If I wanted my music to sound like garbage, though, I'd leave 'em all on. Oh, and I'd be sure to use the audiophile-quality earbuds that came with my iPod, too 🙄
I just use soundcheck because i have lots of classical music which actually uses all 16 bits, countered with today's rock albums which are generally compressed till it's basically bricks coming out my speakers. It's actually fun to see the "volume" adjustment when you "get info" for certain tracks. I've got stuff that swings from -15 to +15 dB. That's huge. And I didn't even scour for the most extreme examples.