APPLE LOSSLESS (iPOD)

[Nilsen]

I mostly listen to music on a pair of really high end headphones via a dedicated high end cd player or the computer. The difference is very audible when you compare mp3 vs cd or a full quality rip. When listening to music on the stereo in the livingroom its not a huge difference...until you switch from mp3 to cd.

[bozon]

You loose a lot more "quality" in the process of producing the analog audio signal from the digital data than you loose from good mp3 or similar compression. Lossless compression is good if you plan to do more signal processing on the data. I seriously doubt you can hear the difference - especially with an ipod quality instrument.

edit:
Nilsen, I think that what you hear is the difference between digital to analog conversion of an mp3 player and a good CD player. It also could be that the mp3 was produced with low quality to make the file really small.

[Nilsen]

I produce all mp3s myself at minimum 192 and find that to be good enough. I dont dl or buy tunes on the net.

Nothing beats my stand-alone cd player with my headphones. The players itself is rather old (Sony cdp XA7ES) but has excellent sound quality when paired with my rather huge Sennheizer headphones.

[Chairboy]

Of interest, I've read that the D/AC from the original Sony Playstation (for playing CDs) is supposed to be something really special in terms of audio quality, and that some audiophiles go out of their way to get them because of that.  The idea that folks are buying a 12 year old game console for the DAC chip makes me smile, it's a neat idea.

[Chairboy]

If you haven't read it yet, this double blind study of how noticeable bitrate is required reading:

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/do_higher_mp3_bit_rates_pay_off