I agree going forward, that with the price of HDD, no reason not to go un-encoded or high bit-rate. That wasn't always the case and I have mp3s going back years when HDD was expensive.
I also think it has a lot to do with the type of music you are listening to as well as the equipment. I have whole house audio and in-wall and in-ceiling speakers. Those never match the sound quality of stand-alone speakers.
On 10/28/05 18:25 ET, Shoe said...
The difference between MP3 bitrates is easily
heard by anyone with a mid-fi rig or better. Garbage
in garbage out. The only one I've heard that isn't
to f***ed up is 320 kbps. If listening to crap
is OK, then it is OK but why make believe it sounds
"good". 300 gig hard drives are under $100 so
what's the big deal about going lossless. Almost
any PC with a SPDIF out can be connected to a
surround receiver and an outboard DAC will keep
the computers RF noise away from the analogue
signal needed for your multiroom setup and improve
on most sound card as well.
