I have a bit different approach. I rip in a lossless format, but I keep the ape files in my archives only (actually, one disc image ape file + cue & apl files for each CD). From those disc image files I make HQ lossy track files for PC -> Hifi playback.
For those track files I have mostly used Musepack at "Braindead" (~250-300 kbps). Its quality is 100% transparent for me. I have never been able to distinguish it from the original in ABX tests (even when testing problem samples with high quality headphones). However, the recent development of Ogg Vorbis has made it probably as good already at about 224 kbps (= -q7 or Normal/High in MC). Actually, I would say that 99% of music encoded with the latest Vorbis encoder would be transparent at a much lower bitrate than ~224 kbps.
For me, the main reason for using mpc or ogg instead of mp3 is the real gapless playback functionality. Mp3 can never be perfect because it is not gapless by design. (Though, I still have over 33000 MP3 files that I have ripped earlier. I am slowly reripping the old CDs using my current archive system.)
The default Ogg Vorbis encoder in MC is a bit old. The best quality is currently available with the aoTuV b4.51 encoder version. It is also faster. Here are my instructions for using it with MC:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=31861.msg219162#msg219162I use only a portable MP3 CD player currently, but I think I would buy a portable HD or flash player that can be used with the Rockbox firmware, which would make possible to play my mpc and ogg files.
The Rockbox site:
http://www.rockbox.org/A Rockbox discussion at HA:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=40992