Internet radio quality

[Covenant]

I recently started a thread about Radio Paradise at 320kps and it found it's way to the 'wam where someone commented that it sounded MP3'ish. Now I don't agree as MP3 at 320kps is generally accepted to be close to CD quality.
However it got me thinking about how radio stations transmit their music. I don't believe there is someone feeding CD's into a machine any more-too time consuming. So the music must be transferred into a digital format.
What system do they use and how does it effect quality?

[SPS]

I recently started a thread about Radio Paradise at 320kps and it found it's way to the 'wam where someone commented that it sounded MP3'ish. Now I don't agree as MP3 at 320kps is generally accepted to be close to CD quality.
However it got me thinking about how radio stations transmit their music. I don't believe there is someone feeding CD's into a machine any more-too time consuming. So the music must be transferred into a digital format.
What system do they use and how does it effect quality?

I'm not into radio, but i have quite a bit of music on my laptop, the mp3 versions sound very different to recording's on the lossless setting, which sound the same as my cd player to me, providing i use the same dac of course.
my personal view is that i dont see how any radio signal can be played/ transmited/recieved and amplified.. without any losses to the original signal,
i have a few fm tuners which are all nice to hear the radio on though.