I used to drive in headphones - and I could hear far better than teenagers with their loudspeaker set to idiot level. It was a result of my then girlfriend and her bette noir of car radios and when I got to the destination and out of the car I could still listen. Talk Radio in the UK can (eg Radio 4) be informative or humerous or I could listen to a recording of the Prarie Home Companion (we get it here 6months late).

&

Not to mention the absolute cut off at about 22Khz which includes the harmonics so necessary for "quality" Hi Fi.

Miskin Man - you didn't mention the artefacts induced by noise - recordings from (say) cassette or anything via the microphone input of your PC will beat with the music and generally muddy the waters - particularly nearing the 22.05KHz Nyquist frequency and to a lesser degree the sub-multiples thereof.

But as I always say to people who are nerdy about oxygen free copper and all that twaddle.

"How near the road are you, how many adjoining domiciles have you, and how tolerant and church mousey is your partner". That's before we mention cars and road noise. And volume - AND THAT'S ANOTHER THING!

Z ro content is zero quality.