Originally Posted by slider5634

If you have a decerning ear, you absolutely can hear the difference. Even with a slightly less expensive system. I'm running Sony specialty series component system speakers (front and back) w/ Ribbon tweeters and the difference is amazing. I took a CD and compressed it down to 256Kbps MP3 format and listened to the same song back to back (CD first, MP3 second) and I couldn't believe it. Sometimes you can tell where the sound range cutoff is. Sometimes you can hear the a crackling sound with the amount of sound being processed all at once (say 8-9 instruments really loud all at once + vocals). I generally don't get those issues listening straight from the CD. Oddly enough, I've also noticed the compression on music I buy from iTunes (which is NOT MP3) seems to be of excellent quality; I'm not sure if they use a lossless compression or not.

On Topic, I felt blessed my first Droid didn't run into this. However, my refurb seems to have a relatively mild case of this issue. In my case, the plug on my cheapo jensen ear buds slide in and out far too easily. I'm pleased to say that my nicer Sony earbuds have not suffered the same issue.