@Mac- my point was to make sure that folks are not misled into thinking that vbr files are lossless. They are not. FLAC and monkeys audio files are compressed lossless files. I exited the amp specific portion of this discussion with my goodwill purchase comment. Merely correcting a technical point .

As for detecting compressed vs uncompressed, with lame encoding my self imposed limit is 192 Kbps. It's a rare thing for me to hear any differences between files compressed at that rate and any higher up to 16 bit 44.1khz .wav files. I have slightly less than perfect hearing at very high frequencies, not enough to be labelled a loss, but les sensitive than my mid and low frequencies. With lower bitrates I find similar experience as jazzmammal. Ride cymbals are the giveaway.

Last edited by rockstar_not; 08/06/12 11:50 AM.