How do you get decent MP3?

["Richard Boreham" <richard.boreham@xxxxxxx>]

I've recently been resurecting ideas for whole house audio having put in
appropriate wiring (UTP, STP, speaker and phono) when we wired up the
house.

Originally, I had just been thinking about a cd jukebox for the main
recorded music source (Denon do a good quality one but I seem to remember
it
was around £1500).  However, things have moved on, and I got to thinking
that I should look at an MP3 jukebox system; either a standalone box or
linked to a PC.

Being a bit of a luddite I hadn't tried MP3 apart from trying a couple of
personal MP3 players.  So I tried ripping some cds on my PC and played
these
back.  At a friend's suggestion I used CDex (free and 'apparently' good).
However, I've been really disappointed.  Despite using a variety of
settings
(lower MP3 compression etc), I can't honestly say I can get MP3 at what I
think is likely to be acceptable quality.  I seem to get a pretty muffled
recording with much of the life / tonal range removed (when compared with
the original cd played on the same PC).  I also seems to suffer from the
odd
'dropout' - even though the ripping does not seem to report more than
'nominal' errors.

So to the question(s)...  Am I using the wrong approach to testing MP3?  Is
it possible to get good quality MP3 (using one's own CD library), if so
how?
Are purpose made MP3 'jukeboxes' (e.g. Living Control's Music Box)
better/no
different to bog standard PC ones?  Any recommendations?

I'm not after full hi-fi (er, well CD) quality, but I'm not prepared to
settle for much less because its going to cost several thousands for the
amps & control - I'm not going to source it all with 1960's trannie
quality!

Regards

Richard