Matt, if you check the properties of one of the BIAB RT wma files you will see it shows a bit rate of 128K.
As you pointed out, this may be a better quality than an MP3 compression at that bit rate. Both compressions are lossy.

Sorry, to end this conversation, as I'm very busy for the next couple of weeks, I was just pointing out that most people listen to a quality that's slightly less than what CDs produced in the 90s. That's all.

I personally can hear the difference between an isolated wma instrument and a wave instrument in BIAB, but my ears are shot, and I wear hearing aids, as I played in a rock and roll band for many years.

When the tracks are mixed with other tracks especially if the tracks are generated with midi super tracks where the instruments are at a higher sample rate, I doubt most people would hear a difference in the final mix.

Your milage may vary. smile

Studio One (latest version), Win 11 23H2 , i9 -10940X 3.3 GHz, 32GB Mem, a 4K 40" monitor, PreSonus Studio Live III Console as interface/controller. secondarily test on Reaper, Cakewalk, and S1 on Surface Pro 3 Win 10 (latest versions).