If some differences are too small to be determined by a blind A/B test, how small is too small? And who decides?

feel free to flame me to hell and back if this topic has been here before (please give some linkage though), but it seems it hasn't, as I haven't been able to find too much about it.<P>Anyway,<P>there ...

I've used EAC to do this. Instead of ripping individual tracks, tell it you want to "Copy Image & CUE Sheet." That will make a single WAV file of the entire CD, then you can convert to MP3 from that.