I have access to quite a different formats in our house. Our materials go all the way back to our edisongraph, with the cylinder box-eulas. The best format I'v

I have access to quite a different formats in our house. Our materials go all the way back to our edisongraph, with the cylinder box-eulas. The best format I've heard is 24 bit depth, 96KHz full stereo audio files. That is assuming the microphones were tuned appropriately for their response. MP3's clip higher frequencies, as well as 'round the tops'. Other lossy encoders do other hard-but-easy to hear. Of course, one also has to deal with the Monster crowd and other golden ear audiophiles. I've only seen one true audiophile: I attended an amateur radio club (fellow ham here). A guy named Stephen, who has been blind since birth, brought his 1 watt Argonaut with a crappy little omnidirectional antenna. We were in the basement of the red cross building (in the Midwest). After 10 or so minutes, he starts hearing something.... And initiates a QSO (contact)... With Hawaii! He talks for perhaps 11 minutes before signing off. Nobody else could hear the chirps of morse code through that layer of static. He could, even in the basement of a steel and concrete building.