Hacker News Reader

Comment by gmarx | Hacker News Reader

I love that you call it a "hi-fi" which is what it would have been called the generation before mine. We always called it a "stereo". I've always been amazed by how rare it is for a person to be interested in a system that makes the music sound better. The difference between an iPhone with the default earbuds and a $5000 stereo rig with speakers is astounding but only a tiny fraction of the listening public cares

View on HN

At least in my experience, it's one of those things that you don't know what you are missing until you have it.

I remember when I bought my first pair of IEMs. They were pretty cheap, but still better than whatever earbuds came with my iPod at the time. After listening to the new IEMs for a while I was unable to go back to the Apple ones because they sounded so much worse. If you asked me a few days prior, I would have told you the earbuds sounded fine.

Then I got a real pair of headphones...

yup, that's the downside of the hobby. I spent years chasing improvements which only satisfied me for a week. Took me years to stop and enjoy "good enough". Recently played something on my system for a musician friend and he was unimpressed...then I was crestfallen

You eventually get to a Pareto optimal front where the changes you make to your system aren't necessarily better, just different (i.e. more bass at the loss of some other part of the spectrum, which you may or may not prefer).

> The difference between an iPhone with the default earbuds and a $5000 stereo rig with speakers is astounding but only a tiny fraction of the listening public cares

Without optimum room design, even half-decent earbuds are better than pretty high-quality speaker systems, if you don't need multiple simultaneously listeners.

And I don't think it's that most people don't care, I think it's just that most people have a utility function where the additional utility of high-quality sound gear is far too low to ever be justified by the cost of the gear (and the necessary environmental improvements to make sure that the effect of the gear isn't wasted.)

optimum room design is great to get the best out of your gear but a $5000 stereo set up in your current living room will be significantly better than the earvuds

I put together a modest priced system using quality but not quite "vintage" parts from the 80s (NAD amp, Klipsch heritage, Pioneer tt). It punches well above it's weight and I'd be hard pressed to build a comparable system today without spending 5x the money.

Things really aren't made the way they used to be (for better or worse) and I think that nostalgia is definitely part of vinyl's appeal.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com