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Do you recommend 160 Kbps for Opus encoding? I've been encoding FLAC to Opus with 140 Kbps setting normally for playback.

I don't move my collection from FLAC to Opus though, just encode for playback purposes (Opus takes less space, so good for portable players and etc.). It's always good to preserve the lossless original. What if some new Opus-next will appear which will be even better? Without lossless source, you won't be able to re-encode.

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It depends on your planned listening conditions and your gear, but I strongly suggest going much lower (as low as 96kbps, or even lower) and perform some ABX testing under slightly better conditions than what you're going to listen under. If the results are unsatisfactory, bump the bitrate up 16kbps and repeat. I bet you'll be surprised.

If you're going to test, you might start from 64, Opus is that good. I didn't perform extensive tests and use 128.

If it's transparent, why would you care?

Not sure what you are asking. Why use 140 instead of 160 Kbps? 140 produces smaller file size, and is practically transparent as far as I know.

Or you mean why reencode later from lossless again, if a better codec appears? If it will be better, it will offer some benefits (smaller size, faster decoding and so on). So why not?

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