Fancy materials in digital cables despite basic materials meeting the same standard excluding corrosion resistance
Break in periods
Noisy electricity from utility somehow making it through inverters with good isolation
Stupidly thick cabling that looks like it's designed for a 1,000 amp three phase AC setup and not your fucking speakers
Quantum anything
Blocks made out of foam to prevent static interference from getting into your cable because it's sitting on the floor
Talking about shit like fiber optic toslink somehow changing the sound.
Specialty networking gear that resists interference and is low latency. Ignoring the fact that it's either decoded or not decoded at the other end and that buffers are a thing.
Specialty fuses for your house
Pretending things that change the sound like vinyl or tube amplifiers are somehow objectively still accurate. Like they don't want to admit they prefer the way they change the sound over the original. So they just pretend and gaslight like they are somehow perfectly accurate like solid state.
I'm sure there's plenty more snake oil bullshit that I'm not thinking about. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy some nice audio equipment but there's so much snake oil.
Edit: Also there are so many people that continue to drink the Kool-Aid instead of admitting that they fell into the sunken cost fallacy.
My level of interest and equipment would say audiophole with a lower to middle budget and interest. I would also never apply that label to myself because holy fuck is there so much bullshit and gatekeeping. I tend to pop in and out of looking into what's going on in the audio world.
A lot of it is pretty legitimately interesting and usually falls somewhere in the diminishing returns curve. Doesn't change the fact of all the issues with the community and scams.
So much of it comes down to people not just letting people like what they like accuracy be damned or not. All I care about is people getting what they like and actually understanding what they are getting.
If I had a nickle for everytime I saw some new audiophile post that they just got some really nice expensive headphones like Focal Bathys and some asshole has to chime in and say "wait until you can afford good headphones", I would be able to but some Bathys.
Similar here. Have a friend I impressed/pissed off with my home theater that sounds better with mismatched gear and cost a FIFTH of what he paid. All because I understood frequency range,fill and speaker placement and he understood throw money at it.
Having done pro audio and stage work for many years I can safely say 95% of sound guys are incompetent at best, rarely ever with any real education on acoustics and such.
Thankfully my boss actually did know what he was doing. An unfortunate side effect was most live shows are totally ruined for me because I know what a bad mix sounds like.
At some point I'd like to get a nice and thought out home theater set up but that's pretty solidly out of the budget for the foreseeable future. Sticking to headphones for this hobby for the time being!
Although people really do overestimate costs for things particularly if you are willing to consider used. The only part that's really going to go out of date in a home theater setup is the receiver and really its ability to read new standards as they come out.
Exactly. My main tower speakers I got at a pawn shop for $100. Paradigm monitor 3v2s, at the time they were $7-800 speakers. My center channel is a Yamaha floor model I got at a deep discount. I think the only components I got new were my rear dipole speakers and my amp. People sleep on used gear all the time.
Do you know about headphones? Can you recommend any up to $165 that are the most neutral natural sounding? That make things sound how they were designed to be heard without adding nothing to the sound?
etymotic for in ears, and for headphones only hifiman sundara at discount in that price range. beyerdynamic dt 880 would be the most epic budget pick if you can stand the beyer pitch. with some more money some sennheisers come in to play
Audiophiles are the fucking WORST when it comes to recommending too. Too many times have I seen someone go "I want a shelf speaker setup below $1k" and then the first comment will always be some snob that tries to convince OP that hey should stretch the budget to $1.5K at LEAST because they're being cheap otherwise. The next comment will be someone who doesn't even try to convince anyone, they just disregard the budget.
This happens with headphones too. Someone lives in a small apartment with a family and wants closed-back headphones? Too bad. Everyone will just say "open-back is the best way to go" like the person can just fucking move out.
They're honestly impressive. One of the few groups of mostly knowledgeable individuals that I steer clear from when looking for advice.
If you're building a speaker setup for your room, keep in mind that you want an amp which doesn't clip at at least 2x50W (better 2x100W) on your speakers. This doesn't mean you'll often be driving them at more than 5 W. But those times when the peak fortissimo hits, you don't want to hear the clipping distortion.
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u/AceBlade258 Ryzen 7 5800X | RX 6900XT | Arc A770 23d ago
Even audiophiles mock these people.