for-bit copy.

If it only works on music CDs it might not be a bit for bit copy.