When Streaming, is 128kps good or not so good?

John, in the context of your nice system, 128kps is good enough for background listening and that's about it IMO. To my ears, it doesn't out and out stink, but it lacks all of the delicate nuances that make hi-end sound come alive. I listen to streaming internet radio at that sample rate while working and it doesn't bother me. Personally, I'd never pay much for it, but your perspective may differ.

128kbs is probably the standard for most streaming services. In fact, it's hard to find much better, although I think Rhapsody may have some streams at 192k. I have a Squeezebox and mostly stream free services, although i do have a Pandora account.

I pay the extra $2.99 for 128kbs. It all depends on if you listen to Sirius a lot. I've had Sirius for 4 or 5 years and have become pretty familiar with the channels so it's a nice little library of genres where you can listen to whatever you're in the mood for. So if you a Sirius listener you're gonna hear a big differece between 32 kbs and 128 kbs. I listen a good bit when I'm working. There's a lot of good free radio out there but nothing matches the variety in a nice little package that you can access on Sirius.

I don't want to be an Audiosnob but the lowest rate I can tolerate is definitely 360. Otherwise the high frequencies get very grainy; especially cymbal decay and ambience. I know it's backgrgound but I'm sure you want to be able to ignore it. :)