All the depth of the lossless is there, and the bass is there. Well, when I decided to do an A/B comparison of a lossless file and a copy of it encoded with version 3.9, I could not believe it. Recently I started using the LAME 3.9, and what a difference! I had gotten used to the fact that the best mp3 still had weaker bass and slightly diffuse highs. For those years, i've been using the LAME 3.8 encoder. For years i've used mp3 for the car, on my bedroom stereo, and for portable use.
If you do not use mp3, kindly skip this thread and move on. This is a thread for those who use mp3 for whatever application.