But of course ripped files are sound inferior compared to it's sourced CD. I'm talking full WAV, of course, not even mentioning other, space saving, formats. There are allot of confusion and misunderstanding in these discussions because people either do not compare apples to apples, or they biased due to their involvement with the industry. However, I do agree with Audiogoner that playback from ripped files might sound coloured, but I believe that mostly due to the playback software audio effects.
Let's do very simple test and compare apples to apples, that you can witness said difference for yourself. Lets forget about all your DACs, preamps, amps, speakers etc., you dont need it because it just confusing the issue. All you need is a computer with CD ROM (might be USB CD ROM) and a pair of headphones.
Now, using any software of your choice, lets rip any file(s) from any CD (your choice) to the HDD or SSD of said computer (BTW, SSD do sound better than HDD, but it doesnt matter for this test). When rip is done, insert headphones directly in to the computer audio out jack, on the back of the comp and compare the sound of CD played back from the same CD ROM and ripped file(s), played trough the same computer playback/rip software. Dont use different softs for playing back file(s) and CD, because different softs will sound differently. If your comp doesnt have headphone jack (dont use the one which is on CD ROM), then youll obviously need some receiver or something with headphone jack. BTW, guys, make treble sure that you are indeed comparing sound of CD to the sound of files, and not CD to CD and/or files to files, it gets very tricky when you playing back over and over again, same piece of music. Very easy to mess it up. If CD and files sounds identical then most likely you do compare CD to CD and/or files to files.)))
If you done everything right, you should easily hear that ripped files have a little bit less of everything i.e. less micro musical nuances, less airiness, different voice tembres, etc., compared to CD. It is similar to Xerox copy, i.e. everything looks the same (the writing is still there :~)) but a little bit less of everything, less clarity, less contrast etc. I wish I knew what causing it and how to fix it, but unfortunately I don't. (((