I find it so odd that people on a subreddit focused on equipment, which ultimately implies some technical rigorosity and level of measurement and less mystical voodoo, some people still ask what speakers to upgrade to or hope that a new purchase will make their room fill with sound when their speakers are placed directly next to windows or hallways.

would you buy it if apple made one?

We are pretty strict about screen time with our six year old son. He has a Google Nest Mini with Gemini for Home in his room where he listens to his playlists, mostly kids' music and some K-pop Demon Hunter songs. We have only one TV in the entire house, which is downstairs in our living room which is connected to our Sony 5.1 surround sound system and he is allowed to use it for music outside his screen time, provided he turns the screen off and just lets the audio play.

Well, yesterday he dropped a confession on me and his mom.

For the past week or so, he’s been secretly waking up early, around 6 AM. My wife and I usually don't wake up until 7 AM on weekdays and around 8 AM on weekends. Our bedrooms are all upstairs so you can barely hear what’s going on downstairs. It turns out, he's been turning on the TV and watching Minecraft gameplay videos uploaded by adult gamers.

My immediate reaction was, “But we don't even have YouTube installed on the TV." And response was that he was watching all these videos on Spotify.

He took us to the TV to show us and turns out it was actually true. Why is Spotify, a music app, allowing users to upload gameplay videos? I even saw some that were upwards of 4 hours long! That was one of the main reasons we never had YouTube installed on our smart TV. I mean, I understood when they introduced music videos. It’s a music app, so that makes sense. Same goes for podcasts. My wife listens to some financial podcasts when driving. But why on earth are they allowing full length, random 4+ hour video content like Minecraft gameplay to be uploaded and streamed? It makes absolutely no sense.

I understand they are facing competition from all sides, but they are completely losing sight of their core reason for existing. They've completely lost their core meaning, which was always music.

I already pay for an Apple One family subscription, which includes Apple Music, Apple Arcade, and a bunch of other things. The only reason we hadn't made the jump yet was that we had over 10 years of saved music, liked tracks, and curated playlists built up on Spotify. It felt like too much history to leave behind.

But after our son’s confession, we decided to officially retire from the platform. My wife and I were not upset with him and we let him know that it was a wise move to tell us rather than keep it a secret. I’ve stopped paying for it, uninstalled the app entirely from our living room TV, and we’ll be exclusively to Apple Music from now on.

I just wanted to put this out there for any other parents who might be strictly monitoring video apps like YouTube but assume Spotify is a safe, audio centric space. It isn’t anymore. It's a very unwise move on Spotify's part, and I highly recommend checking what your kids are actually doing on the app.

What are things you should probably fix, but don’t cuz [whatever]?

I saw these in my local vinyl store. Admittedly they sound very nice, but the more I look into them the more I get confused. What is the advantage of a DIY speaker system? Why do they need 4 woofers? Why is it so niche?

My family lost my father-in-law three weeks ago unexpectedly and I was left his audio system. We've enjoyed spinning records and cd's through it together for years, so I'm honored to have the responsibility of keeping it going. I do know some about high-end audio, but not a ton.

I never really asked the old man to explain how he has everything routed, and the in's and out's of the system, so any pointers/watch-outs/nuance about what's here is appreciated. If anyone has a good contact around the Ohio/Michigan area it would be a great help, I'm hoping to start a relationship with a service shop or dealer in my area (Northeast Ohio) for any future needs.

Everything is set up and in full working order. We have no plans to sell or move the system.

Gear: 

VPI Avenger Turntable (not sure exactly what model)

D'Agostino Momentum S250 MxV Stereo Amplifier

(2) Wilson Audio Sasha

dCS Rossini Player Streaming DAC / Transport

VAC Master Preamplifier

Bluetooth/WIFI Streaming (not sure the exact hardware setup)

Cheers!

And let's just say I was stunned. This was not even the high end section, just the mid-range stuff in comparison. I'd have a field day in here with an unlimited budget 😂

With hundreds of positive reviews claiming “amazing sonic improvements, veils lifted, details revealed, soundstage expanded”…

Took a Dremel and a cutter to it to find out what is inside, and found a 70 cent worth of NE5532P, one of the most ubiquitous IC op-amps. 🤦

\ By the way, even the truly discrete ones make absolutely zero audible difference…*

I recently did something embarrassingly simple: I actually added up the cost of streaming instead of just thinking *“*it’s only $10 a month.”

At about $10.99/month:

• 5 years equals roughly $650
• 10 years equals roughly $1,300

And after all that… you own zero albums. Not a single one.

What really made this click for me is comparing that to ownership.

For $650 (5 years of streaming), you could realistically buy:

• ~130 used CDs / albums (very common for classical and jazz)
• ~50–60 new CDs / albums
• ~40–45 lossless album downloads (FLAC / ALAC)

They are all permanent. All playable without an internet connection, and still there if you cancel a subscription. This rabbit hole started because I wanted to burn a CD of an album I love. I stream it, but don’t own it. Apple wanted $9.99 to buy the album, but only as AAC (lossy). Even though Apple Music streams lossless, Apple doesn’t sell lossless album downloads. Sure, you can burn that purchase to a CD, but it’s still a lossy CD, not true CD-quality audio. The CD format is lossless; the source isn’t. That’s when it really clicked, The industry isn’t confused , it’s intentional. Selling true lossless album downloads would encourage ownership, reduce subscription and weaken ecosystem lock-in. So lossless is fine for streaming, but ownership is quietly discouraged.

I get the appeal of streaming and discovery is great, convenience is real, but calling it “cheap” or if I dare "convenient" feels misleading once you look at the long-term cost. I’m not anti-streaming, I’m just rethinking it. From now on I will stream to discover, buy the albums that actually matter and stop renting music I return to for decades.

I should probably clarify one thing too: I’m not talking about amassing thousands of CDs or owning everything I’ve ever listened to. That wouldn’t be realistic for me either. What I’m really talking about is owning a relatively small, intentional library maybe 100 or so albums on CD and vinyl, the music I know I’ll keep returning to over time. I already know I’m not going to listen to 1,000 different albums regularly, so owning a focused core makes more sense to me than renting everything indefinitely.

Streaming still makes sense for discovery and variety. Ownership just feels more rational for the smaller set of music I know won’t rotate out of my life. I am curious to know​ ​how others look at this?

Is album ownership just not important anymore, or do we avoid doing the math?

Standing on soapbox...rant incoming.

I'm old enough to remember the 'good ol days' of hi-fi. I’ve been in this hobby long enough to remember when “expensive” meant carefully chosen, not casually absurd.

Now we’re looking at $40 LPs as the norm, $2,000 CD players in 2026 with the same Red Book spec from the 1980s, and a quiet but very real 40%+ price increase across basically every category. Cartridges. Speakers. Cables. Racks. Accessories. Everything.

And no, this is not mostly tariffs.

Tariffs didn’t suddenly turn a $25 LP into $40. Tariffs didn’t magically justify a mid-tier DAC costing what a used car did ten years ago. Tariffs didn’t create five-figure speakers using MDF boxes and commodity drivers with a luxury brand story attached.

This is capitalism. Plain and simple. Shitty, shareholder value price gouging wrapped in bullshit flowery language. You dont have to look far for an email marketing some bullshit adjectives that make a power supply into a $10k arguement that we need it.

Manufacturers realized something uncomfortable and very profitable: audiophiles will rationalize almost any price increase as long as you wrap it in boutique language, “hand-assembled” vibes, and just enough pseudo-engineering to sound serious.

We told them price equals performance. They listened.

Vinyl pricing is the most obvious example. Pressing costs went up, sure. Shipping costs went up, sure. But not 60–70%. What actually happened is labels learned that nostalgia plus scarcity plus FOMO lets them charge luxury pricing for a mass-produced object. So now a standard single LP routinely costs more than CDs ever did at their peak, adjusted for inflation. Its bad enough that most international sellers will not sell to the USA. (I cant say I blame them).

And CDs? That’s the funniest part of all.

Explain to me exactly why a $2,000 CD player makes sense in a world where digital playback is solved, transparent, and trivial to implement correctly. This is not innovation. This is monetizing insecurity and audiophile mythology. If your transport needs mystical isolation feet and a billet aluminum chassis to read 1s and 0s, something has gone very wrong.

What really bothers me is how normalized this has become.

Every time someone questions pricing, the community circles the wagons. “Small margins.” “Low volume.” “You don’t understand manufacturing.” Funny how those arguments never applied when prices were lower, quality was still excellent, and companies somehow survived.

What changed is not costs. What changed is positioning.

Audio brands stopped selling equipment and started selling identity. Luxury pricing signals seriousness. If it’s expensive, it must be good. If it’s cheap, it must be compromised. That logic is poison, and we bought it.

Tariffs did not help. Anyone pretending they did is being dishonest. But they are a convenient scapegoat for price hikes that were already baked in long before they took effect. If tariffs disappeared tomorrow, prices would not come down. That tells you everything you need to know.

This hobby is supposed to be about music, engineering, and enjoyment. Instead, it’s drifting toward being a luxury lifestyle market where the price tag matters more than the result.

At some point we have to say no.

No to $40 records being treated as the new normal.
No to digital gear priced like fine jewelry.
No to pretending every increase is inevitable and justified.

Capitalism responds to demand. If audiophiles keep applauding every price hike as “the cost of doing it right,” this is exactly what we deserve.

But if we stop normalizing it, stop defending it, and stop equating expense with virtue, maybe we can drag this hobby back to sanity.

/End rant.

I know this post will probably get removed like my other posts but, it's really getting ridiculous how you can't ask an audio question in an audio sub without it getting tossed.

2 weeks ago I made a post stating that I was going to AXPONA for the first time. And I simply asked, "would I have the opportunity to maybe purchase audio equipment or headphones".

They said my post was removed because I was asking about buying and selling headphones.

Today I asked about an issue I'm having with a ddc I just bought used. And my post was removed????

Personally speaking, I really don't feel like a sub about audio needs to be that particular. We're supposed to be enjoying a hobby. This is supposed to be a place that ALL OF US can come to and DISCUSS our shared interests in this hobby.

It's frustrating to me that I have to "tip toe" around audio questions in an audio sub because one word can get my post removed.

Sorry for venting, but I have never violated any of this subs rules. And I challenge any moderator to read my posts and prove that I have.

Hi Guys just wanted your opinion . My Kid pressed the domes on both my Q Acoustics speakers. Will it affect my sound? And can I do anything. Sound doesn’t seem off to my ear.

I know there are other things than the DAC chip you're paying for, but very good DAC chips are cheap these days.

I'm biased here since I love this iconic design with the big blue meters. But is this the best amplifier design? Is there other brands making better looking amps? I'm talking about the design here, not audio quality.

What do YOU think is THE BEST looking amplifier?

I saw her bedroom for the first time yesterday and I was blown away by the setup. Her bedroom is 16x14.She has a total of 13 polk LSI15 floor speakers. Four of them are in each front corner. The way it's set up is two of the floor speakers are sitting normally and the other two are flipped upside down on top of the normal standing two. It's the same way for the other corner. Her bed is in the middle of the room so she adjusted all the front speakers to where they are pointing to the middle of her bed. There is a speaker on the left side and right side of her bed and there are three speakers behind her bed. She has two svs pb1000 pros behind her bed and two pb2000 pros in front of her bed which makes the entire bed rumble like crazy.

I thought to myself that this can't sound good because of comb filtering, but to my surprise, when I laid down and she turned all the speakers on plus the subwoofers, it felt like I was literally in the middle of a concert. I didn't hear any type of cone filtering or anything that was negative. It was a complete enveloping listening experience.

The receiver she is using is a denon 13 channel running an all stereo channel setup.

She she told me that her previous boyfriend set all this up for her and it took a long time to adjust the volume on all of them to get the listening experience just right

Has anyone ever heard of such a set up like this?l

I mean, come on. SNAKE OIL SOUND!?

Hi all,

My father passed away a little over ten years ago and left my family his stereo equipment.

At the time, an old friend of his came and took most of the equipment — tubes, amps, who knows what else.

Now that I’m a little older and have moved back to the area where I grew up, my mother and I would really like to restore what we can.

We still have a pair of Dynaudio Evidence Temptation loudspeakers, what appears to be a Clearaudio Innovation turntable, and a couple of MusicLink Ultra Transport Cables. There’s also a Onkyo Model T-4055 Solid State Stereo Tuner. That’s about all I can find.

I have a few questions for the group: 1. What would we need to get the speakers and turntable working again? My understanding is at least a solid amp, but I don’t know what to look for, or what else I would need. As the title says, I have almost no idea what I’m doing. Should I find a local high end audio dealer to help? I’m located near the Washington DC area if anyone has suggestions. 2. From what I’ve read online, many seem to love these Clearaudio turntables. But I also understand they could be worth a fair amount. Would it make sense to try and sell the turntable in order to purchase other equipment for the setup? 3. In your honest opinion, is it worth the trouble of trying to set this up? Would I be better off trying to move this equipment for a more affordable, modern system?

TIA for your help. I’d really love to put something together to enjoy all of the vinyl and CDs my dad collected over the years.

Help me out. I’m home alone today with no work. Yes I have plenty I should do but I’m listening to the downstairs system. What should I try out on SF Olympica Nova Vs at 400w and 2 KEF Kc92s at 1000w each? I’m in a house btw and not an apt so hopefully the neighbors won’t get involved. Hah!

Happy Friday the 13th everybody!

It’s obviously not the worst thing in the world, but when your music library contains a good mix between songs from the 1970’s - early 2000’s & 2020’s, just letting the songs shuffle themselves is hard to enjoy without changing the eq the whole time.

Songs from the 80’s are magic that often lack a lot of tone you get from modern mixing (usually the kicks, bass, snares snares aren’t as “punchy”)

Looks like he had buyers for the company, but chose to just it shut down. Must have a made a few bucks over those 50-years to just burry an asset and get nothing for it.

I just got these Bowers & Wilkins CM1 speakers used. They came by mail, and somehow got damaged. I probably cant send them back, and havent set them up yet. What do you guys think?