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Read other letters about this article
"but in listening to the same song purchased from each store -- Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" -- I couldn't tell a difference."
Two possible problems with this test: First, what kind of headphones were you using? High-quality phones (anything you spend over $250 on) will project the flaws in digital music much better than those of lesser quality, so there may very well be a difference between the bit rates, but you just can't hear it on your ear-goggles. Second, most pop songs today are digitally processed, which usually compresses the spectrum for each individual audio track- especially when compressed. This phenomenon could also account for a 'washing out' of the differences in bit rates. I'm no expert of course, but that's what I thought when I read that passage.
