going through menus on my "audio recording thing-a-ma-gig (Arcos HD, Ipod like device)"

I realized this morning I had set it for a compression format, or it came set as, ADPCM which is apparently a .wav 4x compression format .. which has been optimized for low sample rate voice recording

.. my device does have a (never used) microphone for voice recording.

I was unaware there was a 'native' .wav compression .. my recorder apparently has turned 16 bit input into 4 bit recordings .. perhaps for the entire 1.5 years I have used it!

I have several 100s of hours of sirrius satellite audio recordings.

darn!

I then converted the low fidelity .wav to MP3s .. guess it's a good thing my ears are old & frequency limited.

when they market viagra for ears I may notice the difference!

perhaps I should have read the instruction manual.

any way heads up if you use a portable device to record music.

Maybe the "heads up" you should be referencing here is not about using "portable devices to record music." Instead, your "heads up" should be to "always have a backup copy of the data that you value."

Seriously, I do feel your pain and I am sorry for the loss of your lossless.