I’m lightly active in the headphone enthusiast space. Even in the more light-hearted circles there is still an elevated amount of placebo bullshit and stubborn belief in things that verifiably make zero difference.
It’s rather fascinating in a way. I’ve been in and out of various hobbies over the course of my life but there is just something about audio that attracts an atmosphere of wilful ignorance and bad actors that prey on it.
I’ve been in the audio enthusiast community for like 17 years now. When I was fresh, the internet commentators had me thinking there was some audio heaven in the high end compared to the mid range priced gear. Now I know better and the gear community is not so high end price evangelicals like it used to be. I feel like there was a before and after the $30 Monoprice DJ headphones and the wave of headphones since. Then especially IEMs. Once ChiFi really got rolling with IEMs and amplifiers and DACs, $1000+ snake oil salespeople got to deal in a way more competitive market
Same with speakers. Internet changed everything. No more at the whim of specialty audio stores stock and Best Buys. Now you got the whole worlds amount of speaker brands at a click of a finger plus craigslist/offerup. Also again ChiFi amplifiers and DACs. Also improvements in audio codecs whether for wireless or not. Bluetooth audio was awful until it stopped being awful as standards improved
These days I mostly see the placebo audio arguments in streaming service and FLAC/lossless encode fanboys. Headphone and speaker communities these days seem a lot more self aware and steeped in self-deprecating humor over the cost, diminishing returns, placebo, snake oil they live in today compared to 17 years ago. I want my digital audio cables endpoints plated with the highest quality diamonds to preserve the zeros and ones. No lab diamonds. Must be natural providing the warmth only blood diamonds that excel in removing negative ions. I treat my room with the finest pink himalayan salt sound absorbent wall panels to deal with the most problematic materials used by homebuilders. Authentic himalayan salt has been shown to be some of the highest quality material in filtering unwanted noise and echos while leaving clean pure audio bliss
These days I mostly see the placebo audio arguments in streaming service and FLAC/lossless encode fanboys.
The clamour for lossless/high-res streaming is the audiophile community in a nutshell. Literally paying more money so your brain can trick you into thinking it sounds better.
Like many hobbies, it’s mainly a way to rationalize spending ever increasing amounts on new equipment and source content. I was into the whole scene for a while, but once I had discovered what components in the audio chain actually improve sound quality and which don’t, I called it quits.
Usually when I hear someone swear by lossless audio one service provides compared to another, I swear the reality is either placebo or one service is just using a better masterering of an album compared to another. The service that has on their service the better version album mix and mastering. Like they could serve it as 192kbps MP3 and sound better than a lossless encoded album version with the non ideal mix and mastered release
Oh, 100%. I actually tested this by recording bit perfect copies from different streaming services and comparing them using Audacity.
I found that they only way to hear a difference between the same song played on two different platforms was 1) if there was a notable difference in gain or 2) if they were using two different masters for the same song. If two platforms were using the same master version, they were impossible to tell apart in an ABX test.
All of this is to say that the quality of the mastering is orders of magnitude more important than whether or not a track is lossy or lossless, as far as audible audio quality goes.
Not here to argue I can hear the difference, because I can’t. But in audio collecting where the size and burden of even large lossless files isn’t much different from lossy files, why care? I download the flac files and compress upon delivery to the client where the space might be of a larger concern.
I do the same, as it happens, so I won’t argue with you.
As for “why care?”, I’d say it’s about making informed decisions and not spending money unnecessarily in the pursuit of genuinely better sound quality.
Yeah, I don’t get too deep into that game. I do have some higher-ish quality headphones and speakers though. I also find that subwoofers are largely underrated by audio snobs.
If we are talking about a downloaded good high bit rate MP3 and a FLAC, then yeah, I can’t hear a difference.
For streaming, I CAN hear a difference between the default spotify stream and my locally stored lossless files. That difference might come down to how they are mastered or whatever spotify does to the files, but whatever it is the difference is pretty perceptible to me and I don’t have especially sensitive ears.
If we’re talking free tier Spotify, then it could actually be due to the bitrate (96kbps OGG vorbis, IIRC). However, if you’re a premium subscriber then the standard bitrate is 160kbps, which is definitely not audible to 99.99% of people.
In fact, after much ABX testing, I found that a noticeable audible difference between a local file and the same song on a streaming service is almost always due to either a loudness differential or because the two tracks come from different masters.
I really noticed when I switched from Spotify to Tidal that there is something different about Spotify’s sound quality that makes it worse even at the highest streaming quality. I was surprised since I fully admit that in 99% of cases I can’t tell the difference between a 128kbps MP3 and a FLAC of the same file.
I’m a person with sensitive hearing and mp3 always sounds muddy to me compared with a flac or wav rip. My coworker poo-pooed this notion, but I proved it to him. Mp3 does alter the sounds, most people won’t notice, but for somebody that does hear the differences its annoying. I would not spend 10k or anything. I paid $15 for an old 5.1 system, and max $80 for a pi2 with a DAC hat. LOL
For me its like if you stood outside a persons house and heard them talking vs their words coming over their TV. There is a noticable signature that let’s you hear its the TV or real people, and that’s what mp3 vs wav is like for me.
I can also hear my neighbours ceiling fan running in the connected town home. That almost inaudible drone of the motor running, drives me nuts
I don’t about you, but in my country Tidal is cheaper than Spotify. But that might be placebo
/jk, though tidal is actually cheaper here. I can’t tell the difference in blind testing between 320 kbps mp3 exported in Reaper and the original wav; they’re indistinguishable to me. Actually, I can tell them apart with some airwindows dithers, but that is a pretty esoteric exception.
I like lossless compression. But not because I’d be a audio nut. I prefer it from a data retention and archival viewpoint. I could cut and join lossless data as often as i like, without losses accumulating.
But don’t forget the quality of the optic fibers used is also absolutely crucial. Most important factor here is to prevent light scattering along the cable run. So that the zeroes and ones don’t get irritated and upset. You don’t want the amplifier’s error correction to get in a bad mood. So better buy that pure diamond cable that was produced on a full moon night. The captured moon light can can soothe the negative effects of scattered light.
No more at the whim of specialty audio stores stock and Best Buys.
I remember in 2017 going into an audio store near where I worked, and the guy was emphasizing how clear the audio sounded on certain (expensive) setups, and how it was streaming in from “Norway” which was better than what you’d find on Spotify or YouTube. It took me a while to piece together what he was on about.
Dude was talking about Tidal. All he meant was they streamed lossless formats via Tidal. As if anyone could tell the difference between, say, stereo 192kbps AAC and flac.
Also, remember the supposed amazing quality of MQA? What a shitshow. It’s rather remarkable that a pair of Airpods Pro 2, when fit into your ears properly, are essentially perfectly tuned headphones for only $250 or less compared to some of what the competition sells. Not to say I don’t love my Sennheiser HD650.
You sound like the right person to ask then—how much should I spend on a soundbar for a tv? Or at least do you know a place to ask these questions that give realistic answers with less fanboyism and faux-intellectuals?
I would never recommend a soundbar unless you’re absolutely stuck to that form factor for spacial reasons. Bookshelf speakers are still superior and don’t take up that much space. But I’m also not familiar with any I just got tower speakers that sounded really good at a friend and been loving them.
Honestly I just want something that sounds better than tv speakers that won’t break the bank. It seems like everything everyone recommends is $400+, which isn’t crazy compared to the price of a tv but I just need the most basic thing possible that’s better than built-in for occasional movie nights with friends and family
I bought a pair of Edifier powered bookshelf speakers (R1280T model, I think) for my living room setup and they work fine for casual TV and movie watching. Cost about $110 total. No subwoofer necessary, but I would add one if I had movie nights with more than just me and my partner (and didn’t have downstairs neighbors, lol).
Then offerup/craigslist/marketplace for used bookshelf speakers. Practically anything will be far better than your TV. Like $50 used polk, klipsch, and sony speakers are real common on the second hand market. They may be old but speakers last a real long time if you’re not blasting them at super high volumes. Go for speakers that have 5.25"-6.5" woofers. You’ll appreciate them for music too
There’s a bunch of brands and you really can’t go wrong compared to TV speakers. Edifer powered speakers don’t require a separate amplifier. Other major brands like ELAC, Kef, wharfdale, paradigm, …
There’s a difference though, it’s just that gold plated cables doesn’t change anything.
I’d love testing a Sennheiser hd600 series, to see if I hear some difference, from my 598 headset. But they are so expensive so I’m all okay with my refurbished 40€ ones :-)
A DAC for the PC is a nice step up though IMO (there are crap ones too ofc). Not everything is audiofoolery.
I’ll agree that sound quality doesn’t seem to be consistent but I will say that Bose is a very nice quality sounding company. Never been disappointed by them.
I fucking love audio and have an extensive collection of equipment. The last thing in the chain before your ears (so headphones and speakers) will absolutely make a difference and the thing that provides power to that can make a difference. But the cables? The fucking cables?! Absolutely no impact once you’re above like $10. Turns out, electrons are electrons and they behave like electrons. Shockingly that doesn’t change in copper, gold plated copper, pure silver, or mud. Doubly so for the non analog part of the chain. Hell I’ve even seen “audiophile grade” ethernet cables.
The other part of the equation is if the differences made by the things that do make a difference actually matter to the listener. They do to me, but my dad is more than happy to just use the speakers on his Dell monitors.
Well, that’s not entirely correct. Given a long enough run, attenuation will absolutely cause bad cables to perform poorly. Like your not getting a 10 meter run on bananas. That said, for any modern cable, that run has to be greater than 50 meters for it to even start mattering. So if your wiring up a warehouse, you probably need to care about the type of wire your using.
Oh yeah, definitely. The wiring needs for an industrial space or event venue are different than a domicile, but I don’t think anyone’s buying audiophile snake oil for those. They really seem to market that kinda crap to the fool and their money crowd.
I buy headphone cables based on how nice the cable feels, if it transmits noise when it rubs against stuff, and how well the connectors fit into the devices I am using.
My favorite is when people get picky about cabling for digital transfer. The ones and zeroes either get there or they don’t, nothing in-between. They work or they don’t.
I think the best thing to do is to assess your ability to hear difference. I can absolutely hear the difference between my Bluetooth earbuds and a decent wired IEM, so I use wired headphones for listening to music. I CANNOT hear a significant qualitative difference between the $25 Chinese IEMs that I use and more expensive options that I have tried, so I use the cheap ones.
To be sure, there ARE perceptible differences between wired headphones, but those are more a matter of EQ and personal preference. I can achieve my maximum perceivable level of quality with pretty inexpensive hardware. It doesn’t mean that other people cannot, that isn’t my problem.
My favorite is when people get picky about cabling for digital transfer. The ones and zeroes either get there or they don’t, nothing in-between. They work or they don’t.
Around the time when HDMI was released my friend bought some "super-high-end "cable that cost over 200$, since he wanted the "best possible performance " out of his system. I tried to explain that the cheapest cables would give the exact same results if they’re not faulty from the start. We had a loud argument about this, even though the guy is a goddamn tech PhD. He just could not admit he got scammed and tried to give me a lecture about “how the gold plated connectors make all the difference”.
For IEMs, the price difference typically goes towards comfort rather than sound quality. As a professional audio technician, a custom-molded IEM will be infinitely more comfortable than a cheap set. But not everyone can justify spending $2000 for custom molds, because they don’t use them for work every day.
Regarding digital, quality spdif cables absolutely matter. One tiny mistake and they crackle out and don’t work. I’ve gone through many pairs of cheap ones until I just spend the money to never have issues again.
Now will the 1 dollar one sound the same as the 80 dolalr one? Yes. It won’t last or hohld up to dust or abuse at all though.
Awesome headphones. If you don’t mind the beyer peak.
My favorites are my grado rs2. But I prefer music on speakers not headphones, so much space is lost on headphones. Hear a pair of magnepans in a room and you’ll be blown away. Got some original SMGa’s from 1989!
Real audio enthusiasts know the room is the most important, followed by the speaker itself, followed by the actual source. Then the amp etc.
And when you record and mix music you realize how much of it is bullshit in the end. The source is all that matters, really.
It mattered more back in the analog days, I think. Now that it’s all digital, and going through dac’s, its all just about being good enough for 1’s and 0’s to get through. “Noise” doesn’t exist for digital audio. It either works, or it doesn’t.
It definitely mattered a hell of lot more in analog days. Getting a properly calibrated reel tape machine through a properly calibrated tube amp in a properly dimensioned room with good speakers is a feat, and absolutely sounds amazing.
Nowadays, it’s about how they mastered it. I can tell you for a fact Ozzy’s no more tears CD sounds like shit and the double record mix is FARRRR better, because it doesn’t have the life squished out of it from brickwalling. Is that digital vs analog? No. Its mastering.
Analog will sound better if you spend a SHIT ton and have an insanely good source. Digital will also sound amazing if you spend a lot. I myself very much enjoy listening to my original reels of 50s-70s music because you really can get so close to being in the studio and hearing everything, because they couldn’t edit it to death.
Bridge over troubled water on a reel is a real experience.
Nowadays, it’s about how they mastered it. I can tell you for a fact Ozzy’s no more tears CD sounds like shit and the double record mix is FARRRR better, because it doesn’t have the life squished out of it from brickwalling. Is that digital vs analog? No. Its mastering.
This is 10000% true!! I worked as a mixing and mastering engineer for a while, and lemme tell you… the loudness wars never ended. This is why I still collect vinyl, the medium is kinda shit, but the masters are so much better that it’s hugely worth it for a about 2/3 albums I own (1/3 are duds; I can live with that).
That’s awesome! I got paid a few times but never really done it as a job. Always wanted to but I always wanted an organic approach while bands wanted to be absolute radio perfect periphery style and I’m just not into that.
Yeah exactly. I mean, vinyl is amazing for the art, and if you keep it super clean its going to sound very good. CD is fine if only they wouldn’t destroy the damn master !!
The one time I was absolutely blown away by a pair of headphones that are not in the insano area, are the beyerdynamic dt1990. They aren’t cheap by any means but not insanely expensive. When I listened to music I’ve listened to hundreds of times, somehow they showed me even more detail I haven’t heard before. For example a Nena 99 red balloons LP, the amp was still the same as always but I couldn’t believe the amount of detail there was in the background, the soundstage those headphones were creating.
I have a set of Sony studio monitor headphones. I can hear more nuance and parts of the music I simply can’t hear in any of my ear buds or noise canceling headphones. They aren’t wireless, so I don’t really use them that often though.
It doesn’t matter the cable, the amp, shitty 128kbps mp3 or vinyl. I can hear much, much better with the drivers in them.
I’d say 90% of anything that matters is the driver. But past a certain midrange point, there just isn’t really much or any improvement.
I’m lightly active in the headphone enthusiast space. Even in the more light-hearted circles there is still an elevated amount of placebo bullshit and stubborn belief in things that verifiably make zero difference.
It’s rather fascinating in a way. I’ve been in and out of various hobbies over the course of my life but there is just something about audio that attracts an atmosphere of wilful ignorance and bad actors that prey on it.
I’ve been in the audio enthusiast community for like 17 years now. When I was fresh, the internet commentators had me thinking there was some audio heaven in the high end compared to the mid range priced gear. Now I know better and the gear community is not so high end price evangelicals like it used to be. I feel like there was a before and after the $30 Monoprice DJ headphones and the wave of headphones since. Then especially IEMs. Once ChiFi really got rolling with IEMs and amplifiers and DACs, $1000+ snake oil salespeople got to deal in a way more competitive market
Same with speakers. Internet changed everything. No more at the whim of specialty audio stores stock and Best Buys. Now you got the whole worlds amount of speaker brands at a click of a finger plus craigslist/offerup. Also again ChiFi amplifiers and DACs. Also improvements in audio codecs whether for wireless or not. Bluetooth audio was awful until it stopped being awful as standards improved
These days I mostly see the placebo audio arguments in streaming service and FLAC/lossless encode fanboys. Headphone and speaker communities these days seem a lot more self aware and steeped in self-deprecating humor over the cost, diminishing returns, placebo, snake oil they live in today compared to 17 years ago. I want my digital audio cables endpoints plated with the highest quality diamonds to preserve the zeros and ones. No lab diamonds. Must be natural providing the warmth only blood diamonds that excel in removing negative ions. I treat my room with the finest pink himalayan salt sound absorbent wall panels to deal with the most problematic materials used by homebuilders. Authentic himalayan salt has been shown to be some of the highest quality material in filtering unwanted noise and echos while leaving clean pure audio bliss
The clamour for lossless/high-res streaming is the audiophile community in a nutshell. Literally paying more money so your brain can trick you into thinking it sounds better.
Like many hobbies, it’s mainly a way to rationalize spending ever increasing amounts on new equipment and source content. I was into the whole scene for a while, but once I had discovered what components in the audio chain actually improve sound quality and which don’t, I called it quits.
Usually when I hear someone swear by lossless audio one service provides compared to another, I swear the reality is either placebo or one service is just using a better masterering of an album compared to another. The service that has on their service the better version album mix and mastering. Like they could serve it as 192kbps MP3 and sound better than a lossless encoded album version with the non ideal mix and mastered release
Oh, 100%. I actually tested this by recording bit perfect copies from different streaming services and comparing them using Audacity.
I found that they only way to hear a difference between the same song played on two different platforms was 1) if there was a notable difference in gain or 2) if they were using two different masters for the same song. If two platforms were using the same master version, they were impossible to tell apart in an ABX test.
All of this is to say that the quality of the mastering is orders of magnitude more important than whether or not a track is lossy or lossless, as far as audible audio quality goes.
Not here to argue I can hear the difference, because I can’t. But in audio collecting where the size and burden of even large lossless files isn’t much different from lossy files, why care? I download the flac files and compress upon delivery to the client where the space might be of a larger concern.
I do the same, as it happens, so I won’t argue with you.
As for “why care?”, I’d say it’s about making informed decisions and not spending money unnecessarily in the pursuit of genuinely better sound quality.
Yeah, I don’t get too deep into that game. I do have some higher-ish quality headphones and speakers though. I also find that subwoofers are largely underrated by audio snobs.
I think it depends on your source.
If we are talking about a downloaded good high bit rate MP3 and a FLAC, then yeah, I can’t hear a difference.
For streaming, I CAN hear a difference between the default spotify stream and my locally stored lossless files. That difference might come down to how they are mastered or whatever spotify does to the files, but whatever it is the difference is pretty perceptible to me and I don’t have especially sensitive ears.
If we’re talking free tier Spotify, then it could actually be due to the bitrate (96kbps OGG vorbis, IIRC). However, if you’re a premium subscriber then the standard bitrate is 160kbps, which is definitely not audible to 99.99% of people.
In fact, after much ABX testing, I found that a noticeable audible difference between a local file and the same song on a streaming service is almost always due to either a loudness differential or because the two tracks come from different masters.
I really noticed when I switched from Spotify to Tidal that there is something different about Spotify’s sound quality that makes it worse even at the highest streaming quality. I was surprised since I fully admit that in 99% of cases I can’t tell the difference between a 128kbps MP3 and a FLAC of the same file.
Could be poor mastering. You can’t always just take a track and squish it down to a low bitrate without tweaking some settings.
I’m a person with sensitive hearing and mp3 always sounds muddy to me compared with a flac or wav rip. My coworker poo-pooed this notion, but I proved it to him. Mp3 does alter the sounds, most people won’t notice, but for somebody that does hear the differences its annoying. I would not spend 10k or anything. I paid $15 for an old 5.1 system, and max $80 for a pi2 with a DAC hat. LOL
For me its like if you stood outside a persons house and heard them talking vs their words coming over their TV. There is a noticable signature that let’s you hear its the TV or real people, and that’s what mp3 vs wav is like for me.
I can also hear my neighbours ceiling fan running in the connected town home. That almost inaudible drone of the motor running, drives me nuts
I don’t about you, but in my country Tidal is cheaper than Spotify. But that might be placebo
/jk, though tidal is actually cheaper here. I can’t tell the difference in blind testing between 320 kbps mp3 exported in Reaper and the original wav; they’re indistinguishable to me. Actually, I can tell them apart with some airwindows dithers, but that is a pretty esoteric exception.
I like lossless compression. But not because I’d be a audio nut. I prefer it from a data retention and archival viewpoint. I could cut and join lossless data as often as i like, without losses accumulating.
Do you often cut and join audio that you did not record yourself?
I would not call it often, but it happens.
Gotta love those people with fiber optic cables with gold plated connectors.
But don’t forget the quality of the optic fibers used is also absolutely crucial. Most important factor here is to prevent light scattering along the cable run. So that the zeroes and ones don’t get irritated and upset. You don’t want the amplifier’s error correction to get in a bad mood. So better buy that pure diamond cable that was produced on a full moon night. The captured moon light can can soothe the negative effects of scattered light.
I remember in 2017 going into an audio store near where I worked, and the guy was emphasizing how clear the audio sounded on certain (expensive) setups, and how it was streaming in from “Norway” which was better than what you’d find on Spotify or YouTube. It took me a while to piece together what he was on about.
Dude was talking about Tidal. All he meant was they streamed lossless formats via Tidal. As if anyone could tell the difference between, say, stereo 192kbps AAC and flac.
Also, remember the supposed amazing quality of MQA? What a shitshow. It’s rather remarkable that a pair of Airpods Pro 2, when fit into your ears properly, are essentially perfectly tuned headphones for only $250 or less compared to some of what the competition sells. Not to say I don’t love my Sennheiser HD650.
You sound like the right person to ask then—how much should I spend on a soundbar for a tv? Or at least do you know a place to ask these questions that give realistic answers with less fanboyism and faux-intellectuals?
I would never recommend a soundbar unless you’re absolutely stuck to that form factor for spacial reasons. Bookshelf speakers are still superior and don’t take up that much space. But I’m also not familiar with any I just got tower speakers that sounded really good at a friend and been loving them.
Honestly I just want something that sounds better than tv speakers that won’t break the bank. It seems like everything everyone recommends is $400+, which isn’t crazy compared to the price of a tv but I just need the most basic thing possible that’s better than built-in for occasional movie nights with friends and family
I get that but is a 400 dollar soundbar really any good? Even the 1000 ones sound tinny and small to me but maybe I’m just spoiled.
I bought a pair of Edifier powered bookshelf speakers (R1280T model, I think) for my living room setup and they work fine for casual TV and movie watching. Cost about $110 total. No subwoofer necessary, but I would add one if I had movie nights with more than just me and my partner (and didn’t have downstairs neighbors, lol).
You can use this to connect your TV to bookshelf speakers through an optical cable. Just need some speaker wire or banana plug cables to go with it
https://a.co/d/06KEUx7E
This one has HDMI ARC which most sound bars use for connection along with optical
https://a.co/d/0cKQrMAZ
Then offerup/craigslist/marketplace for used bookshelf speakers. Practically anything will be far better than your TV. Like $50 used polk, klipsch, and sony speakers are real common on the second hand market. They may be old but speakers last a real long time if you’re not blasting them at super high volumes. Go for speakers that have 5.25"-6.5" woofers. You’ll appreciate them for music too
There’s a bunch of brands and you really can’t go wrong compared to TV speakers. Edifer powered speakers don’t require a separate amplifier. Other major brands like ELAC, Kef, wharfdale, paradigm, …
There’s a difference though, it’s just that gold plated cables doesn’t change anything.
I’d love testing a Sennheiser hd600 series, to see if I hear some difference, from my 598 headset. But they are so expensive so I’m all okay with my refurbished 40€ ones :-)
A DAC for the PC is a nice step up though IMO (there are crap ones too ofc). Not everything is audiofoolery.
I’ll agree that sound quality doesn’t seem to be consistent but I will say that Bose is a very nice quality sounding company. Never been disappointed by them.
Bose the bass enhancing company? Euw…
Must be why I like it.
Then don’t listen to me and enjoy your headphones 🫡!
Bose is famous for unnatural sound boosting. This appeals to the masses and fits to modern listening habits.
I remember when we’d say, no highs no lows, must be Bose. They must have over-corrected.
Well their A20s are still top of the list and the most common brand you’ll see during your travels… Must be a good reason.
As I said, that appeals to the masses.
I fucking love audio and have an extensive collection of equipment. The last thing in the chain before your ears (so headphones and speakers) will absolutely make a difference and the thing that provides power to that can make a difference. But the cables? The fucking cables?! Absolutely no impact once you’re above like $10. Turns out, electrons are electrons and they behave like electrons. Shockingly that doesn’t change in copper, gold plated copper, pure silver, or mud. Doubly so for the non analog part of the chain. Hell I’ve even seen “audiophile grade” ethernet cables.
The other part of the equation is if the differences made by the things that do make a difference actually matter to the listener. They do to me, but my dad is more than happy to just use the speakers on his Dell monitors.
Well, that’s not entirely correct. Given a long enough run, attenuation will absolutely cause bad cables to perform poorly. Like your not getting a 10 meter run on bananas. That said, for any modern cable, that run has to be greater than 50 meters for it to even start mattering. So if your wiring up a warehouse, you probably need to care about the type of wire your using.
Source? /s
Oh yeah, definitely. The wiring needs for an industrial space or event venue are different than a domicile, but I don’t think anyone’s buying audiophile snake oil for those. They really seem to market that kinda crap to the fool and their money crowd.
I buy headphone cables based on how nice the cable feels, if it transmits noise when it rubs against stuff, and how well the connectors fit into the devices I am using.
My favorite is when people get picky about cabling for digital transfer. The ones and zeroes either get there or they don’t, nothing in-between. They work or they don’t.
I think the best thing to do is to assess your ability to hear difference. I can absolutely hear the difference between my Bluetooth earbuds and a decent wired IEM, so I use wired headphones for listening to music. I CANNOT hear a significant qualitative difference between the $25 Chinese IEMs that I use and more expensive options that I have tried, so I use the cheap ones.
To be sure, there ARE perceptible differences between wired headphones, but those are more a matter of EQ and personal preference. I can achieve my maximum perceivable level of quality with pretty inexpensive hardware. It doesn’t mean that other people cannot, that isn’t my problem.
My favorite is when people get picky about cabling for digital transfer. The ones and zeroes either get there or they don’t, nothing in-between. They work or they don’t.
Around the time when HDMI was released my friend bought some "super-high-end "cable that cost over 200$, since he wanted the "best possible performance " out of his system. I tried to explain that the cheapest cables would give the exact same results if they’re not faulty from the start. We had a loud argument about this, even though the guy is a goddamn tech PhD. He just could not admit he got scammed and tried to give me a lecture about “how the gold plated connectors make all the difference”.
I had a salesperson who said that with This more expensive HDMI cable, the picture almost looks three-dimensional!
For IEMs, the price difference typically goes towards comfort rather than sound quality. As a professional audio technician, a custom-molded IEM will be infinitely more comfortable than a cheap set. But not everyone can justify spending $2000 for custom molds, because they don’t use them for work every day.
Regarding digital, quality spdif cables absolutely matter. One tiny mistake and they crackle out and don’t work. I’ve gone through many pairs of cheap ones until I just spend the money to never have issues again.
Now will the 1 dollar one sound the same as the 80 dolalr one? Yes. It won’t last or hohld up to dust or abuse at all though.
I’m a musician. I swear by Beyerdynamic DT700. Fucking great headphones for like an insanely reasonable price
Awesome headphones. If you don’t mind the beyer peak. My favorites are my grado rs2. But I prefer music on speakers not headphones, so much space is lost on headphones. Hear a pair of magnepans in a room and you’ll be blown away. Got some original SMGa’s from 1989!
Real audio enthusiasts know the room is the most important, followed by the speaker itself, followed by the actual source. Then the amp etc.
And when you record and mix music you realize how much of it is bullshit in the end. The source is all that matters, really.
Isn’t it more of the weakest link? Bad amp and you can have the nicest room etc.
Stereo is overhyped IMO too 😋 except if you have a dedicated listening room.
Yeah it is. Right, room is very important. Ive always been able to designate a listening area where I am, thankfully.
It mattered more back in the analog days, I think. Now that it’s all digital, and going through dac’s, its all just about being good enough for 1’s and 0’s to get through. “Noise” doesn’t exist for digital audio. It either works, or it doesn’t.
It definitely mattered a hell of lot more in analog days. Getting a properly calibrated reel tape machine through a properly calibrated tube amp in a properly dimensioned room with good speakers is a feat, and absolutely sounds amazing.
Nowadays, it’s about how they mastered it. I can tell you for a fact Ozzy’s no more tears CD sounds like shit and the double record mix is FARRRR better, because it doesn’t have the life squished out of it from brickwalling. Is that digital vs analog? No. Its mastering.
Analog will sound better if you spend a SHIT ton and have an insanely good source. Digital will also sound amazing if you spend a lot. I myself very much enjoy listening to my original reels of 50s-70s music because you really can get so close to being in the studio and hearing everything, because they couldn’t edit it to death.
Bridge over troubled water on a reel is a real experience.
This is 10000% true!! I worked as a mixing and mastering engineer for a while, and lemme tell you… the loudness wars never ended. This is why I still collect vinyl, the medium is kinda shit, but the masters are so much better that it’s hugely worth it for a about 2/3 albums I own (1/3 are duds; I can live with that).
That’s awesome! I got paid a few times but never really done it as a job. Always wanted to but I always wanted an organic approach while bands wanted to be absolute radio perfect periphery style and I’m just not into that.
Yeah exactly. I mean, vinyl is amazing for the art, and if you keep it super clean its going to sound very good. CD is fine if only they wouldn’t destroy the damn master !!
A tube amp isn’t necessarily expensive and they sound very good.
We transport audio digitally today but it still is all analog in the end.
True!
It’s been like this for decades, according to my dad. Well before the internet.
The one time I was absolutely blown away by a pair of headphones that are not in the insano area, are the beyerdynamic dt1990. They aren’t cheap by any means but not insanely expensive. When I listened to music I’ve listened to hundreds of times, somehow they showed me even more detail I haven’t heard before. For example a Nena 99 red balloons LP, the amp was still the same as always but I couldn’t believe the amount of detail there was in the background, the soundstage those headphones were creating.
It’s a rich playground for the price-equals-value fallacy, and there are plenty of well-heeled rubes that’ll fall for the technobabble.
I have a set of Sony studio monitor headphones. I can hear more nuance and parts of the music I simply can’t hear in any of my ear buds or noise canceling headphones. They aren’t wireless, so I don’t really use them that often though.
It doesn’t matter the cable, the amp, shitty 128kbps mp3 or vinyl. I can hear much, much better with the drivers in them.
I’d say 90% of anything that matters is the driver. But past a certain midrange point, there just isn’t really much or any improvement.