Quote:96kbs: The sound clearly lacks definition: as an example, hall's noises are perceived as some breath. The result is comparable to a good FM radio.

112kbps: The sound seems less present and less natural than the original. The definition is a bit less good, the voice is less clear. Attacks are less spontaneous. The spatialization is different from the original recording: the sound seems to be located more far and more lower. There is however a very noticeable improvement compared to 96kbps.

128kbps: Hall's noises are slightly less defined than the original. The violin is a bit less present and the piano attacks a bit less sharp. The voice is nearly identical to the original recording but sibilants are less pronounced. We can notice the same spatialization problem as with the 112kbps's one although there is again a good improvement compared to the 112kbps rate.

160kbps: The sound is more natural than 128kbps but the improvement is less spectacular than during the two preceding stages. The sound is different from the original, without however being possible to tell in what. I think that the difference resides more in what we feel rather than in what we hear.

192kbps: The sound is not felt as the original recording. It is however totally impossible to tell in what.

256kbps: The sound is indiscernible from the original. It is impossible to make the difference with the original recording.

320kbps: The sound is indiscernible from the original. It is impossible to make the difference with the original recording

Conclusion : For computer use, the 128kbps rate produces a quality equal to an audio CD when played on a cd rom. But in the case of an MP3 used in advanced Hi-Fi, it is necessary to use a 256kbps bitrate to reach an identical result to the CD sound.