Just listen.
The most complicated signal processing in the whole chain starts at your ear. I'm sure that's what Bob means when he goes on about twigs in the forest.
Auditory processing has evolved. It's not a simple engineering solution in the usual sense. It's so complicated that concepts like lossless don't have much meaning.
A machine designed to make sounds rich in auditory cues and sympathetic to auditory processing would be unlikely to satisfy an engineer.
The hard engineering approach would strap a jet on an owl to make it fly faster through the forest at night.
Trust your ears.

Once upon a time