I never download, I only listen to what I rip from my own CD's.
EAC/LAME w/ the alt-preset standard for mp3's. Sure, if you've got a hi-fi system, it's not what you're going to go gah-gah over, you'll jsut be using your CD's (or better, your phonograph). But, on *most* systems, like in your car or on your PC or an iPod or a Zune, you won't be able to tell the difference between it and an old Walkman CD player.
My Walkman phone, I've got a 4gb card in it w/ about 700 mp3s on it. Using EAC/LAME w/ a variable bit-rate, it's a little smaller than a 320kbs rate, but sounds FAR better than a 192 rate rip.
I'd like to go a true lossy format, but, I'd have to have better equipment to make it worth the time investment to re-rip all of my CD's again.
I got a Zune for my daughter, a Walkman mp3 player for my son. No iPods, yet. (If the iPod Touch gets a sizable price-cut soon, and they add the GPS into it the way they did w/ the 3G iPhone, that may change.... but, mostly for mobile internet use when in wifi hotspots...).