AAC 256 VBR is audibly identical to lossless. I posted evidence of that in this post...
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/iph...tx-hd-real-world.861978/page-13#post-14377431
You say it isn't audibly identical. How about posting some evidence to support that?
You're in sound science forum right now. We don't just say what we believe. We are expected to back up what we say. If you would like to back up your claim that you can easily tell the difference between lossy and lossless, I have a FLAC file I can send you with three different lossy codecs at three different data rates, along with a lossless file. I will happily send it to you to listen to. All you have to do is rank the samples from best to worst. They you'll know whether what you say is correct.
Rather than repeat yourself silly, try reading some of the points I've made already about how inaccurate you are being, like for instance, let's take it one point at a time, the dynamic range of AAC VBR for example. You say it's the same as a CD, but that is impossible by the very nature of it being lossy from a CD source.... I don't need to say more on that, it's proven, done, I went further to explain how using good mastering, one can do better than 96 dB for CD, but if you run it through a lossy codec, you get no benefit from dithering at all - this is just basic logic.
You are very focused on audibly transparent - Have you noticed at all that I haven't disagreed with that? Have you noticed that I am trying to get you to see beyond your AAC bias for just a minute? To see that barely sufficient is not the latest marketing phrase?
Let's look at 192 KHz for a second... complete waste of space for me, since both my ears and any possible equipment can simply not retrieve that much detail, it's overkill, but I have nothing against it.
Now let's flick back to AAC.... barely sufficient for most people is it's tag line.
Redbook CD - it just is and personally I'm OK with everything being at this level but many would like to see more detail, you're keen on slightly less information.
Since you probably ignored most of what I said, let's look at AAC seriously...
It's a fantastic codec, mostly transparent at 256 Kbps, stretches up to 18 to 19 KHz in terms of detail, much better than MP3. Not the most transparent, I think Opus is more advanced although it is different.
You don't mean audibly transparent, you mean indistinguishable on the same equipment from the PCM source - audibly transparent would be the holy grail of sound equipment, being present as if the sound system wasn't even there, as if the sound source itself was there instead - that's transparent.
Most people listening to their AAC files are doing so on equipment that isn't even close to transparent.
What if there was a minor detail in a music file that was so delicate that it took 100 listens before you even noticed it? Well, that happens to me all the time because I'm human and I need the equipment to consistently perform better than my ears to be pleasantly surprised and I am consistently surprised by minor details every day, I can never hear them all on repeated listening either.
Given that's how my ears work, what are the odds that I can hear a lot more than an ABX test would reveal? They are quite good given I'm going to need to listen to the thing at least 100 times before I can really get into that recording at all.
Why would I want to listen to a piece 100 times only to discover nothing new because the file was only barely sufficient in terms of sound information I can recognise?
You would claim that I am unlikely to ever hear anything more from a recording with more information than AAC 256 and yet, I love being surprised by detail I hadn't heard before, it happens, would that happen the same way with PCM as AAC ? hard to say, but at least I'm prepared to say it's possible.
It's a very minor detail to argue, but I am the one remaining open minded, you seem convinced that anything better than AAC 256 is a waste of space.
One day in the distant future, Apple will just drop AAC in favour of lossless, simply because hardware has no issues with it any longer.
That is exactly where the future of audio compression is going.
You must know that you've drawn the line at barely sufficient and for what..... more space?