Well I'll be damned. I couldn't tell any real difference between the two. Gained 3GB worth of space to boot. I forgot my iPod today... was going to do a blind test on my boss. His ears are better than mine. I still doubt he'll be able to tell. I continue to be impressed with digital music.

As for a link, these guys are freaks: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/index.php

 

Interesting, I'll have to play around and see if anyone can tell with speakers.

 

Fat chance. If I couldn't tell on this setup, I really doubt anyone with actual speakers could.

 

Best way to tell, this would be the ultimate test for human ears.

Rip one normal, then rip one reduced.

Open Audacity and combine the two tracks alternating every 10 seconds from one to the other. Save the combined track same as the normal rip. If you cant tell where it jumps from normal to compressed during play back, then your on to something. Becasue once the track had been compressed then when you upgrade those sections if any data was lost it dont majically reappear. Even though it's saving it at the higher quality, it cant bring non existant data in.

I may poke around in that forum and see exactly what they are doing.