do burnt CD copys sound as good as originals?

I have done much research and experimenting into this question.

My experience thus far; All the research and info on the web and at the libraries aproximates the comments on this post -- theroretically is should be possible to make an EXACT copy, in reality, most can hear a difference.

In my experimentations; I have used gold medical/archival grade CDRs, many different CD & DVD burners, burned at true 1X to many X speeds, have used Mac, have used PC, have used EAC, Nero, Max, etc software, and have even isolated computer parts (CD burner, PSU, motherboard, HD) and have used several types of shielded & unshielded cables within the computer.

I have A/B the products with the originals to family and friends. Audiophile, non-auudiophiles, young and old.

The results thus far: #1. I have had a few improvements -- in 100% of such cases the original CDs were from small-time producers from local/regional bands. #2. I have come across 100% failure in besting a original CD produced by a national/international producer (Sony, MFSL, Rhino, etc). #3. I have experienced very poor results in matching national/internation producer quality.

My two cents from my idea that I could burn all my CDs onto hard drive and Squeeze Box + DAC to the main system. After this year long craze of experimenting, I'm continuing on with ole factory CD - I'm not convinced...

While my results have been overall disappointing thus far. I must firmly agree that equipment and brand makes a big difference. I notice a 100% improvement in sound quality when I use a gold archive CDR or a black CDR as compared to standard CDRs. In fact, some standard CDRs were not even readable in my BAT supertube CD player - though the same CDR was readable in the car and other players. The CD burner makes a big difference also -- I have used several different models from Sanyo, Sony, HiVal, & Pioneer which produced poor results -- my best results have been with a old (1999 I think) TDK Velodyn burner -- but I hear great things about Yamaha burners (no longer produced) and I hear Plextor burners do a great job -- (though I have not personally heard any CDRs produced from a Plextor or a Yamaha). Additionally, I believe the PSU of many computers are pretty poor & noisy. A good PSU, such as PC Power & Cooling are less corruptive. Anyway - you can drive yourself crazy upgrading & experimenting with computer parts (cables, CD burners, hard drives, cases, shielding, etc.). I do believe there is a good combination out there somewhere

I was just reading info on the Memory Player by Nova Physics over at StereoTimes. It appears to me that this new player extracts (rips) music from the CD in a read-till-right fashion (sounds like EAC software) and stores it in flash memory to play it. What I find interesting is that it plays the music from flash memory rather than from the CD. I wonder if by using the solid state flash memory it may avoid further jitter or read/write error issues that are introduced by CDs or even hard drives. Just a thought...