[Drew68]

Conventional wisdom is that (fidelity) only matters to audiofiles who have convinced themselves they can hear a difference.

I recently listened to some Rush through headphones on my buddy's iPod and I did not need to convince myself that it sounded horrible. It was the first thing I noticed! Now there are those bands out there, Rush being a good example, for whom sound engineering is paramount when they go into the studio. That being said, I don't think a lot of today's popular music (i.e. rap, nu-metal, "pop" punk) really requires great fidelity. But for music where a lot of effort went in to engineering the mix, the compression and distortion is very noticeable.

Most people probably couldn't care less if the songs sound terrible. They just want to put 20,000 of them on their iPod player.

[jdm]

Apple should start their own line of iPod clothing based on preferred bit rate's.

Don't worry -- I won't quit my day job.

[Freedom4US]

I disagree, tho I don't care for most of the genres today (must be gettin' old) everyone appreciates good sound. Some recordings are so good it is astonishing, even if sometimes I don't care for the music itself. Double Live Gonzo on the other hand, there are favorite performances that technically are really bad. To me some of the "living presence" and other classical vinyl from the 50's and 60s is astonishingly good. CDs sound "too good" or sterile.