I'm not dreaming - these are great CD copies

What Mlsstl said.
I have noticed that some copies friends have made me sound unexpectedly good, although I don't have the origina; to compare to.
I think one thing to keep in mind is that all signals are analog; digital is simply a concept to analyze analog signals that vary between 2 discreet volotages. The way I see it, ost of the signal is in these 2-voltages, but when it comes to picky audio aplications, all the other noise on the signal, variations from the 2 voltagews, timing errors, and whatever else can cause audible problems.

Truthfully, I didn't understand the last two posts.

All I know is that when I play the CD-R, the music is clean, with more detail and dynamics. And it's not my imagination.

Dumb question: what is a "red book" CD? Thanks!

"REd book" cd = the standard cd protocol (you know, 44.1kHz /16 bits, the works).

I am so happy to see this discussion take place. In order to have the best quality sound that was for me pocket portable for travel I was in the habit of ripping music lossless to the Microsoft Zune application on my notebook PC to play on my 80 GB Zune player while traveling. I had burned a number of CDs from that source when I was unable to find the original Redbook CDs to play on my home audio equipment.

Even today I had the experience of listening to a burned lossless copy of Shostakovich Symphony number seven and was absolutely blown away by the quality of the recording, way beyond what I had remembered. In this case the original was a Naxos CD which is, because of it's price point, I'm certain not the best pressing that one can imagine. What a very timely discussion that has now confirmed something that I had been feeling but had no way of even imagining how to explain. Thanks much to the OP.