David... why would there be a loss from cd to computer and computer to squeezebox?

its a CD its just full of digital data.... and unlike a normal CD player, during the ripping process it will read and read and read until it gets every single last it of data off that disc.

In fact you could argue that its actually a great deal more accurate than your average cd player, as it wont just skim over small problems, it will re-read and correct them.

Then its stored bit for bit on a hard disk, and then sent over an ethernet network, which checks every bit of data again at each end to verify integrity, the only place where theres possibility of loss, is between the digital output of the squeezebox and your DAC, but then thats no worse than any transport.

I believe that theres every possibility that a squeezebox (or something similar) could be better than a cd transport, as its not relying on the real-time reading of a disc via optics which as good as they may be, are not infallible.