graph shows 320 kbps LAME 'never achieves transparency'?
Reply #41 –
And yet we have many audio lovers (including HA members) who insist on using lossless formats. And why is that? Because lossless gives them peace of mind? Because they think lossless sounds better? Or is it because perceptual coding, no matter the sophistication or bitrate, potentially introduces significant and audible degradation?
I think the main reason that many of us here at HA use lossless encoding is to avoid generational degradation.
When dealing with master tracks lossy is a non-option. In that last regard MP3 could be considered ephemeral and for casual listening but never for archival.
Not to throw the thread out of orbit, I think there might a benefit to defining terms for "transparency" in regards to the degree of "lossy quality." Of course, users' ears will differ and just as much as users' music genres/preferences will differ: i.e. classical vs. pop rock will have different average bitrates at -V2. Artifacts are likely to surface in lossy but how annoying they are and what the listener considers annoying (pre-echo vs. warbling) is also another area of opinion.