[Reference to parent thread removed]

If you're not listening attentively, Vorbis at 96kbps is fine no matter what you play it on. It's what I use for DVD backups. In ff123's 64kbps test, there were very few samples where it did really badly on, and 96kbps is another 50% extra bits on top of that.

For my girlfriend, 64kbps Vorbis is transparent. I've tested this several times, and it's repeatable. I don't think she's abnormal, I suspect more we are.

Anything is fine is you are not listening and use low enough volume...

I didn't mean anything special with hifi-quality. Maybe only something that you don't notice something wrong immediately, if you have heard original music before.

I suspect your gf is not in a majority if she can't hear difference between 64kbps Vorbis and original even when trying. The loss of stereo separation alone strikes you down, if you have ever heard the original/higher quality version. I'd say that vast majority of musical people, people who play some instrument etc. have no trouble distinguish either 64kbps or 96kbps very quickly without much effort at all.

Well, no. I can distuingish Xing MP3's a few rooms away almost instantly. This is kind of annoying, since asking people 'can you please turn that off' tends to provoke strange looks, and I really don't want to explain why to them either.



I suspect 96kbps may fit that definition for me, though I hardly use it so I'm not sure. I don't notice anything wrong with the sound of my DVD backups (or I wouldn't be using it).



I'm tempted to agree, but honestly, I don't know. We never test these things. I was amazed by my own results in ff123's 64kbps test - IIRC I failed several clips.



I know my guitar teacher can do it for 64kbps - I have no idea about 96kbps.

What no?? If you use low enough volume, you don't hear anything. Seems to me that you are just disagreeing because you wanna argue about something here?

I thought that you meant having the music as background music, my mistake.

I have to agree with Garf, it seems that unless you are in an ABX like situation where you are actively looking for problems, 96kbs Vorbis will sound fine to most people Is there a definition for this kind of quality, you have transparency for hearing no difference when actively looking for one, I suppose this is more a general listening transparency..

64kbs might not be all that abnormal - I encoded a bunch of tracks I didn't like at 48kbs, and although it sounds like it suffers from a general lack of detail or clarity, I can happily put it on and listen to it, it doesn't sound bad enough to stop the music being enjoyable.