"The other huge issue, in terms of classical streaming, is sound quality. It stands to reason that picky, "elitist" classical music fans would also be picky about audio standards as well. And while it's entirely true that bit rates don't matter one whit when you're listening through standard-issue earbuds, most of the best-established current services don't emphasize great audio quality. Mahler's epic, sweeping Fifth Symphony, for example, is a watery shadow of itself when I hear it (listening on very good headphones) at 160 kpbs on Spotify's free service. Lossless sound is one of the biggest points of differentiation that Tidal is trying to make for itself, but so far the scope of their classical offerings and the quality of their metadata have been a disappointment."

This person has never ABX tested 160kbps lossy versus lossless. This bogus and unfounded claim calls the rest of his expert assertions into question.

Even on ideal headphones/amp, I know no one who can consistently identify 160kbps from original PCM in an ABX test.