I’m not trying to insult mp3s or people who listen to mp3s. But you can hear a difference with a moderately priced stereo system. I personally have AU$800 Focal speakers, with a AU$600 Panasonic digital amplifier.

My view is that artists put in a great deal of time and effort trying to make great sounding music with nuance, and I want to listen to it as they intended. If anything now we live in the digital age we might expect even higher fidelity, as music now comes direct from the studio without the degradation due to limitations of the CD.

Standard MP3 format only goes up to 320 kbit/s.
Unlesss you have a very good sound system or uber headphones + exceptional hearing, you won’t tell the difference between a properly(!!!) encoded 320kbit/s MP3 and lossless.

Note at properly encoded, because most people (and sadly also companies) have no idea what that means.

People might as well use amazon if they want to stay legal, might even be cheaper. My 2 cents.

http://rapidshare.com/files/116289838/uhis2008.tar

@17 Whatever you say, seems totally clear your talking out of your A hole.. sometimes people like you argue and split hairs over anything no matter how small and pointless.. or maybe I just don’t have Your superman hearing, but for normal people there is no noticeable difference between high encoded and lossless. Its a fad, for people who pretend they are perfect and insist perfection, despite themselves being imperfect.

I’ve done the test with 450k/bit mp3 and lossless file encoded from the same source and I can certainly recognise the difference. On some tracks it’s so small as to be insignificant, but on others (such as on some classical tracks that have a great dynamic range and an intricate arrangement) it is really quite noticeable. If there is a perceivable difference then there is no waste of space.

On the other hand, many people have portable music players with 8GB or less of storage. Naturally, lossless is less than ideal if you want a variety of genres available in your pocket, so the mp3 is a great compromise.

The easy solution is for stores to sell both formats. Then the audiophiles are happy, and the normal listener can fit a good library on their nano. Personally, I’d buy the flac then re-encode for my iRiver clix 2.