How well do you hear audio quality?

["J. Charles Holt"]

There's been a lot of discussion lately about bit rates, and this topic jus=
t came up on NPR: http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/41147350=
8/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality

What I personally found was that for the quieter pieces, I could relatively=
 easily tell the difference using only Apple earbuds into my iPhone (which =
has a worse DAC than the iPod). I can only imagine through a pair of nice h=
eadphones through a good DAC (and if my ears were 20 years younger!).

I know that nature recording isn't the same as music, but if I can hear the=
 difference here I would think it's even more important with the dynamic ra=
nge and quiet that one encounters in nature recording.

- Charles