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Comment by throwaway287391 | Hacker News Reader

Comments like this always make me really glad that I've never tried "good" audio equipment. I think music sounds great with my Sony XM3s and even my AirPods, and I don't have to travel with a DAC to experience it. shrug

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I would consider myself an audiophile but I agree with you wholeheartedly. My AirPods and other headphones are more than good enough to listen to music when I'm out and about. I've never carried a DAC anywhere because, at least for me, the only time I'm listening to high fidelity stuff is when that's my sole objective. I don't need lossless quality when I'm listening to music on a train or on the subway or even while I'm working. I've never been taken out of my mindspace because I may have possibly heard a compression artifact.

It feels to me like people just want to complain to complain.

I think Tennyson's famous lines "Tis better to have loved and lost, / Than never to have loved at all" apply here. :)

I think it depends on what you want - I have some pricier headphones myself & I used to own monitor speakers too, but I never think to use any of it with a phone. I use a phone to be on the go, and having big headphones don't go with that well unless I'm sitting for a long time like an airplane.

So far I've been dealing with being on the go with the PowerBeats Pro - it's good enough for my purposes (light, good battery life, sound is good enough, somewhat compact), although I have it mainly because the AirPod Pros were not out then.

On one hand you avoid frustration, on the other hand you miss out on greater enjoyment.

I think I'd mentally adjust to the improved quality as the "new normal" pretty quickly and not get much out of it thereafter, leaving only the frustration when I couldn't have my audiophile quality. Seems like there's very little upside in it for me personally. I don't doubt that some people can genuinely sustain additional enjoyment out of it though.

I've noticed this trait with myself in a number of other aspects (operating system--no way I'm going back to Windows after having used Linux for years!), but luckily I haven't been spoiled by other people's good audio equipment yet.

If you haven't gotten into high-end audio already, I'm guessing you're not the type who "listens to equipment" as opposed to listening to music. So long as you're paying more attention to the music than the minute differences between exponentially more expensive pairs of headphones (or DACs and amps), you're probably not going to have the problem you're afraid of. I can rarely hear the difference between my midrange Sony wireless headphones and my friend's super fancy open-back headphones when there's an equalizer profile applied to each to make them sound similar.

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