My two cents for anyone that's interested:
Like all things Digital that interface with analog devices, the quality of the A to D and D to A converters are important and can vary greatly in sonic performance. Within the digital device or software package the algorithims also will vary. For example I haven't used Real Audio in years cause when it first came out it was so awfull it was unlistenable. I'm not being a snob here either. Any mp3 I heard that was ripped with Real Audio sounded like it had a flanger on it. That was years ago, by now there's enough nice sounding software packages like itunes and foobar that as long as you have a decent sound card (good digital to analog converters) you should be fine.
If you think it sounds better than not using it, go for it.