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. :)

It depends a lot on what type of music you listen to. Modern popular recordings are produced to sound as good as possible in compressed mp3 formats, so 128k will probably be alright for casual listening.

However, if you listen to classical, jazz, or other 'audiophile' type recordings, 128K will sound tinny, thin, and lacking in dynamics. For these types of recordings, discriminating ears cringe at even 320k (typical maximum rate for mp3). For casual listening of jazz, I need at least 192k (and sometimes higher) to get to the point where cymbals don't sound like tin foil being crumpled up.

In the end, you have to try it yourself and understand that streaming is like listening to the radio - it has it's limitations that you have to live with. If you can pay a few bucks to minimize that limitation, that's probably a good thing.

Have fun!