What audio system do you have, or plan on getting?

[hopefullytrusting]

This obvious straw man argument offers us a good chance to get back on topic!

Q. Does anyone here use "bargain-bin earbuds" to listen to classical music? Or any earbuds at all?

I don't use bargain-bin earbuds, but I do use bargain-bin headphones - wired Oneodios (20 bucks). I do have fancy headphones with all the fixins, but my ears simply couldn't tell the difference, even though I know, empirically, it is perceptible. It is not dissimilar to my eyes in that I cannot really see the difference between 480p and 720p, and that I attribute to how much time I spent gaming in the era where the fps was 30 or below, but my eyes just aren't seeing the value of the definition or rendering, again, I know that empirically it exists and is perceptible.

[steve ridgway]

Q. Does anyone here use "bargain-bin earbuds" to listen to classical music? Or any earbuds at all?

No, I could never get earbuds to stay in well and comfortably, bought wired open ear headphones based on reviews of gear within my budget.

[71 dB]

There's never any lack of people eager to insist that MP3 is perfectly identical to FLAC, proudly declaring they can't hear or prefer not to hear any difference. Naturally, they'll cite the sacred blind tests.

Hardly anyone says mp3 is perfectly identical to FLAC, but mp3 at 320 kbps is very hard to tell apart from lossless sound and this is shown in blind listening tests. The type of music affects how easy the lossy coding artefacts are heard. So, if you listen to music that reveals coding artefacts more easily, you may want to stay lossless and not use lossy formats, but it is everyone's own choice.  Nobody tells you to use mp3 if you don't want to, but the truth is mp3 at bitrates of 192 kbps or more can sound completely fine in portable use when you are listening to music in whatever less or more noisy environments and 256/320 kbps can sound fine at home in your livingroom unless the music happens to be "Japanese killer music." 

Meanwhile, they enjoy their classical music through tiny little boxes and bargain-bin earbuds, happily assuring everyone it all sounds marvelous. And for them it does, thank heavens for that. Suum cuique, as they say.

They? My speaker system is pretty high quality diy system that goes down to 25 Hz and my headphones are "bang for the buck" Sennheiser HD 598 with diy crossfeeder that improves headphone spatiality for my ears with almost all recordings. I don't know how you define "marvelous", but I am completely happy with my system. My problem is with the recordings and how they are mixed and mastered. My system has the resolution to reveal those problems. Even if something is mixed and mastered to perfection, not all music is that great. Even the greatest artists have their duds...

[Todd]

Q. Does anyone here use "bargain-bin earbuds" to listen to classical music? Or any earbuds at all?

Maybe not bargain bin, but I use some JBL wireless earbuds in the ~$50 range when I walk, and I listen to classical music on occasion.  They are fit for purpose. 

[Fëanor]

Hardly anyone says mp3 is perfectly identical to FLAC, but mp3 at 320 kbps is very hard to tell apart from lossless sound and this is shown in blind listening tests. The type of music affects how easy the lossy coding artefacts are heard...

I always rip CDs to lossless, usually FLAC.  On rare occasions I will create a 320 kbps MP3 copy for a mobile device.  On my full stereo system I can't randomly play the MP3 and say to myself, "Oh that's MP3" in case of 320 kbps.  However 128 kbps copies are usually quite obviously not full resolution.

I have ripped some CDs to lossless ALAC (Apple) format;  my Foobar2000 decoder will show the instantaneous bitrate when playing back.  From what I've seen, the least compression occurs on Jazz recordings when a cymbal is struct with a wire brush -- almost full lossless rate in most cases.

[hopefullytrusting]

I always rip CDs to lossless, usually FLAC.  On rare occasions I will create a 320 kbps MP3 copy for a mobile device.  On my full stereo system I can't randomly play the MP3 and say to myself, "Oh that's MP3" in case of 320 kbps.  However 128 kbps copies are usually quite obviously not full resolution.

I have ripped some CDs to lossless ALAC (Apple) format;  my Foobar2000 decoder will show the instantaneous bitrate when playing back.  From what I've seen, the least compression occurs on Jazz recordings when a cymbal is struct with a wire brush -- almost full lossless rate in most cases.

I think my collection would drive everyone here mad.

I don't even pay attention to any of the above, in fact, it wouldn't surprise me if most my recordings were 128, lol.

[Spotted Horses]

I'm a bit puzzled, to be honest. One objectivist refuses to admit that all DACs sound the same, while another insists that DACs don't have emotions (was anyone suggesting they did?) and that they produces the same audio output. Perhaps you should have a chat among yourselves, sort it out, and come back once you've reached a consensus.

Now, digital cables. In theory, they all carry the same data, ones and zeroes, so there shouldn't be any difference. That's the theoretical model: if the bits arrive intact, the job is done.

You got so close to the right answer there. If the bits arrive intact, the job is done. That is correct in theory and in practice.

In practice, though, cables are built differently: different materials, different shielding, different resistance to interference, varying quality of connectors. They all carry the same information, but with differing degrees of reliability and stability.

All modern digital transmission systems contains ECC (error correction code) usually in the form of CRC (cyclic redundancy check). The device that receives information can detect if some sort of signal degradation has caused data corruption. If an error is detected the receiver may be able to restore the correct data or ask for retransmission. To give a concrete example (more simplistic than what would be implemented in a real system) I can send 1,000 numbers, then add all of the numbers together and send the sum. The receiver gets the 1,000 numbers and the sum, it adds the 1,000 numbers together and see if it gets the same sum. If they don't match there is an error and the receiver instructs the sender to re-transmit. Error correction schemes used in real systems would be much more sophisticated. I copied a 4TB hard disk using a $5 USB cable. It transmitted all 30,000,000,000,000 bits without losing a single one.