[cmurphycode]

I think that an underrated factor in the dynamic range compression is the way we listen to music. I'm not sure if it's accurate to say that the average quality of listening devices (that is, speakers/headphones) has decreased, but certainly it has become more common to hear music through bad earbuds, tinny smartphone speakers, or laptops simply because those devices are so prevalent.

In these settings, music with lots of dynamic range may legitimately not sound as good. Due to the quality of reproduction, the low-loudness parts are hard to perceive.

For me, there are certainly songs that I enjoy listening to on good headphones in a quiet room that don't have anywhere near the impact when played on laptop speakers.

[dsr_]

Meanwhile, it's possible for someone to spend less money than ever before to get really good sound.

Sell the Beats earmuffs and pick up Superlux HD668B headphones for under $50.

Drop the Apple earbuds in the garbage and get TRN V80 in-ear-monitors for under $50. Add a pack of random eartips to figure out which ones are most comfortable for you.

Your MBP's built-in speakers have no bass below 160Hz or so, and bluetooth party speakers have all the sonic charm of a box of Kleenex. Spend $300 on a pair of JBL 305P powered speakers and plug anything into them -- they're a distinct upgrade from basically everything costing less and an awful lot of speakers costing twice as much.

Buy your music on CDs and spend the ten minutes per disc copying them. Do you know you can fit 1300 full CDs in a one terabyte disk without any compression at all? Or buy FLAC or any other non-lossy compression version. Buy directly from artists whenever possible: give them the best margins.

Use wires. Use headphone jacks. Use cheap ground loop isolators when you get hum from power lines -- they used to be really expensive, now they cost $10.

We live in a time of high-quality low-cost devices that play music much better than anything your parents could have bought without spending a month's grocery money.

[proverbialbunny]

>We live in a time of high-quality low-cost devices that play music much better than anything your parents could have bought without spending a month's grocery money.

Is that really the case? I've got some late 70s / early 80s Fisher speakers that sound almost as good as the best bookshelf speakers you can buy today. I rather enjoy the sound more than the JBL 305P studio monitors. While the Fishers are less precise, they're more enjoyable to listen to. (The trick is to put them on a desk at an angle the same way you would for studio monitors, and turn them upside down so the treble stays at ear level.)

I can't imagine Fisher costing an arm and a leg back then, and back then Fisher speakers were sold at normal electronic stores, while today high end audio has to be bought at specialty stores like Guitar Center or online. Today if you go to a Best Buy, they'll have some thousand dollar home theater speaker setup that could sound better. The average consumer thinks that is what top of the line is and sounds like, when in fact they're being sold a lie.

High end speakers were once accessible and advertised to the masses, unlike today. Today you have to be a specialist, an "audiophile", or some other niche title.

In an ever increasing mobile world, mobile speakers have taken over. While some of the in ear headphones are amazing, and I hope this trend continues, it will be a while -- if ever -- when we get portable speakers that sound decent. One of the problems is the direction of the sound, and the other is the Bluetooth compression itself leaving manufacturers to make their speakers fuzzy to counter the compression.

[dsr_]

Depending on which Fishers you're talking about -- I'm assuming larger bookshelf size -- they could easily have been $400 brand new in 1970. CPI says that's about $2650 now.

Maybe they were $100 speakers in 1980? That would be about the same as a pair of powered JBLs now, except that you still need to get an amp for the Fishers.

[proverbialbunny]

$100. I believe I got them for less. They also came with an equalizer and a stereo receiver. Their equalizer technology was one of their key selling points back then. I can only imagine Bose copied this idea when it made its speakers, except with Bose you don't get much control over the EQ and without it the speakers do not sound great. Fisher speakers sound great without the fancy EQ.

edit: And for anyone who doesn't know what old high end supermarket speakers sound like from the early 80s: I have $400 headphones that are less enjoyable to listen to.

[lm28469]

> the Beats earmuffs > the Apple earbuds

They're fashion statement, most people don't care about sound quality.

Unless you have a proper sound card / dac and a really nice headset I doubt investing in FLAC will transcend your listening experience. On top of that most people listen from their phone, during commute, at the gym etc ... no need for flac in these conditions.

It's the same thing with photography, you can get a 300$ dslr that has more options than any slr. Yet the vast majority of people will be happy with their phone camera.

[cowpig]

Is there somewhere reliable I can go to do this kind of research before I buy speakers and/or headphones in the future?

[isolli]

Try Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BudgetAudiophile/

[Bayart]

The Z Reviews YT channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3XdYJjWliOdKuZMNaTiP8Q) is a great place to get a good look at affordable/midrange equipment. That guy is a fantastic nerd.

[dsr_]

Questions are welcome on rec.audio.high-end -- the high-end refers to quality, not price.

[rikkus]

You can save even more money if you buy used. I have a couple of Rega amps and pairs of speakers, for music in two rooms. Total spend less than £400. Original cost would have been ridiculous. But they're just as good as when bought new.

Sources are so good these days that unless you're very picky, you can just plug your TV / laptop / phone into an amp using a cable and you're done.

[matwood]

> Drop the Apple earbuds in the garbage and get TRN V80 in-ear-monitors for under $50.

Awesome recommendation. I ordered these ($40 on Amazon) based on your comment and they are great. I have been using 5 year old $50 Sony earbuds which are good, but these TRNs are amazing.

My only complaint is that they are pretty heavy so I'm not sure I could run in them. For my use that doesn't matter since I have BT earbuds for workouts.

Thanks again!

[fipple]

Apple earbuds are incredibly high sound quality. They are just really uncomfortable in my ears. And Spotify 320kbps is as good as CD.

[pmlnr]

> And Spotify 320kbps is as good as CD

No, it really is not. But it's close enough for most.

https://petermolnar.net/spotify-how-good-is-high-quality-str...

[fipple]

Yes, I didn’t mean to an oscilloscope, I meant to a Homo sapiens.

[fdggdfsvscvsd]

While these good options may be available, average people probably simply don't know about them. How would they?

[dsr_]

It turns out that the internet is full of information. Some of it is good, some of it bad; after a while, many people develop skills at interpreting it all.

[baroffoos]

I'd say cars have destroyed it even more. The amount of noise inside of a car is really high and you lose a lot of the low end of the song. Many times I have showed a friend a song in their car only to find out the song sounds terrible now.

An interesting thing I heard is sometimes vinyls contain a different master that doesn't have the range squashed because people listen to vinyls in a better environment.

[SmellyGeekBoy]

I've heard that music mastered for vinyl can't be over optimised for loudness as it will cause the stylus to jump out of the groove on playback.

[isolli]

And this is my first answer when people ask why I buy vinyls.

[magduf]

I think a lot is just the attitude of those who make and master the music. Back in the 80s, CDs sounded great, but they were sold as being the ultimate in sound quality, and the idea really was that you would keep them at home in their jewel cases and play them on a nice stereo system. Car CD players didn't come until later, in the 90s, and MP3s in the late 90s, and music-playing phones in the 00s.

So I think CDs are now made with the idea that the music is going to be converted to MP3 and listed to on mobile devices, not on nice stereo systems, so they mix them with that target listening environment in mind.