You should be able to discern most encoding effects on £1k/each speakers and a £500 sound card, if not then you have wasted your money.
OTOH as anyone who has tried to write music cheaply knows, distortions much larger than those typically caused by lossy compression quickly vanish on "normal" listening gear.
Of course, the people who care about encoding artifacts are much much more likely to have an expensive signal chain.
You should be able to discern most encoding effects on £1k/each speakers and a £500 sound card, if not then you have wasted your money.
OTOH as anyone who has tried to write music cheaply knows, distortions much larger than those typically caused by lossy compression quickly vanish on "normal" listening gear.
Of course, the people who care about encoding artifacts are much much more likely to have an expensive signal chain.