>>1504419>It is good enough for most people. >Their earbuds and speakers cannot even reliably show the difference between 128K and 320K.This viewpoint is OLD and would be valid in the 1990's to 2012 or so. Around 2012 affordable portable audio tech jumped way up in quality for earbuds. My daily driver earbuds are Sony MDR-AS410 and show the difference between 128K and 256K easily. As for 196K, I have none in that area and will not bother creating one for it to verify if I can hear the difference or not. But I've made 128K, 256K, and 320K long ago when testing what I wanted to standardize from my large CD/DVD collection, and 320K became the standard because I can hear the difference with the cheap Sony MDR-AS410 earbuds or my ancient Sony MDR-V6 monitor headphones. I can barely hear the difference between 128K and 320K on my Boston Acoustic tower speakers in 5.1 configuration, but the difference is there.
>>1504510>The difference between 128k and 196k is tremendous.It depends on what OP uses. He's satisfied with youtube audio which can vary a huge amount for the SAME song at the same compression of 128K to 130K. Some are muddy, some are amazingly clear, so OP needs to understand that the video uploader may have used a poorly made 128K that was converted from something else before being uploaded to youtube which once again reconverted it again to save size and bandwidth. So a 128K from youtube is going to be lower quality than a freshly made 128K from the source material.
As for good enough audio geears, consider the following modern speaker-based listening solutions for TV, video, and gaming:
--1-- ULTIMEA 7.1 Surround Sound System:
Includes a soundbar with a wireless subwoofer and four wired surround speakers for around $190
--2-- Klipsch Reference Theater Pack:
It's 5.1 for about $380
--3--Sony STR-DH790 7.2-ch Surround Sound Home Theater AV Receiver/speakers:
This 7.2 solution is approx $348
