This might be of Interest.....

Thanks for the post - interesting indeed.

Good for me to know that such a successful pro musician/ producer as Rick Beato also feels that 320kbps is more than good enough. 

I wonder how many of us here believe that we can hear better than Michelle, his assistant in the online test?

Although her score of 4/6 is far from convincing of the superiority of WAV over MP3, it's interesting that she only once out of 6 identified the 128kbps track as the best.

Ironically it was the Coldplay track that she said really loved!

Interesting only from the viewpoint that Rick misses the point entirely.

I understand where he is going and he is probably quite knowledgable about the technical stuff.  However....... the bands and musicians he mentions have particular tastes and concepts which influence the mix THEY want.  The sound of that artist or group is the end product and what the engineers are paid for.  They are hired guns.

The engineers are the technical conveyance to get these people to their desired destination.  Listen to Rolling Stones recordings purposely recorded with distortion and/or very 'hot' in certain areas of frequency, vocals or instrumentation.  They want that signature sound. Just like Sun Studios had a particular 'sound'. 

The Stones don't want the mix Diana Krall wants.  They don't hire Bernie Grundman to give that very open acoustical large soundstage sound.

The engineers, editors, mastering jockeys are producing a commercial product mostly if not completely swayed by what that artist or that band wants for a sound.