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Please_Do_Not @lemm.ee

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

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?

75 comments

  • Perspective: My SO didn't really care at first why I didn't want to use the built-in TV speakers, but rather install some higher-end speakers and a DAC to drive them. After a while, she went to visit a friend and came back to celebrate our setup.

    Value: Do you need a super-big, expensive TV or a smaller, higher PPI TV that you can sit closer to? What you really want is clarity, brightness, color, and smooth video. If people could never afford such a display and only had crappy TVs with bad video sources and only some smartphones as an alternative, the smartphone beats everything they know, of course. But if they could never afford high quality video sources and displays, how could they appreciate those things?

    IMHO better than average is enough for everyday life. There's more to life than spending money and not experiencing life to the fullest. That means I focused on a nicer Bluetooth headset, some better than average speakers for both TV and PC, ... so I simply approach the point of diminishing returns on the quality scale, knowing full well I could do much better. But it's not worth the effort to me if it slowly turns into either a game of high spending or a full-blown refurbishing hobby. Same with my car: I buy them used at about 46 years old and sell them at 810 years old, spending the least amount of money while driving mostly luxury cars with lots and lots of extras.

  • So I don't value high fidelity video because I don't see very well even with glasses, so it wouldn't make a difference for me.

    I do value high fidelity audio because:

    • I am a musician and producer, although not as much as I used to
    • I have ear training
    • I went to recording school
    • I am autistic with sensitive hearing
    • I have audio and acoustical engineering as special interests
    • I'm doing a master's degree in electrical engineering where I've already designed audio gear for my projects
    • I am teaching myself audio plugin design for fun

    But I simply can't afford high fidelity gear for every day listening. For my studio monitors, I spent as much as I could to get the best speakers I could afford so that I can be certain that what I'm hearing is an accurate representation of what I "commit to tape". However, for walking to class or going to the market, I'm not gonna pay for expensive headphones that could get stolen, broken, or lost. It's impractical.

    My $20 Bluetooth headphones [1] are sufficient for every day carry. They sound "95% of the way there", they don't get in the way when I'm walking, and if I lose them, I can have an identical pair delivered to my door with a couple days. 95% is good enough for me. Actually, I could probably settle for less.

    And then there's storage. My library is already > 110GB in MP3 format, so storing it all in uncompressed formats would be unwieldy.

    So in the rare cases that my listening hardware is insufficient, I'll usually consult a software equalizer. For example, on Linux, Easy Effects allows me to apply equalizers, dynamic compression, and a bunch of other plugins in LV2 format to the PipeWire output (and input). It's super convenient for watching YouTube college lectures with questionable microphone quality on my shitty TV speakers. Other than dynamic compression for leveling and an equalizer for frequency effects, I am typically not interested in doing anything else for intelligibility. Said differently, I am not interested in exploiting the nonlinearities in real speaker systems (other than possibly dynamic compression), so I should be able to fix any linear defects (bad frequency response) with a digital equalizer. The nonlinearities in real speaker systems are, for HiFi listening purposes [2], defects.

    Also, I'm extremely skeptical of products marketed towards "audiophiles" because there's so much marketing bullshit pseudoscience surrounding the field that all the textbooks that cover loudspeaker design and HiFi audio electronics have paragraphs warning about it as the first thing.

    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?

    Next time you do a graphical analysis, check out the magnitudes of the differences in your graphs versus the magnitude of the Just Noticeable Difference in amplitude or frequency. We probably do experience the differences between speakers differently than others. We're outliers.

    What's your take on both major and, at the high end, diminishing returns on higher quality sensory experiences?

    For personal listening, the point of diminishing returns is basically $20 because I can't afford shit. For listening to something I plan on sharing with others, I'd be willing to put in whatever I can afford. But frankly, I'd be just as likely to straight-up do the math and design my systems myself because I 100% don't trust any """high fidelity""" system that doesn't come with a datasheet and frequency response.

    Lastly, I do wear glasses. I typically get my glasses online because, once you have the prescription and your facial measurements, it is the same quality as the stuff you get at the big-box stores.

    [1] I acknowledge that Bluetooth sucks, particularly for audio.

    [2] As a metal guitarist, I'm not against speaker nonlinearity for guitar speakers, but then again, guitar speakers are really convincingly simulated by impulse responses, which are a core linear systems concept, implying that they are nearly linear devices even at the volumes they are typically played at.

    • I'm a computing/music student thinking of getting into plugin design and similar stuff, I'm curious what plugin design is like and what it consists of. Is there any like quick tips or bits of information you could give me about the field?

      • It's so hard!

        It's really hard! But it's really rewarding too. And as a computing/music student [1], you're in a great major to start!

        First off, if you just want to make your own effects and you're not really interested in distributing them or making them public, I recommend using JSFX. It's way easier. You can read through the entire spec in a night. JSFX support is built into REAPER, and apparently YSFX allows you to load JSFX code into other DAWs, although I haven't tested it. JSFX plugins are compiled on the fly (unlike VST plugins, which are compiled ahead of time and distributed as DLLs), so you just write them up as text files.

        However, their capabilities are limited compared to VST, AU, LV2, AAX [2], and other similar plugin formats. Also, pre-compiled plugins perform better. That's why plugins are released as such.

        So if you plan on writing pre-compiled plugins for public consumption, you'll need to do some C++ programming.

        IMO the most important thing to learn for plugin design is how to code well, particularly in C++ with Git and JUCE.

        If you learn how to code with good practices, you can compensate for all other deficiencies.

        Between "music", "engineering", and "software development", plugin design feels the most like "software development".

        99.9% of all plugins are written in C++, and most of those are done (both proprietary and FOSS) with the JUCE library. School taught me the basics of C++ but they don't teach you how to code well. Particularly, your DSP code needs to meet a soft real-time constraint. You have to use multithreading because you have a thread for the audio signal (which must NEVER get interrupted) and at least one thread for the GUI.

        You also need to figure out which parts of the C++ standard library are real-time safe, and which aren't. Here's a good talk on that.

        If you use JUCE or a similar development library then they have well-tested basic DSP functions, meaning you can get by without doing all the math from scratch.

        Start watching Audio Developer Conference talks like TV as they come out. JUCE has a tutorial, and MatKat released a video tutorial guiding the viewer through coding a simple EQ plugin [3]. JUCE plugins are basically cross platform, and can typically be compiled as VSTs on Windows, AU plugins on Mac, and LV2 plugins on Linux.

        JUCE is a really complicated library even though it vastly simplifies the process (because audio plugin development is inherently hard!). You're going to have to learn to read a LOT of documentation and code.

        I also recommend learning as much math as you can stomach. Start with linear algebra, calculus, Fourier analysis, circuit theory, and numerical analysis (especially Padé approximants), in that order. Eventually, you'll want to roll your own math, or at least do something that JUCE doesn't provide out the box. Julius O Smith has some really good free online books on filters, Fourier Analysis, and DSP with a music focus.

        If you're willing to sail the high seas to LibGen buy a book, I recommend Digital Audio Signal Processing by Udo Zolzer for "generic" audio signal processing, and DAFX: Digital Audio Effects by Zolzer for coverage of nonlinear effects, which are typically absent from DSP engineering books. I also recommend keeping a copy of Digital Signal Processing by Proakis and Manolakis on hand because of its detailed coverage of DSP fundamentals, particularly the coverage of filter structures, numerical errors, multirate signal processing, and the Z transform.

        A little bit of knowledge about machine learning and optimization is good too, because sometimes you need to solve an optimization problem to synthesize a filter, or possibly in a fixed time as your actual output (example: pitch shifting). Deep learning is yielding some seriously magical effects, so I do recommend you learn it at your own pace.

        DSP basically requires all the math ever, especially the kind of DSP that we want to do as musicians, so the more you have the better you'll be.

        [1] IMO that would have been the perfect major for me, that or acoustical engineering, if anything like that existed in my area when I went to recording school 10 years ago. While my recording degree taught me some really valuable stuff, I kinda wish that they pushed us harder into programming, computing, and electronics.

        [2] AAX requires you to pay Avid to develop. So I never use AAX plugins, and I have no intention of supporting the format once I start releasing plugins for public consumption, despite its other technical merits.

        [3] Over half of MatKat's tutorial is dedicated towards GUI design, i.e. the audio part is basically done but the interface looks boring and default. GUI design and how your GUI (editor component) interacts with the audio processor component are extremely important and time-consuming parts of plugin design. Frankly, GUI design has been by far the most complicated thing to "pick up", and it's why I haven't released anything yet.

  • I care a little bit. I've got my good 5.1 sound system for the TV but I don't see the necessity to invest into an Atmos system. The TV can display 4k with HDR but I'm satisfied with HD SDR stuff. When playing games 60 fps is nice but I won't die if my Steam Deck can only manage 30 fps.

    So, most stuff is usually good enough for me. And at the moment I can't leave my bed anyways so I can live with laptop speakers.

  • I'm into this, especially sound quality. I have a top-of-the-bottom/bottom-of-the-middle 5.2.4 setup for movies and listen to music on that same space as well. I have made solid progress on acoustically treating my space, and it sounds pretty good.

    My wife, who has done all the A-B testing with me and understands what high quality equipment and a well-treated space brings to the table would be perfectly happy watching Netflix on her phone speaker.

    I know for sure she does not hear things like I hear them. I have a couple of demo tracks I use to evaluate changes in my system, and I have described to her what I'm listening for (soundstage depth, for example), and she cannot distinguish whether or not this quality exists. So, I think one part of this is that there is something cognitive going on that she and I perceive things so differently. Another thing that I think is different between us is the way music affects us. For me, music is an emotional experience and ties deeply with my memories of events/time periods/feelings. When I hear a song, I know the artist, facts about the band and its members, the name of the song, the album, and I can describe the album art. My wife, on the other hand, usually can't remember the names of her favorite songs or who the artist is. And, like, no shade on my wife for this at all; I'm just saying we experience these things much differently, and I think that may be illustrative of the differences your seeing with other people too.

    Additionally, as far as diminishing returns go, I think a lot of people do not understand the importance of acoustic treatment. You're listening to your room, not your speakers. You can't out-speaker a bad sounding room at any cost. If you think you want new speakers to upgrade your sound quality and have given zero thought to room acoustics, you should do a little investigation before upgrading your equipment. I think that money is better spent elsewhere first.

    Once you have a good sounding space to listen, I really don't think most people need to spend any more than 10k (at the extreme upper limit) for a pair of speakers for 2 channel listening. That said, I have been in a fantastic room with a $15k pair of Sonus Faber speakers, and I have been chasing that feeling for a couple of years now.

  • To some extent. For audio, I don't really have to much experience with expensive headphones/earbuds but I do notice a difference. I still usually go with cheaper headphones though because the difference in audio quality and durability aren't really enough to justify the price difference.

    For visuals in games, I do prefer to have the best experience but what settings I use depends on the game. There are some settings that are universal to me, like for example, if anti-aliasing is available, I always have it set to 2x (or 1.5x if the game has it) because every option for anti-aliasing in every game I've tried looks exactly the same to me, so going higher is just a waste of system resources. For similar reasons, while both of my monitors support higher resolutions, I still prefer to use 720/768p.

    I think the only time I really don't care about visual quality, is just when I'm watching videos online.

  • I grew up really poor, so high definition audio isn't something i've really ever had access to growing up, and I've never felt like I was missing out once I had the money to spend on new stuff.

  • I always wanted my music to sound nice, but could never afford the best equipment.

    These days I have a set of Sony MDR-7506, and while I appreciate there are ‘better’ headphones, the detail I hear when listening to lossless audio through them is astonishing. I can listen to tracks I’ve heard dozens of times and hear elements that I’ve never noticed before. And these headphones are relatively cheap at £80.

  • I often can't tell. I will also tweak other settings and my use so I am less bothered. I went from an Alienware m14 (2013) to a system 76 lemur pro 9 (2020) and was finally able to see the gap. I would make the font bigger or do things that took long during other chores, so the age didn't always bother me. I'm still semi broke so I often compromise on my purchase of things when I am aware.

  • 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.

  • Yes and no. It depends on the circumstance and what I'm listening/watching. Audio fidelity is important to me when I listen to my vinyls, when I'm driving down the road and listening to podcasts or music, I don't really care because the road noise is strong enough that the fidelity doesn't really matter much. When watching TV or a movie, I do care about it being 4K and HDR, unless it's something I've seen before.

  • Depends. It's a mix of all the reasons you've mentioned, and I'm sure this will vary from person to person. For me, high fidelity audio matters only with headphones, and if I'm listening to music. I can absolutely tell there is a difference with speakers but I don't enjoy them as much so I don't care as much.

    Similarly I'm not much of a HD4k+ person when it comes to video. I do see the difference but for the most part my brain will filter most visual noise, issues and distortion away while I'm engaged in narrative. I don't need large TVs nor too much high resolution. PC monitors/laptops/phone screens? I want every pixel you can give me, the higher the resolution the better. Completely different experience than TV. I'm annoyed when I can see the pixels on a screen I'm working on.

    I'm with you on the binoculars and microscopes. Yeah, quality does make a huge difference and I would absolutely get the best if I can afford it.

    Food- I'm a lazy cook and very picky about condiments. I really enjoy most foods plainly. I don't mind if my stir fry got a bit soggy or if I forgot to salt the roast. I'll eat it all the same and be content with it like it had been perfect. For me to really appreciate the difference in food quality you need to add significantly more than 1% effort, so I leave that to professional chefs.

  • I can't tell the difference between good audio and great audio but I can definitely tell when it's shit. I have no experience listening to high quality audio formats but I do have a pair of senhessier headphones that made me never want to go back to cheap gaming headphones.

    You only know what you know. So if shit audio quality is all you know then you won't value spending money on a better experience. Once you do get a taste of that better experience you will never want go back to that shit quality.

  • Big fan of good quality music reproduction. I'm no audiophile, but I have a HiFi I'm happy with. Had the same set of speakers for 20 years, bought an Audiolab 6000a last year after suffering with a poor second hand receiver for a few years and it's so nice to have dynamics and some punch back. Mostly paired with a Wiim mini or a NAD CDP.

    I can tell the difference between 320 mp3 and FLAC (there's some online comparison test / quiz that I can get right 80% of the time). I don't have particularly good hearing, bit once you know what to listen out for then its quite apparent when it's not there. Storage is cheap so all my CDs are ripped to FLAC now, because even if I can't hear the difference on every track, why not?

    My Mrs happily listens to music through her phone speaker or some cheap Bluetooth headphones. I know it shouldn't, but it really annoys me. She's also the kind of person who won't stop to take a stone from their shoe and end up with a big painful blister on their foot

75 comments