Depends on the music. Dead silence sounds great at 0 kbps. Also depends on the listener, the playback device, the listening environment, etc, etc...
Over at HydrogenAudio, they have a killer sample called "eig" that shows pretty nasty pre-echo/smearing at 320 kbps LAME MP3. So the answer to your question is YES--you CAN really tell the difference between FLAC and a 320kbps MP3, on the right sample. But you know what? I don't have "eig" in my music collection. My music sounds transparent to me at bitrates maxing out around 192 kbps (Vorbis), depending on the track, and that's really just fine by me. I'm sure there's a killer sample that sounds awful even at 192kbps, but you know what? I really don't care, as that sample is not in my collection. 320kbps is complete overkill BTW ;) I bet you couldn't reliably ABX between FLAC and half that bitrate for any music you own, on the most ungodly expensive audiophile stereo system ever devised. So don't sweat it. Does your music sound exactly like the CD to you? Then what would you gain by switching to FLAC? -- CatBus ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CatBus's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7461 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=29286 _______________________________________________ ripping mailing list ripping@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/ripping
