Found out today that Sony sells MP3 players for thousands of dollars

Yep this is the audiophile community. The same kind of people who buy Monster cables
- you will never in a million years convince me that vinyl sounds better than digital. how this argument even gets off the ground is beyond me.
  
  Records do tend to sound better to a listeners ears because of a bunch of psychoacoustic effects that make live instruments sound better than recordings though.
  The sound of something like fast car is a classic example of applying those effects to a recording in the studio.
  As a medium I will die on the hill that vinyl is better than digital for a bunch of reasons other than objective or subjective quality, but when you start measuring quality what you’re even trying to figure out gets muddy real quickly.
  
  Vinyl does sound different though, and some audiophiles are so far gone that they think their own preferences are objectively better.
  
  If you think that's bad, ask them about 256k MP3 vs. FLAC lossless

Audiophile cope in the comments is hilarious. A $30 pair of IEMs plugged into a 7 year old flagship phone is high enough quality that most people won't want anything crazier the rest of their life. A $150 pair of over ear headphones plugged into a cheap DAC from AliExpress is good enough to achieve full fidelity for anyone.
I can't wait until one of you nerds tries to tell me you can tell the difference between a flac and a 256kbps AAC file too.

Yes it comes with less memory than my modern smartphone, but at least the gold-plated oxygen free copper provides a purer sound.

Yeah Sonys always had a luxury brand lineup. Back in the day their uhh vaio? Computers were hailed as MacBook killers.
- VAIOs were fucking awesome laptops

some ppl have way too much money

You'd think you could get one for like 20$. i wanted a cheap one that would just do music for... some reason idfk, but the lowest end ones are more expensive than cheap phones.
- Sandisk used to make good ones. There was even a community that made open source OS called Rock box which could play Doom and Opus. They replaced it with a model that couldn't be flashed, and now they've stopped making that too.

Certified Lover Boy? Certified Audiophile
Striking a (literal) chord and it's probably A-minooorrr

These are DAPs, and they are ment for the audiophiles. They are not the average mp3 player. You will need also proper headphones for those.
Are they worth it? Yes, if you have money for burning.
- Are they worth it? Yes, if you have money for burning.
  Ain't no way it's worth it, audiophile gear is 99% placebo. It's kinda like wine, when you're past a certain price point (that's not actually that large compared to the really expensive stuff) it's all the same.
  
  Even if you can allegedly tell the difference (I doubt it, any device playing a digital file is as good as another) there's no way it's worth at least $1,500.
  
  Good luck plugging Sennheiser HD 600 to an average mp3 player or your smartphone. I don't defend audiophile, because they cost extremely more for what they offer. But they are a step up.
  Also you can find DAP starting from $100, so i don't know how these scale with the price. I just recently found them out and shared the info.
  
  Don't let them hear you say that. I've been beaten to death for telling them they can't tell the difference between 320kbps mp3s and lossless.
  With hardware, there's definitely an improvement in quality but only to a certain point, you have to spend like $200-300 and you are already at the perceivable ceiling. Audio equipment is just so damn good and affordable these days. Audiophiles tend to buy things that have different sounds, maybe they prefer how one album sounds with one set of headphones vs another and they pay a pretty penny for this. But the quality is the same.
- They're really not worth it. A $15 USB-C dongle and a smartphone will put out audio quality better than almost any audiophile's headphones can discern.
  Also you can get DAPs for like $50-$100 that will be the same type of deal: indiscernable.
  
  You forgot the /s
- daps used to be free. what happened? you used to receive free daps on entering any club. not anymore.
- You will need also proper headphones for those.
  buying my $3600 cell phone that can't make phone calls and then making the foolish mistake of plugging in some $5 earbuds which immediately makes it explode because i didn't use proper headphones
  
  Its more like buying an expensive suit and then the cheapest shoes you can find.
- they're getting mad at you but you're right.
- What's the average mp3 player these days? I use an old FiiO but they've discontinued the budget edition that I have and I don't know where I'll turn if anything happens to this one.
  Edit - FiiO does offer a new version of what they call a "budget DAP", the JM21, for $199, but even if it seems better than the others on the market that's maybe three times as much as their old one cost me. Dammit. Well, my current one had better last.
  
  Buy a decade old smartphone with a headphone jack and just use it for music?
  
  They have also some nice ones at $400-500, i see. Like the M11.
- People aren’t allowed to have their hobbies.
- this would be such a good bit i'm mad you don't do it more
  
  Switch 2 pre-orderers have infiltrated even the mods. My god.
  
  No, Nintendo is in the ignore list now, after their Switch 2 launch info. Also games that i had in wish-list for Switch 1, got deleted. Not another penny from me.
  Also watch your language. Mods, maybe need to pay attention to you.

The only people still buying dedicated audio players are audiofools
- nah they're good. Sometimes I want something very light that doesn't make my pockets sag

lol, who buys this shit. this makes me wonder how much my ancient 50gb ipod would go for these days.
- Probably quite a bit since there's ways to make them like 1TB now.

pseudoscientific slop of any kind will make big bucks to the right audience. "oh the decibel conflagration gradient is 0.005% lower in the soprano DVD spectrum, creating a harmonizing dissonating pulmonary association that'll be $5000 please" and if even one chump buys it they get a 2000% return on investment.