Here we go yet again. Sigh.

Mac is completely correct. Good high quality PA's like my EV ELX112P, or a JBL 515XT system or the Bose L1 or whatever do sound "pretty good" but they all pale in comparison to studio quality monitors set up in a quiet room with good acoustic treatment.

Joden, again you're missing the point here. You CANNOT tell the difference between a regular wav file or a 128 bit MP3 going through a PA while you're sitting 25 feet away in a noisy bar. That's pure BS if you're going to say you can. You can't even tell the difference if you're on stage right next to the PA speaker or floor monitor unless it's an afternoon sound check with nobody there and even then I doubt it.

At one wedding reception I did this summer, after we had done the obligatory old fart set we had a teen girl come up with her iPad and ask if she could play a few tunes. After I asked of any of the tunes had bad hip hop type lyrics in them and she said no I said ok, plugged it into the PA (a JBL Eon system) and it sounded just fine. All MP3's and we even pulled up a few tunes on Youtube and you know how those are compressed. Still sounded fine to me because we had about 75 people talking, dancing and laughing, lots of ambient noise. All I did was play along with a few parts, drink a beer and watch the volume since some MP3's can be mixed hotter than others.

A 128 bit MP3 is perfectly ok in those type situations. Maybe at a quiet jazz lounge you may, may hear some little difference in high freq's like drum cymbals but nothing else.

Bob

Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.