Comment by epistasis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by epistasis | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I really don't want to install multiple new devices. I don't care about the cost, the inconvenience and hassle is a PITA. Plus then you had to fiddle with multiple volume controls instead of one to make it work for your space.

No thank you. We should make the default work well, and if people want a sound optimized experience that requires 6x the pieces of equipment let those who want to do the extra work do what they need to for the small change in audio quality.

Without that change in defaults more and more people will switch to alternatives, like TikTok and YouTube, that bother to get understandability as the default rather than as something requiring hours of work and shopping choices.

> Plus then you had to fiddle with multiple volume controls instead of one to make it work for your space.

Most AVRs come with an automatic calibration option. Though there are cheap 5.1 options on the market that will get results multiple times better than your flatscreen can produce.

> We should make the default work well

Yep, movies should have properly mastered stereo mixes not just dumb downmixes from surround that will be muddy, muffled and with awful variations in loudness.

Ok sure.

However getting a better sound system is a current solution to the problem that doesn't require some broad systemic change that may or may not ever happen.

A far better solution that I take: not consume the media at all. Not only is there an abundance of media these days, but there are many many other better ways to spend time, such as writing comments on Hacker News that very few people will ever see.

I have spent about half an hour investigating sound bars as a result of these discussions, and that's a loss of life that I can never get back, and I regret spending that much time on the problem.

It feels like you are trying to turn this into an ideological debate when all I am saying is "buy some better speakers if you care about audio".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com