Interesting—have been tinkering in this area for decades now and always heard AAC was better than MP3. But until now have not seen how/why it was better. Than

Interesting—have been tinkering in this area for decades now and always heard AAC was better than MP3. But until now have not seen how/why it was better. Thank you Stereophile. Yes as several have written, the piece is from 2008 and it doesn't matter any more. First, once LAME and VBR came about, I've never been able to tell the difference between my 192K MP3 and lossless files, even as a spring-chicken with expensive equipment. Been "good enough" for a very long time. Second, since storage and bandwidth exploded I've used FLAC exclusively. Why not? But, have found 24/96+ files on the internet occasionally and first thing I downsample them to 16/48khz and do a listening test. I sure as hell can't hear the difference between those. I do leave the last extra 3.9khz... why not? Incredibly cheap and maybe the kids can hear it. Playable on car stereo and more compact, one third the size. Finally, a big exception. Techies obsess about compression formats, but they don't matter as much as you think at the high-quality end. I've learned the source, i.e. master recording is more important. Example—rip "pristine" FLACs (or WAVs) directly from an iconic 80s CD. Do a listening test. Compare them with a modern remaster encoded with 192K Lame VBR MP3. The MP3 will sound a lot better and preserve the improved high end details. Yes, more noise but you'll struggle to hear it. (Caveat—this is assuming we're not talking about a shitty 2010-era "loudness war" remaster but a quality-oriented remaster.) Was mildly surprised by this after insisting on FLAC for almost two decades. A bit too early, in hindsight. Storage is so cheap now though, it again doesn't matter. FLAC it is, Opus from online sources.