MP3 Distortion

[Waspinators]

I'm listening to a song ("How" by John Lennon), at a very high volume on my headphones. Whenever the song reaches a volume peak (mostly when the orchestras set in), I hear a staticky distortion that only happens at very high volumes. The song is ripped at about 192 VBR, and I don't have the CD to re-rip it. Could this be a problem with sound quality, or could the problem lie in the headphones (these headphones are from a cheap CD player I bought in 2001)?

[Agnostic]

Hard to say without the original recording.
Could be the original recording (Neil Young's - The Needle And The Damage Done for instance shows clipping on a small part of the track), could be an encoding problem, could be clipping because your amplification is running out of headroom, especially if your playing at high volumes.

[b0dhi]

If you don't hear the distortion at normal listening levels, it isn't the encoding. If you're adjusting the volume using an amp, it's the amp. If you're adjusting the volume using the computer, it's the soundcard (probably due to EQ settings).