The submission's article here is a little too concerned with irrelevancies -- BSD vs Linux, graphic equalizers -- and is not concerned enough with the biggest improvement in audio quality over the last twenty years: measurement and realtime correction of audio playback systems.
The simplest example is with headphones, because the measurement can generally happen once per model, rather than each time you move things around in a room. Take moderately capable headphones -- this does not correlate with price, there are good choices for $25 and bad choices for $2500 -- and measure their frequency response from 20-20000 Hz. Construct the minimum set of parametric equalizations to bring them to a target curve -- that's the bit which has gone from deep expensive magic to ten seconds on a modern CPU -- and apply that from now on. Your $25 headphones are now 97% as good as the best available in the world.
The standard cautions, because HN is full of pedantic floccinaucinihilipilificators: the headphones must not distort too much; ear canals differ and must be accounted for individually; preference in target curves differ; Olive and Toole's curves are representative of what a reasonably large sample size of humans "like"; uncalibrated microphones introduce their own distortions. Speakers in rooms must be measured in those rooms, as currently configured in terms of furniture and anything absorptive or reflective at audio frequencies.
The second biggest issue, the one not related to quality as such, is the availability of sufficient and sufficiently cheap bandwidth and storage to allow people to run their own music servers and personal/household music streaming services.
> The standard cautions, because HN is full of pedantic floccinaucinihilipilificators
I think (I am not sure, I’m more familiar with the in-room speakers style of audio reproduction) the “biggest” issue is that different speakers have different time-based nonlinearities. This should be most clear in impulse responses. At an extreme example, a headphone that has terrible resonance at 400hz can never be fixed purely by EQ using a standard amp.
> The standard cautions, because HN is full of pedantic floccinaucinihilipilificators
I think (I am not sure, I’m more familiar with the in-room speakers style of audio reproduction) the “biggest” issue is that different speakers have different time-based nonlinearities. This should be most clear in impulse responses. At an extreme example, a headphone that has terrible resonance at 400hz can never be fixed purely by EQ using a standard amp.
Now, this could be solved at least partly using current drive amplifiers. Apple has apparently done this on their AirPods. But it’s not a common thing at all.
It's true, which is why that's in the standard cautions.
But it's also the case that you can get reasonably priced headphones and speakers (reasonably priced by the standards of nonaudiophiles!) that do not have terrible resonances. So: you can't fix everything, but if you're paying attention before you buy, you can avoid making mistakes.
E.g.: Kali LP8v2 are frequently on sale for $400/pair; that includes amplification. Moondrop Chu II IEMs are under $25.
The submission's article here is a little too concerned with irrelevancies -- BSD vs Linux, graphic equalizers -- and is not concerned enough with the biggest improvement in audio quality over the last twenty years: measurement and realtime correction of audio playback systems.
The simplest example is with headphones, because the measurement can generally happen once per model, rather than each time you move things around in a room. Take moderately capable headphones -- this does not correlate with price, there are good choices for $25 and bad choices for $2500 -- and measure their frequency response from 20-20000 Hz. Construct the minimum set of parametric equalizations to bring them to a target curve -- that's the bit which has gone from deep expensive magic to ten seconds on a modern CPU -- and apply that from now on. Your $25 headphones are now 97% as good as the best available in the world.
The standard cautions, because HN is full of pedantic floccinaucinihilipilificators: the headphones must not distort too much; ear canals differ and must be accounted for individually; preference in target curves differ; Olive and Toole's curves are representative of what a reasonably large sample size of humans "like"; uncalibrated microphones introduce their own distortions. Speakers in rooms must be measured in those rooms, as currently configured in terms of furniture and anything absorptive or reflective at audio frequencies.
The second biggest issue, the one not related to quality as such, is the availability of sufficient and sufficiently cheap bandwidth and storage to allow people to run their own music servers and personal/household music streaming services.