[Intermernet]

People used to buy NS-10s because they knew professional studios used them. They were then underwhelmed when they sounded worse than the hifi speakers they had at home.

Many audio engineers live by the mantra "if it sounds good on NS-10s, it'll sound good on anything".

We need such a touchstone for software engineers.

[noir_lord]

It'd be moving touchstone is the problems, speakers in the consumer space don't evolve as fast as computing tech in the user space.

You could get somewhat close by looking at what was a middle of the road consumer laptop from Dell/HP/Lenovo 5 years ago and buying one of those though.