Big fan of good quality music reproduction. I'm no audiophile, but I have a HiFi I'm happy with. Had the same set of speakers for 20 years, bought an Audiolab 6000a last year after suffering with a poor second hand receiver for a few years and it's so nice to have dynamics and some punch back. Mostly paired with a Wiim mini or a NAD CDP.

I can tell the difference between 320 mp3 and FLAC (there's some online comparison test / quiz that I can get right 80% of the time). I don't have particularly good hearing, bit once you know what to listen out for then its quite apparent when it's not there. Storage is cheap so all my CDs are ripped to FLAC now, because even if I can't hear the difference on every track, why not?

My Mrs happily listens to music through her phone speaker or some cheap Bluetooth headphones. I know it shouldn't, but it really annoys me. She's also the kind of person who won't stop to take a stone from their shoe and end up with a big painful blister on their foot

I absolutely do, but admit it's diminishing returns. I have a 4k OLED screen with nice tower speakers and I really enjoy my setup. The problem is once you really experience and notice high quality it's hard to go back

I absolutely agree with you on friends and family. "Ugh I hate that I have to turn it up to hear the dialog but turn it down in the fight scenes". That's because you're using the TV SPEAKERS those 1" drivers aren't going to deliver the range you need! Get something else!_

For me the true moment of truth was when I bought the OLED and my wife even agreed while watching Maverick "okay that looked amazing". Justified! Once you see it, you can't believe you ever didn't see it

Yes and no.

I own a nice pair of studio headphones, and monitor speakers. I have a large collection of vinyls and a hard drive full of FLAC files. High quality audio is great.

But I also don't care about quality all the time. I wear Bluetooth bone-conductor headphones most of the day because they are comfortable and open-ear. I can passively listen to music and remain alert to my surroundings and I like that.

But there are noticeable differences between things like MP3 and FLAC, digital and analog, and different kinds of speakers and headphones that I can appreciate when I am actively listening to music.

Here's a factor that seems to be underappreciated. Those differences are a lot less important when you aren't comparing side by side. Just because you can hear or taste the difference between a thing and a more expensive version doesn't mean you will really appreciate that difference later. Diminishing returns does play into this, and the small differences between two things at a high level is often too small for your memory to even capture.

And even when it comes to the bigger differences, how it affects enjoyment has a large psychological component, in how much satisfaction do you get just knowing you are using something excellent, and does it bother you knowing what you are experiencing could be better.

I have nice quality speakers and headphones, but sometimes I'm lazy and will listen to a piece of music through my crappy laptop or phone speakers. I still enjoy that music. And if that was all I had access to, I'd still enjoy the hell out of music. I'm not about to give away or stop using my nice speakers, but I'm not convinced they make me happier in any significant way.

I never cared a lot. While I do notice the difference immediately, it never makes the experience differ in the long run. I have watched full length movies on the cover screen of my Samsung Zflip5 without feeling that I missed out on anything.

I have a nintendo switch which I have used a lot. Even though I have a nice 55" TV and a decent soundbar, I very rarely connect the switch to the TV. I much rather use it in handheld mode so I can sit in any angle in the sofa. I guess I value comfort a lot higher than high fidelity.

So I don't value high fidelity video because I don't see very well even with glasses, so it wouldn't make a difference for me.

I do value high fidelity audio because:

• I am a musician and producer, although not as much as I used to
• I have ear training
• I went to recording school
• I am autistic with sensitive hearing
• I have audio and acoustical engineering as special interests
• I'm doing a master's degree in electrical engineering where I've already designed audio gear for my projects
• I am teaching myself audio plugin design for fun

But I simply can't afford high fidelity gear for every day listening. For my studio monitors, I spent as much as I could to get the best speakers I could afford so that I can be certain that what I'm hearing is an accurate representation of what I "commit to tape". However, for walking to class or going to the market, I'm not gonna pay for expensive headphones that could get stolen, broken, or lost. It's impractical.

My $20 Bluetooth headphones [1] are sufficient for every day carry. They sound "95% of the way there", they don't get in the way when I'm walking, and if I lose them, I can have an identical pair delivered to my door with a couple days. 95% is good enough for me. Actually, I could probably settle for less.

And then there's storage. My library is already > 110GB in MP3 format, so storing it all in uncompressed formats would be unwieldy.

So in the rare cases that my listening hardware is insufficient, I'll usually consult a software equalizer. For example, on Linux, Easy Effects allows me to apply equalizers, dynamic compression, and a bunch of other plugins in LV2 format to the PipeWire output (and input). It's super convenient for watching YouTube college lectures with questionable microphone quality on my shitty TV speakers. Other than dynamic compression for leveling and an equalizer for frequency effects, I am typically not interested in doing anything else for intelligibility. Said differently, I am not interested in exploiting the nonlinearities in real speaker systems (other than possibly dynamic compression), so I should be able to fix any linear defects (bad frequency response) with a digital equalizer. The nonlinearities in real speaker systems are, for HiFi listening purposes [2], defects.

Also, I'm extremely skeptical of products marketed towards "audiophiles" because there's so much marketing bullshit pseudoscience surrounding the field that all the textbooks that cover loudspeaker design and HiFi audio electronics have paragraphs warning about it as the first thing.

Like I experience the difference between different pairs of binoculars and speakers dramatically, and graphical analysis backs up the differences, so how could they sound/look negligibly different to others?

Next time you do a graphical analysis, check out the magnitudes of the differences in your graphs versus the magnitude of the Just Noticeable Difference in amplitude or frequency. We probably do experience the differences between speakers differently than others. We're outliers.

What's your take on both major and, at the high end, diminishing returns on higher quality sensory experiences?

For personal listening, the point of diminishing returns is basically $20 because I can't afford shit. For listening to something I plan on sharing with others, I'd be willing to put in whatever I can afford. But frankly, I'd be just as likely to straight-up do the math and design my systems myself because I 100% don't trust any """high fidelity""" system that doesn't come with a datasheet and frequency response.

Lastly, I do wear glasses. I typically get my glasses online because, once you have the prescription and your facial measurements, it is the same quality as the stuff you get at the big-box stores.

[1] I acknowledge that Bluetooth sucks, particularly for audio.

[2] As a metal guitarist, I'm not against speaker nonlinearity for guitar speakers, but then again, guitar speakers are really convincingly simulated by impulse responses, which are a core linear systems concept, implying that they are nearly linear devices even at the volumes they are typically played at.

Never let perfect be the enemy of good enough. Do you want to do the thing or do you want to stress about the thing for days, delay it for months while you save up then suffer regret anxiety about whether it was the correct choice? For a lot of people the latter is the part they enjoy about the hobby. For others it isn't worth the time and resources requires, they'd rather do the thing now with what they have and enjoy it as it is. Where does the inflection point lies between hassle and enjoyable results is personal and everyone has different criteria for different goals and contexts, and that is OK.

I always wanted my music to sound nice, but could never afford the best equipment.

These days I have a set of Sony MDR-7506, and while I appreciate there are ‘better’ headphones, the detail I hear when listening to lossless audio through them is astonishing. I can listen to tracks I’ve heard dozens of times and hear elements that I’ve never noticed before. And these headphones are relatively cheap at £80.

Perspective: My SO didn't really care at first why I didn't want to use the built-in TV speakers, but rather install some higher-end speakers and a DAC to drive them. After a while, she went to visit a friend and came back to celebrate our setup.

Value: Do you need a super-big, expensive TV or a smaller, higher PPI TV that you can sit closer to? What you really want is clarity, brightness, color, and smooth video. If people could never afford such a display and only had crappy TVs with bad video sources and only some smartphones as an alternative, the smartphone beats everything they know, of course. But if they could never afford high quality video sources and displays, how could they appreciate those things?

IMHO better than average is enough for everyday life. There's more to life than spending money and not experiencing life to the fullest. That means I focused on a nicer Bluetooth headset, some better than average speakers for both TV and PC, ... so I simply approach the point of diminishing returns on the quality scale, knowing full well I could do much better. But it's not worth the effort to me if it slowly turns into either a game of high spending or a full-blown refurbishing hobby. Same with my car: I buy them used at about 4~6 years old and sell them at 8~10 years old, spending the least amount of money while driving mostly luxury cars with lots and lots of extras.

Audiophile equipment is full of placebos and scams. But there's also a lot of very real improvements. I would also say the majority of people are well before the point of diminishing returns but hey.

One big problem is that the source of your music often is the limiting factor. A lot of music sounds not so great on my nice headphones. .Likewise, the songs I really appreciate on my headphones, tend to sound like mush on shitty speakers. That doesn't make either music bad, they know their audience but If I didn't like much of the hifi music then I probably wouldn't care much about my sound setup.

I think like most things there's a balance to be had. Obsessing about the little stuff can often get in the way of enjoying it, and be a massive waste of money. But I also wear headphones for 10+hrs a day, it's worth investing in them.

I had a 13" black and white television in my bedroom when I was a teen. The big, color Trinitron TV that we got later was amazing. Beyond that, I don't recall the improvement in quality making sitcoms funnier, or the stories better.

In fact, to me, the old, fuzzy NTSC video is better in some ways. It helps with the suspension of disbelief, the feeling of watching a story on the screen. Even 1080p is sometimes too good, to the point that the actors fall into the Uncanny Valley, like I'm watching a live play, but not quite. Instead of a story, I see the makeup on skin, the wardrobe choices, the blocking, and the bad CGI backgrounds.

I can certainly hear the quality differences in audio, but I feel like past a certain minimum, I'm listening to the music, not the equipment. Like, my Shokz had a noticeable lack of bass when I got them, but I've adapted, and don't hear them that way any longer. The convenience of open-ear headphones far exceeds any gain in quality.

Our car has an awful sound system. I swear there are frequencies simply missing, and that transforms music in ways that are impossible to miss.

Or one would think, but my spouse doesn't care at all. I offered to go through the trouble of upgrading the entire thing -- receiver, dsp, amp, speakers, adding a sub -- but they said no, why bother? Almost makes me weep when some of my favorites play on the radio.

I care a little bit. I've got my good 5.1 sound system for the TV but I don't see the necessity to invest into an Atmos system. The TV can display 4k with HDR but I'm satisfied with HD SDR stuff. When playing games 60 fps is nice but I won't die if my Steam Deck can only manage 30 fps.

So, most stuff is usually good enough for me. And at the moment I can't leave my bed anyways so I can live with laptop speakers.

I'm one of those who don't care and it annoys my friends. I can tell the difference when comparing setups side by side but when normally watching content, a lower quality doesn't bother me unless you literally can't read the words on the screen so anything over 720p is usually good enough. Maybe other people have different thresholds.

It's also about priorities. If you consider portability good, then no sound system will ever beat your laptop speakers just because they are already on your laptop. I assume it's the same for people watching Netflix on their phone.

To some extent. For audio, I don't really have to much experience with expensive headphones/earbuds but I do notice a difference. I still usually go with cheaper headphones though because the difference in audio quality and durability aren't really enough to justify the price difference.

For visuals in games, I do prefer to have the best experience but what settings I use depends on the game. There are some settings that are universal to me, like for example, if anti-aliasing is available, I always have it set to 2x (or 1.5x if the game has it) because every option for anti-aliasing in every game I've tried looks exactly the same to me, so going higher is just a waste of system resources. For similar reasons, while both of my monitors support higher resolutions, I still prefer to use 720/768p.

I think the only time I really don't care about visual quality, is just when I'm watching videos online.

I mean, to a point.

In the end it's all a matter of priority. Do I want a sound system for 10k+? Sure. But that money would probably be better spent elsewhere

For me, I wanted a 65inch OLED tv and splurged a bit on that, but on discount. And I got a surround sound Sonos setup. That's good enough

I can't tell the difference between the highest, top tier audio and like, decent audio, but shitty tv speakers or headphones and such absolutely kills me.

I'm into this, especially sound quality. I have a top-of-the-bottom/bottom-of-the-middle 5.2.4 setup for movies and listen to music on that same space as well. I have made solid progress on acoustically treating my space, and it sounds pretty good.

My wife, who has done all the A-B testing with me and understands what high quality equipment and a well-treated space brings to the table would be perfectly happy watching Netflix on her phone speaker.

I know for sure she does not hear things like I hear them. I have a couple of demo tracks I use to evaluate changes in my system, and I have described to her what I'm listening for (soundstage depth, for example), and she cannot distinguish whether or not this quality exists. So, I think one part of this is that there is something cognitive going on that she and I perceive things so differently. Another thing that I think is different between us is the way music affects us. For me, music is an emotional experience and ties deeply with my memories of events/time periods/feelings. When I hear a song, I know the artist, facts about the band and its members, the name of the song, the album, and I can describe the album art. My wife, on the other hand, usually can't remember the names of her favorite songs or who the artist is. And, like, no shade on my wife for this at all; I'm just saying we experience these things much differently, and I think that may be illustrative of the differences your seeing with other people too.

Additionally, as far as diminishing returns go, I think a lot of people do not understand the importance of acoustic treatment. You're listening to your room, not your speakers. You can't out-speaker a bad sounding room at any cost. If you think you want new speakers to upgrade your sound quality and have given zero thought to room acoustics, you should do a little investigation before upgrading your equipment. I think that money is better spent elsewhere first.

Once you have a good sounding space to listen, I really don't think most people need to spend any more than 10k (at the extreme upper limit) for a pair of speakers for 2 channel listening. That said, I have been in a fantastic room with a $15k pair of Sonus Faber speakers, and I have been chasing that feeling for a couple of years now.

What are your tips on glasses? I choose standard uncoated lenses nowdays after finding that anti-reflective/anti-scratch coatings often scratched easily or had an optically-rippled surface, but maybe things have improved?

I just want to say how happy I am that good sounding audio equipment and large screen TVs are relatively cheap. With a bit of research and tinkering, one can have a nice A/V setup for not much $$$. Of note, I am very impressed with the audio quality of Class D amplifiers nowadays. I was conditioned to believe that Class D would always be inferior until I tried it myself.

To me the recording and mastering makes more difference than the fidelity or absolute quality. I consider myself lucky that my ears aren't that discerning.

I do value high fidelity media, but frankly I can't say that I notice a difference between say, 320 kbps mp3 audio and FLAC audio-- and yes I have a nice DAC + headphones so there's no bottlenecks. I used to have all my music as FLAC files but these days I don't have the $$$ to buy more storage so I find myself converting everything to 320 kbps MP3 files and I'm okay with that.

For movies, I've only got 1080p monitors + a 720p projector so for the most part I just download 1080p movies. I burn movies and TV shows to Blu-Ray discs so for some S-tier stuff I'll download the 4K release and burn it to a BD-R in hopes that someday I can afford 4K and all the damn PC hardware upgrades that's going to require. But I'm in no rush, 1080p is fine by me and 720p on the projector is great.

I'm into photography, and I'm like you when it comes to lenses. Quality > quantity, any day of the week. I'd much rather choose a nice 40mm prime lens over a 17-70mm lens with mediocre glass.

My friends are kind of like yours but they know that when they want something of high quality, they can ask me and I'll gladly do the research then give them several options. I really enjoy well-made products and I despise poorly-made products so much. As a result, I'm finally at that point in my life where quality purchases I made 15+ years ago are still working great and it feels good.

That said, I do try to keep my purchases to a minimum because it's way too easy to fall for marketing + consumerism.

There's a degree to which this is a supply that creates demand, I feel. Maybe there's a better way to put it.

When I had a 720p laptop, it was perfectly fine. I played games and watched movies and never felt like I was viewing things in low quality. Once I got 1080p, I could tell things were better, but they weren't like shockingly, orgasmicly better. 720p, though, felt borderline unusable once I got used to 1080p.

The same thing happened prior to this with old box tvs/monitors, and with older video games. I played the shit out of FNV and the graphics and gameplay seemed fine. Having played modern games, though, FNV feels janky and LQ (despite having better than average writing).

I'm consciously avoiding 4K for this reason.

I'm coming around on audio to some degree, but still prefer to hit the "80% of perfect" before diminished returns start curving up, wrt earphones and such

I often can't tell. I will also tweak other settings and my use so I am less bothered. I went from an Alienware m14 (2013) to a system 76 lemur pro 9 (2020) and was finally able to see the gap. I would make the font bigger or do things that took long during other chores, so the age didn't always bother me. I'm still semi broke so I often compromise on my purchase of things when I am aware.

I grew up really poor, so high definition audio isn't something i've really ever had access to growing up, and I've never felt like I was missing out once I had the money to spend on new stuff.

I can tell the difference between a good basic pair of headphones and garbage pretty easily. There's a noticeable difference between basic cans and higher end cans too but it's a 15-20% improvement for a 500-10000% price increase.

If someone's happy with older airpods then more power to them, I don't need much more than a pair of Sennheiser HD598s myself. Would I take HD800/820s if offered for free? Absolutely. Will I pay $1600+ for them, not today.

Yes and no. It depends on the circumstance and what I'm listening/watching. Audio fidelity is important to me when I listen to my vinyls, when I'm driving down the road and listening to podcasts or music, I don't really care because the road noise is strong enough that the fidelity doesn't really matter much. When watching TV or a movie, I do care about it being 4K and HDR, unless it's something I've seen before.

I like a certain level of quality when it comes to audio.

When I'm making music, I use in ear monitors from shure with a flat response because it would throw off my mixes otherwise. Same with my presonus speakers. Flat response.

But for causally watching content, its fine for me to use some bookshelf speakers or even a bluetooth speaker. Its not super important for watching content for me as long as its not total trash.

I'm a musician. I can't afford top tier sound!

Tbh I can live with what I've got at home. A garden variety setup today still sounds better than something high-end did when I was growing up. Just give me some decent channel separation and I can zone out.

Where there is still significant room for improvement is in stage sound. Why do monitors always have to sound like sh*t? It's like bands spend all their budget on amps and PAs and whatever dregs are left over go to the monitors. And house sound. Don't even get me started. Maybe their gear was good once (probably not) but it's invariably seen one beer spill too many.

Audio, yes, to a certain degree. With video I don't care that much, as long as there aren't any details I'd miss on lower res. The resolution I use on YouTube is usually dictated by the audio quality that comes with.

Back in the 90's when MP3 sharing via modem was common, the "normal" bitrate was 128kbit/s, and people often commented that I refused to download and save them. 160kbit/s was OK. 256kbit/s was preferred.

I wouldn't call myself an audiophile, I just really hate it when instruments and voices sound like rusty chains being dragged across a washboard.

As I mentioned above, I'm not that picky. Possibly environmentally damage from sailing the high seas 20-25 years ago to watch myself favorite TV shows. I don't mind pixels and visual compression artifacts that much.

It’s all transparent to me unless I bought a potato

I can't tell the difference between 1080p and 4k due to eye problems and shit eyesight. My bedroom TV is 720p lmao (but TBF that's because it's ancient and I don't want to deal with smart TV bullshit). So no.

I'm a bit pickier with audio but will also listen to music through cheap earbuds

Yes I do, and a price increase of only $10 (so $30 vs $20) makes a big difference in sound quality for a pair of headphones for work (meetings and some music off Youtube). So it's not even about hifi (at that price range, of course not), it's about giving a shit and do a little research / testing before settling on a slightly better low end consumer product. Or, given a certain budget, maximise the quality for it, again, by doing some research beforehand, no matter what you plan to buy. But, most people are lazy.

When it comes to music, it also depends on a person's tastes. Ariana Grande sounds the same to me weather played on Sennheiser headphones or a microwave oven.

I’ve always been pretty picky with audio, but have made some changes recently. The 5.1 system was absolutely worth it. In fact, I got rid of my turntable speakers and just run it through the surround sound and it sounds great.

Although, for reference – even before tinnitus I couldn’t tell the difference between 320 and FLAC/lossless.

Yes. I spend a good amount of money on my home theater equipment. I want to see and hear the best media available to me. It's why I went all-in on amassing a large collection of Blu-Rays and ripped them to Plex uncompressed. But I settle for convenience most of the time with streaming for new content.

I can't tell the difference between good audio and great audio but I can definitely tell when it's shit. I have no experience listening to high quality audio formats but I do have a pair of senhessier headphones that made me never want to go back to cheap gaming headphones.

You only know what you know. So if shit audio quality is all you know then you won't value spending money on a better experience. Once you do get a taste of that better experience you will never want go back to that shit quality.

I'm interested in this when buying a product, but I can't always buy new products. I also tend to go with the "buy once, cry once" mentality, which means I get something with high fidelity, but it's a rare occasion when I can upgrade something else.

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I notice it but don't care. Also, is wifi "wire fidelity"? I notice and care when my wifi is crap

I spend about 300 euros on a really high end usb DAC for my desktop. I honestly don't hear the difference between the desktop output and the expensive DAC. But I do totally hear the difference between a decent and cheap pair of headphones. I do still like my DAC because it's able to power basically all large headphones and it also powers my speakers, so I don't see it as money wasted.

Depends. I'm aware of the difference, but how much I care about it depends entirely on how much I like the hobby or tech. If it's food, PCs, and clothes (as in, no cheap materials that won't last a year) I care and will go beyond reasonable expectations to ensure that whatever I buy or cook is the best within reason. Anything else, as long as it works.

I don't have the energy for more than that.

Depends. It's a mix of all the reasons you've mentioned, and I'm sure this will vary from person to person. For me, high fidelity audio matters only with headphones, and if I'm listening to music. I can absolutely tell there is a difference with speakers but I don't enjoy them as much so I don't care as much.

Similarly I'm not much of a HD4k+ person when it comes to video. I do see the difference but for the most part my brain will filter most visual noise, issues and distortion away while I'm engaged in narrative. I don't need large TVs nor too much high resolution. PC monitors/laptops/phone screens? I want every pixel you can give me, the higher the resolution the better. Completely different experience than TV. I'm annoyed when I can see the pixels on a screen I'm working on.

I'm with you on the binoculars and microscopes. Yeah, quality does make a huge difference and I would absolutely get the best if I can afford it.

Food- I'm a lazy cook and very picky about condiments. I really enjoy most foods plainly. I don't mind if my stir fry got a bit soggy or if I forgot to salt the roast. I'll eat it all the same and be content with it like it had been perfect. For me to really appreciate the difference in food quality you need to add significantly more than 1% effort, so I leave that to professional chefs.

Do I value the better picture on a TV? Yes

Same with music. I don't enjoy watching TV /movies using TV speakers.

Listening to music using phone speakers is not worth it at all.

I am very aware of the differences in quality but am mostly okay with bad equipment and/or bad settings. The most important thing is to be able to clearly see and hear what’s supposed to be clear and only especially incompetent or especially pretentious media doesn’t get mastered to work well on shoddy displays and/or speakers by those standards.

The one thing I absolutely cannot tolerate is HDR mode on TVs without enough of a maximum luminance to actually do HDR, so they and up looking way worse than SDR.

The idea of not caring about binocular quality is truly mystifying. Binoculars’ only job is to make things as easy to see as possible.