Lance, I could not agree with you more. I try to obtain an original recording (shn or wav), archive it and run the mp3's on my machine. That way, if I want to make an audio CD I have my archived shows to choose from. Instead of decoding and encoding again and again.
I burn only SHN sourced. Mp3's are like a jpg, lots of compression and loss of detail in the fine sounds. There is a HUGE difference. If you have a crappy sound system you may not hear it till you get a better quality one. Hearing warbles and chirps in mp3's makes me cringe.