96 AAC VBR that good? Or am I deaf? Options

[Carsi]

Hi there.

This is my 2nd topic here at HA. My first post was about a Rammstein sample where i ABX'ed 20/20 at 128 AAC VBR. That's the only sample so far that I can ABX 20/20. I recently tried 96 AAC VBR, and it sounds surprisingly good. I can't ABX it :/ Apart from that particular Rammstein sample.

My question is this, I've finally re-ripped all my cd's to ALAC. If I convert them to 96 AAC VBR, would you say it would be transparent? I'm using Creative Aurvana Live headphones, not high end. I'm trying to fit as many songs as possible on my iphone 5 32GB.

[Dynamic]

The Wikipedia page Codec Listening Test lists a lot of listening tests, with the most recent, and thus most relevant to current codecs, towards the bottom of the page, with references and links to the tests themselves, where possible.

Some are public, some are single-listener. The results pages and analysis often give a pretty good overview of what sort of quality to expect (and I sometimes look for the lowest scores or the variability in scores to guide me also).

I've often used these as a good source of information and starting points for my own trials and been happily enjoying the music even when I've pushed it a bit.