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I did my own little tests for myself. Here's what I found is true for me:

1. Using the LAME "Standard" settings, I could tell the difference sometimes, but most of the time I could not.
2. Using the LAME "Extreme" settings, I could never tell the difference.
3. Using the LAME "Insane" setting, I could never tell the difference.
4. Since "Extreme" takes less space than "Insane", I converted all my CD's at "Extreme".

I have a friend who is very picky about things. Most of my family and friends think I am very picky about things, but my pal out-does me by a mile. He insisted that he could *never* live with compression, that he could *always* tell the difference, and that it would drive him crazy. So, I did a test with him using my files and the original CD source. He couldn't tell either, which really freaked him out. He was depressed for days (I think it sorta blew his self-image). Maybe some people can tell the difference. I just don't know any, that's all. Of all the people I know, this guy was my best chance.

The scheme of "Standard", "Extreme", and "Insane" settings involves some obscure settings that include VBR but evidently go way beyond just that, supposedly having been tweaked over time by a mysterious group of audio freaks. So, it's like "VBR Plus". I think this scheme has been updated of late. I know nothing about the newer scheme. I do know that allofmp3 permits me to choose from the old scheme, which is great for me.

The difference between 160 and 192 kbps is HUGE. Using 192 kbps mp3 I can hear a big difference between power cords and isolation devices, so it really isn't as bad as people think!

In long-term listening I could hear a difference between 320 kbps mp3 and WAV.

I mostly use CDs, but not because I don't think psychoacoustic-based compression doesn't work, per se. More because my most enjoyable source happened to be a CD player. I've since managed to pick up a DAC that I like a lot, so that may change some, although maybe not *shrug*.

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Is there a particular song you think you can hear a difference in? I'd love to be
able to convince myself that I can hear the difference between 320 mp3 and lossless.

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Standard is high quality VBR.
Extreme is very high quality VBR.
Insane is just 320 kbps CBR.

Personally you made the right choice. People who encode at 320 kbps for "max quality" are wasting space. If you are using MP3, it's much better to go with a good VBR encode than a CBR encode, and if you really want max quality you should just rip lossless.

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I used 'The Lord Of The Rings - The Return Of The King' as my reference album for half a year. When I upgraded from 320 kbps mp3 to WAV the transparency scared me. The highs weren't smooth anymore which was easy to hear because it was my reference album.