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Do you value high fidelity (audio, visual, or other)? Do you notice a difference? (lemm.ee)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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It often surprises me to see people with time, money, and knowledge settling for subpar experiences that have night and day differences to me. Even at my brokest (pretty darn broke), speakers, headphones, and glasses were always worth researching and some saving up, and the difference between what I'd end up with and the average always feels like it paid off tenfold.

I've got a surprising number of friends/acquaintances who just don't seem to care, though, and I am trying to understand if they just don't experience the difference similarly or if they don't mind. I know musicians who just continue using generation 1 airpods or the headphones included with their phone, birdwatchers who don't care about their binoculars, people who don't care if they could easily make their food taste better, and more examples of people who, in my opinion, could get 50% better results/experiences by putting in 1% more thought/effort.

When I've asked some friends about it, it sounds as much like they just don't care as they don't experience the difference as starkly as I do, but I have a hard time understanding that, as it's most often an objective sensory difference. Like I experience the difference between different pairs of binoculars and speakers dramatically, and graphical analysis backs up the differences, so how could they sound/look negligibly different to others? Is it just a matter of my priorities not being others' priorities, or do they actually experience the difference between various levels of quality as smaller than I seem to? What's your take on both major and, at the high end, diminishing returns on higher quality sensory experiences?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I can tell the difference between a good basic pair of headphones and garbage pretty easily. There's a noticeable difference between basic cans and higher end cans too but it's a 15-20% improvement for a 500-10000% price increase.

If someone's happy with older airpods then more power to them, I don't need much more than a pair of Sennheiser HD598s myself. Would I take HD800/820s if offered for free? Absolutely. Will I pay $1600+ for them, not today.