[Brabus9999]

Just getting started in this hobby, but reading enough threads here to know a few things about compression effect, I decided to err on the side of SQ by using AAC at 256kbps. That said, I've tried comparing between MP3 (196kbps) vs. AAC (256kbps) and I can't tell the difference. Maybe it's my crappy phones, then again I might have the opposite of golden ears. Hopefully, my new RE0 will prove that it's the former rather than the latter.

Gritt

 

[Relinquished]

hmm im using MP3 format due to sansa's memory.

howd i wish for a 120gb classic

 

[Earwax]

All this talk about bit rates got me to make a serious review of what I can actually hear vs. what I thought I could hear. Foobar's ABX feature really brought me down to earth. I can reliably ABX 128 CBR vs. FLAC. But, Lame VBR 128 (V5) is very hard to ABX vs. Flac. So is Ogg Vorbis Q4 (about 128).

I ended up re-ripping some albums at Ogg Q5 (about 160) so there's still a little extra margin. I can get 50% more music on my 1 and 2gig Sansa Clips this way vs. what I was using before.

I chose Ogg over MP3 just because I finally have a portable that supports it and I want to explore it's capabilities further.

All these people who say they can easily distingush vbr V2 or even V0 from lossless, well, frankly, I just don't believe it. Nor will I believe it until I see some actual ABX results posted.

 

[NajoBB]

Mate, I've seen people who think that 48kbps file sound decent with all instruments well defined and all. People just have different ears/have different definition of good sound maybe?
Depending of the band/album i can hear enough difference between 320kbps and lossless to annoys me . Between 128kbps and lossless? Easily on 90% of my library. BTW, you can call me crazy if you want but VBR to me sounds worst than CBR encoding and i never used it. Maybe I've encoded it the wrong way but that's how it sounds to me.

And it doesn't mean anything if someone can or cannot notice the difference (not that anyone gives you award or something). It's just annoys me that many people who can't think that nobody can. I can't notice a difference between my D2000 plugged directly to an amp and trough a 10€ 5m extension cable for example, but that doesn't mean nobody can't right?