QUOTE (HA2013 @ Dec 23 2012, 08:35) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
To be honest, with low end/budget audio gear (no hi-fi headphone, regular desktop onboard audio chipset etc). I'm starting to wonder if there will be actually any transparecy difference between lossless and a well encoded lossy file by LAME or FhG, no matter if bitrate is variable or constant
This sentiment is echoed quite a bit, but actual test data to support it is scarce. Lossy artifacts are generally only suppressed by a noisy listening environment. Other factors such as an uneven frequency response may break masking, causing artifacts to become more audible, rather than less audible.
At the bitrates you're talking about using, you're probably not going to notice any differences as most everthing should be transparent unless you have golden ears. It is when you get to around 128 and below that more modern codecs begin to show strong superiority over MP3.