While I can see your point, in fact it's like comparing old grainy black-and-white picked-up-with-an-antenna TV to the latest HDTV images. 128kbps loses an insane amount of information. I mean, I could tell the difference between 128 and 160 (and higher) back on my Plantronics p90, and nowadays with my Senns (either pair) or a decent set of speakers..... yeah.

Did the same myself! Though, it was closer to 80GB and only for those I had ripped myself in MP3. I also got rid of some of the ones I downloaded that I wasn't going to bother to get on CD or in lossless anyway. Can't say I miss them, regardless whether I have re-ripped them or not yet... ;)

I guess it depends on whether you actually listen to and like the music you collect. Most of what I deleted was stuff I just downloaded originally for the sake of doing so, being new to broadband and all. Mostly, it was stuff that I was never going to listen to again. Mostly... ;)

I molest little audios all the time.

Audiophiles are music lovers.

AUDIOPHILES, however, are indiscriminate consumers prone to autosuggestion with impeded critical thinking skills who get hung up on bullshit distinctions such as lossy versus lossless.

I guess I am an audiophile... I hate .wma files and the like, and re-ripping cds of mp3s etc. I always rip vbr mp3s with EAC (as instructed by a tutorial on these boards before the downtime).
When downloading, I always try and get the best bitrate, and am on a constant mission to educate my heathen friends about the evils of their WMP.
I'm forever tagging and sorting mp3s; I've got my downloaded music separated from my ripped cds, which again are separated from ripped burnt cds.
On several occaisions my HD has been full due to music. Totally. 0bytes free space. If I had the HD space, I'd love to use .flac, and I'm still looking for a high capacity mp3 player with all the features I 'need'. Alas, I have not enough money for either.

Oh my hell do I have to spell it out. Look at my posts again and ask yourself again if I was actually doing anything more than playing along with the thread's own ignorance.

Nope, but hell if my brother doesn't get angry as hell if i'm playing anything other than lossless.

I laugh at AUDIOPHILES who pay $200 for "special" cables.

It depends, when dealing with ordinary albums/songs/soundtrack I'll listen to anything. I do try to avoid 128 kbps though.
When I'm dealing with bootlegs then it's another story, all my bootleg material needs to be lossless.

Indeed you were. My mistake! Sarcasm's invisible when you're scanning.

I believe the record states that I loathe audophiles.

I wish I could be an audiophile...disk space won't let me. With headphones you Can tell the difference between 320 and 128....I never noticed until I started using headphones (Mac Mini Speakers SUCK). *sigh* Someday when I have, like, a terabyte...Ha....

Anyway, all this bitrate talk isn't all that relevant. A 160kbps LAME MP3 can sound better than a 320kbps Blade MP3, for example.

Does this mean having sex with music. If so then yes I am an audiophile. GOA FTW, gotta make sure I hit all those freqs.

OK, I have a few questions for audiophiles.
1st - Let's say you got a song from the internet, or downloading or whatever, but definitely NOT from ripping CD. You don't like the sound quality of it because it's 128 (or lower) and is CBR. What would you do? I'm asking in the case that you really love the song and do not want to toss it away. My question is you would not convert it to VBR or even lossless or FLAC, would you? WHat I'm guessing is since its quality is "not good", you cannot convert it to a higher standard to make it "good", right? Just like you cannot burn a 128 mp3 to CD and make it sounds like a real CD, isn't it? What would you do in case you're a hardcore audiophile and you just want everything high birate?
2nd - Putting hardware aside, will sound effect plug-in from soundcard program or music player affect your judgement between ... say 128 and 192? With the EAX program come with the Creative Audigy deluxe that I own and winamp's equalizer, I can pimp a 96 sounds nearly as good as a 160 or around that. I can't tell the difference between 128 and 300 if I leave all my setting on.
3rd - The one above leads me to this one. Do you leave your sound effect setting the same with every song you listen to? For the home system, some people prefer real equalizer to make sound the way they like. But, will audiophiles (who have equalizer) come and change the setting as songs go? I think it must be a pain.

Sorry for the shitload of questions. I'm a audiophile wannabe so I want to hear opnions from every aspects. Though, I have an opinion about lossless or FLAC and the likes. I'm against the whole "everything lossless" thing. Let's say I have an OST CD of a video game from the previous generation. Its sound quality is already "not good" eventhough it's professionally recorded. Any PS1 OST or any portable system's games (hell, even PSP) will work my point. Some people are obsessed with ripping music from games. Those ripped music will never have good sound quality. It goes the same for the old music. Akkk... I don't wanna make all of them lossless. It's space and time killer while doesn't make the quality goes any higher.

As long as it isnt below the 128kbps mark, and is "normal sounding", I don't care. Anything below 128kbps, sounds a bit stale.

I can tell the difference in quality, but quite honestly, I don't care. Very rarely will you find a music file that is 320kbps or above on my computer, as I couldn't care what amount of kbps a file is. Just as long as it's enough to make the "stale" sound go away. Which in my opinion, is 128kbps, or in some cases, 112kbps.

Nope. Don't know the different between VBR or CBR, and don't spend much money to get a good set of soundsystem.

However, i like good music.

I think I may be becoming an audiophile. I recently bought my first DAC/Amplifier, a portable Total Bithead from HeadRoom. I have three pairs of rather high-end headphones, and I'm already looking at another. Although, in the end, the equipment is still a means to an end, rather than an end in itself.

I have habits and equipment that may make me look like an audiophile, but I am not an audiophile. I used to use an 800 watt subwoofer that I played real soft to listen to Les Claypool or Victor Wooten, just for that clean, crisp bass. I have a bad habit of messing with people's systems when their 5.1 surround is completely off. I used to have a music file server that would only have .wav files, because they sound better than any .mp3s.

but I still think I am not an audiophile.

I don't listen to anything below 192kbps. I'll tolerate 128... On very rare occasions. I have shitty speakers, though, but I do have kickass earbud headphones with noise cancelling and changeable heads.

You can't add quality that's not there. Period. End of story. You have to get the file in a higher bitrate somehow. Either search the internet forever or, you know, you could actually BUY the song. Most music that I like I end up buying. And the stuff that's not worth buying I quite often delete to make room for better stuff, which I usually end up buying. It's a long cycle.All those settings ever do is equalize stuff, which I hate. I have an Audigy 2 ZS Platinum (I bought the 2ZS for gaming and had an opportunity to purchase the front panel later for $10 and decided what the hell), and all of its various crystalization options only lower the end audio quality to my ears. Also, with an Audigy series card, get foobar2000 and have it upsample the output to 48000Hz. Most programs output at 44100Hz, which the Audigy 2 then internally upscales, but its internal algorithm sucks.I don't equalize anything. Nor do most of the "audiophiles" I know. But I do know some that change it depending on the song.

Partly!
I do not use Mp3's less than 192kbps, first of all. Secondly if there's this CD i really like, I rip it in WAV to get everything out of it ;)

Also, I've gone from using some random MP3-Player under $99 to now investing $300 in a player and headphones. I'm on my way!

(Is this thead old? It says I've already voted no in this poll)

I'm not really an audiophile. I mean, I can tell the difference between a poorly encoded file and one with better quality, but I'd rather save the disk space than have those extra samples that you're not really going to hear.

I don't think very many music has a need for anything higher than 192 kbps, and possibly for modern music not much of a need for anything higher than 128 kbps. For classical, it's best to have the highest possible, 192 VBR at least. With that said, I don't really consider myself an audiophile, but I will not accept anything lower than 128 CBR. The quality is too poor.

Well, the best possible thing you can do for the quality of most downloads is to leave them as they are.

Some of these filters will make it easier to tell apart MP3's, some will make it more difficult. It depends on what the filter is doing. For instance, a lowpass will make it more difficult to tell, but using an EQ to boost the high end will make it easier.

I generally leave settings the same. Generally on PC this means no settings at all and on my stereo it means just a simple bass boost - but only because it sounds downright anemic without it.

Agreed. For anything older than N64/PS1, I'd use either the native sound format (e.g. SPC, PSF) or MP3... and for anything newer, I might use lossless.