Let me follow up on above, as sometimes comments can't be seen in full light when reading. I fully understand what you were saying in your first post and fully agree, the point I was trying to convey was the possibilities of the iPod at home and rather than use all my own words I stole yours to make my point; I hope this clarifies my point better, my apologies for not being clearer.
And truthfully, I was thinking iPod more for the car even though Undertow's opening statement read he might later put in his home. I use iPod for car trips or to escape engine noise on long flights.
I choose Apple Lossless but admit I have not compared to anything other than MP3 compression. The difference between those two formats was easy to discern, even on my tower computer system with crappy speakers, so I never used anything other than Apple Lossless for my car.