Maybe its just me and my lowbrow ways, but a $10 pair of computer speakers plugged into my MP3 player has been a perfectly fine home audio system. I can’t tell any audio difference between that and any other stereo i’ve ever listened to.
You’re an extreme example but I guess I’m also in the deaf crowd. I rip my CDs with LAME into 128kb mp3s, and it’s fine for me. Through my midrange computer speakers, no less. Yeah, if I try I can hear the difference between it and a good speaker system, but it’s fine for me as it is. I guess some people’s hearing is just more sensitive.
MythTV, baby. It’s all you ever dreamed. I’ve got all my 750+ CDs in it.