[dotancohen]

Does there exist an _objective_ method to test the sound quality difference between two files?

I could take a 54 kbs rip of Rust in Peace and reencode it at 256 kbs. It's not going to sound better than the 196 kbs rip, even though the bit rate is higher. What software would detect this? And other artifacts, such as clipping?

[eviks]

For some specific issues like clipping sure there are objective methods, and encoders use objective quality levels (so you don't target bitrate), and if it's not a tricky "subjective human experience can't be objective" question - the method to test is do A/B testing and see that humans can't detect a difference. That's audio transparent encoding. And since you don't care about other people for your personal phone use case, you can do this test yourself to detect the encoding quality level that's transparent to you.

And your examle doesn't make sense. You compare reencoded to the original, not to some 3rd sample. The issue here is whether to store large flacs or their smaller reencoded lossy variants. If you get a better quality flac, then you'll need to do another encoding to get a better lossy version

[dotancohen]

The idea is that once I have my CDs ripped to flac, I could run an encoder to MP3 for e.g. listening in my Tesla. But I don't know if the settings that work best for Dark Side of the Moon are going to be good for Rust in Peace. If there were some automated tool review hours and hours of audio, finding the discrepancies, that would save me a lot of time and provide me much enjoyment listening.