How is online radio so transparent?

Be careful,if you start wondering too much about it,you will wonder your great sound right away!!!!!Seriously,I have no clue why things like this happen.My friend has a very lo-fi system in his garage and it sounds wonderful.I guess it's just one of life's many mysteries.Enjoy it.

I have a couple of CDs I have ripped to my current music server and listened to that I recorded from the realmusic service (mp3 quality I believe even) back early on a couple years back when I first ran my PC laptops analog audio output into my old Carver pre-amp and recorded the disc using my Denon recorder.

This is pop/rock stuff, not classical or even high end source material, but I must say when these tunes come on interspersed with my other similar cuts that I have ripped from various digital and analog sources, that they sound perfectly fine and even quite good in many cases versus other ripped tracks. Same true when comparing against the better internet stations I listen to in real time via my Rokus.

The quality in comparison similarly way exceeded what I expected when I first connected my computers analog output to my system, even in terms of background noise (virtually none). Sometimes, things just happen to come together nicely even when least expected....

BTW I also have downloaded a few mp3 pop/rock tracks that I listen to regularly. For this kind of music at least, the mp3s are not bad at all. I have a few tracks also ripped in lossless .wav from CD for comparison. I have not done a detailed a/b comparison between the two, but both sound very good.

BTW I have heard some of the tracks on my music server on others reference systems as well for comparison. To my ears, the best tracks on my music server are very close to the best I have heard anywhere.

Thats nice that this sounds great for you...and maybe sometimes its better to not question everything and just sit back and enjoy it.