How Well Can You Hear Audio Quality?
npr.orgHuge discussion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9654758
Other submissions without comments:
Not once did I pick the 128kbps compression. I don't claim to be able to hear the difference between an uncompressed file or 300/320kbps mp3, but I picked the uncompressed version 5 of 6 times. More likely through luck than hearing ability.
I tend to get my music v0 or v2 compressed. For archival purposes (and to re-encode for mobile devices where space is a larger issue than quality of sound) I might get it in flac quality.
For most music genres 196kbps will suffice. I'm not a snob over quality until it gets to 128kbps (or heaven forbid, more compressed).