Re:no, YOUR methodology is flawed (Score 3, Insightful)

That's it. "best" Not "like the original", which is a poor substitute for "best".

The problem is, "best" is subjective. One's person's "best" is not the same as another. When comparing against the original, we have a baseline to compare against.

And example of this would be that different codecs preserve certain frequencies differently. Different people are more sensitive to changes in different frequencies. If it just happens that a codec does preserve a those particular frequencies that you are sensitive to, then of course you will feel that that codec is bad.

Of course, I'm oversimplifing things. Factors like the music, speakers/headphones, etc, all play a part in how you preceive quality of the codec.

So, basically, the idea is, when doing testing which will be relevant to others, we need to test against the original. But if you're testing to see what codec is best for your own personal use, yes, you can use the codec that sounds "best" to you.