Apple Lossless vs iTunes Plus

I have done blind testing with AAC lossy at 256K and Apple Lossless. A group of six audiophiles could not hear any differences between CD, WAV and various lossless files. Further, we could not hear any differences until the bit rate was below 256 KB. Once under 128 KB, differences were obvious.

The above results are heresy to audiophools but modern audiophilia is a religion as you need to have faith and believe to hear the differences that they espouse.

Grege,

I have done the same. 256 Kbps with a good compression (like AAC) will not be identified by most people on most music. There will always be exceptions but once you get to 256 of higher then exceptions become vanishingly small.

Sadly most do not understand the implications of this.

Grege, Shadorne - my experience has been the same. While I'm perfectly willing to accept that some people can distinguish differences between lossless files and high bit-rate mp3's, what I've found is that at 256 or 320 kbps I stop thinking about the fidelity and just enjoy the music.

Reading all this gives me a headache. I've been thinking about getting into computer audio, buying a dac etc, then all the different connections, high rez, low rez, obsolete next month- I yi, yi.

Computer audio IS a headache and one you need not suffer. You are not alone in your sentiments.

Neal

Wildouts - you need not get a headache with computer audio. iTunes is FREE. You can easily rip CDs using iTunes and code to AAC at a MINIMUM of 256K or 320KB rate. Just make sure that error correction is turned on in iTunes.

On the other hand, I listened to a few CDs last night on my $25 Sony Playstation One (PS1) and it sounded incredible. It's a great time to be a music lover and and audiophile.

Update: I'm using XLD -> AIFF.

I recently decided to start using XLD to rip (and re-rip CD collection) to AIFF.