The highest effective bit rate that Flash player supports is 160kbs. It's a wrong assumption that the Audio quality follows the vid which is also very compressed. Flash will compress 320kbs in to 160 and is a heavy processor load player in general. I personally don't care for anything below 320 where for lack of a better description, it gives the impression of actually connecting the dots or flow naturally. I know others find 192 fine but it doesn't really work for me. I thought those vids were examples of better sources and not the actual files. Clearly still have some value but these bit rates lack the subtle cues that give the soul of a performance or ability to connect to the music, for me. your results may vary. These compression rates are bandwidth limited and frequency compensated to 'sound' like they're intact. I'm accustomed to good files and kit, find CD quality a bit lacking to begin with and think even these links are conservative.
http://board.flashkit.com/board/showthread.php?t=747969http://www.mp3-tech.org/tests/gb/#160
http://www.mp3-tech.org/tests/gb/#160
I find computers noisy environments and limiting in general. I prefer home kit as opposed to a computer for playback. I mention this as it relates to the comparison tests you see on the net that are always done with less than optimised setups. For playback from a PC I use Wavelab and a TC Konnekt firewire ASIO interface into a top DAC via coax. Wavelab Pro is a better sounding player than any of the freebees, the TC's JET circuit is as low jitter as you can get from a PC, is outboard powered and transformer ground decoupled at dig out to isolate PC interference from the DAC so it's not my setup that's the limiting part.
All this said, the files used can still offer viable differences between the phones but I wonder how they relate to the overall goodness or musicality. I think that relaying the intent and message of the musician is still the most difficult thing for HiFi to do in general. I'm also technically oriented but care more about the message. Fortunately, they're not mutually exclusive.