how good are modern lossy codecs ?

I hear a lot of people claiming that the only way to go with lossy codecs would be 192 kbit mp3-lame or even better. And I was sceptical too.
The pros are speaking of "transparency" which means that they don't hear the difference any more.

Now I have found that my favourite audio player named foobar2000 (freeware) contains a wonderful sound comparison feature called ABX-Compare.

http://www.mpex.net/info/abx.html
(German text but easy to understand English screenshots)

I'd like to share this test with you because I think a lot of you people would be surprised how close even at low bitrates modern lossy codecs can come to the original. Hear it with your own ears !
Btw, I convert my CDs into ogg/112kbit and I cannot hear any difference with my headphones.

Note that the ABX test (or ABXY) takes only the direct comparison into account. If you can't swap with the original, you might never hear that you are listening to a lossy version. So, a lossy version that does not survive the ABX test may still sound great without the direct comparison. You will be surprised how low you can go before you can hear significant differences.