Does playback quality vary between media players?

[db579]

If you play the exact same file in the same format (let's say 320kbps .mp3 for example) in different media players iTunes, rhythmbox etc... should they sound exactly the same or would some people notice a difference?

Is the way they handle the codec necessarily standard for all of them or do they have their own implementations?

[I♥HTML5]

Theoretically it should sound the same.

[db579]

Can you explain why that is?

[I♥HTML5]

I'm no expert on this subject, but I would think that the designers of the codecs would have designed them to be "neutral".