As Lizard said, "lossyness" does not necessarily compromise quality,
especially when the losses are below threshold.

The problem with mp3 is NOT the losses. It's the additional artifacts
introduced. While it's true that they can be significant (read:
audible),
this isn't always the case.

Yeah, I guess if you are recording soething simple like DEVO with
a couple of synths and some vocals, you'll not notice anything.
But you move to something with a fast tempo and lots of instruments,
and suddenly it gets the audio equivalent of "jaggies" just like how
JPEG does.

I think you're overstating the degree to which the differences become
audible.