I've generally always used higher bit mp3s for station audio, which I suppose sounds a little counter productive if going the extra mile of using an external DAC to insure best audio quality... But this article suggest your higher resolution FLAC and OGG files are often no better than mp3 and potentially even worse....
Your Lossless Music Collection Might Actually Be Disguised MP3s, and Now There’s a Way to Prove It
https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/12/lossless-music-collection-disguised-mp3s-prove/
The music industry exploited a loophole to sell you what you already had at twice the price. .... In certain catalogs, up to 99.8% of “hi-res” files are just upsampled CDs. The files bloated to larger sizes without any actual increase in audio information. ... acknowledged that some FLAC files were produced from MQA source files because labels never provided true lossless versions.
In another example, ... widespread complaints about fake files slipping through from record labels.
Production Limits and Loopholes Behind Fake Hi-Res
The problem is systemic. Warner, Universal, and Sony combined produce only about 10 genuine hi-res transfers per week. At that pace, converting their entire catalogs would take decades. So they don’t bother. They upsample instead.
Part of the reason this sleight of hand is so common is that the “hi-res” label is tied to file specs, not provenance.
The “Hi-Res Music” certification badge actually helps this along. Under the RIAA standard, a file only needs to be 48kHz/24-bit to qualify, no matter what the original source actually sounded like.
“A 1906 cylinder recording, transferred at 48/24, could qualify as Hi-Res Music,” ...
“I saw Led Zeppelin titles as 24/192,” wrote one user on Audiophile Style. “But where the hell did they get original 24/192 files for stuff that was never recorded that way?”
They didn’t. That’s the point.
Why Listeners Can’t Reliably Hear Fake Hi-Res
Human ears can’t reliably tell the difference. ... scored 49.8% accuracy when comparing hi-res files to CD-quality versions, which is worse than a coin flip across 554 controlled trials. ... .. a sharp cutoff below 20kHz is a red flag that your “lossless” file started life as an MP3. Roughly speaking, a 16kHz ceiling points to a 128kbps source, and around 19kHz lines up with 192kbps. A cutoff near 20kHz, meanwhile, usually means 320kbps. Genuine lossless extends to 22kHz without sudden drop-offs....
I believe it. This subject goes along the lines of the cables we were talking about, and other hi fi things like breaking in speakers.
Anything can be sold if they make you think in your mind there's a difference. And those lossless supposedly better file types you can't hear anyways. Above 15Klz there is nothing in music anyway even if you can hear above that.
"Roughly speaking, a 16kHz ceiling points to a 128kbps source, and around 19kHz lines up with 192kbps. A cutoff near 20kHz, meanwhile, usually means 320kbps. Genuine lossless extends to 22kHz without sudden drop-offs...."
There it is right there. 198 kbps mp3 is "hi fi" enough and even that is irrelevant as your final in the audio chain, the AM transmitter is what you hear and that is not close, and FM cuts off at 15K. In music there is nothing to be heard at 15K and higher. I don't care if it's an analog record on a $20,000 Macintosh system. Even the overtones of cymbals is irrelevant higher than that and you can't hear it anyways. This hi fi selling point that we all hear to 20 Klz and your ears can pick out all the detail is nonsense, same as the cables we were talking about. They can sell you anything with good marketing.
Rich, the final piece of gear you hear is on a radio from an AM transmitter which is limited to over the air 250Hz - 4Klz frequency response or less depending on the radio and FM is on air limited to 30hz-15Klz
It doesn't matter what lossless files you use at the source you are not hearing it with what comes out at the end. And listening through a $50 radio with a speaker that can't hear all this stuff with lossless formats.
Even at 320 kbps is not needed for what we are listening on and AM radio to boot. Go with 128-196 MP3 kbps and that is good. Any more is wasting storage space as it is uselessly taking up more space for nothing.
There is a case for lossless files. If you are going to do a lot of editing on an mp3, say, the continuous saving and reloading will gradually degrade the audio and introduce artifacts.
That's why I try to save my CD files as flac, and work from there (saving and possibly reloading as flac). No matter what the origin of the music, it won't degrade any further.