Like wine, most audio tech and most "audiophiles" is entirely reasonable. Listening to your favourite album on a $10000 hifi setup is a much better experience than listening to it over Spotify on the cheap earbuds that came with your phone. Some speakers do obviously sound better that others, and how you place those speakers in your room objectively has an effect on how good they sound. People with good ears can absolutely hear the difference between cheap and expensive amps and DACs.

The problem is that a small percentage of people don't stop there and start chasing smaller and smaller 'improvements' in the experience until they're forced to make things up and delude themselves to find a new 'high'.

Perhaps not unlike software dev and premature optimization.

I can easily hear the difference between CD editions (of 1y/2y old albums, so its not related to mixing) and streaming. I have a low end cambridge audio setup and elac speakers. The difference is quite obvious, specially on complex tech/death metal tracks. Thing is, I really doubt a 10k system would offer something really relevant above this. For 10k, I could actually hire the band to play on my living room :D

> Thing is, I really doubt a 10k system would offer something really relevant above this.

The problem with testing Hifi using Metal is that only the recording engineer really knows what it originally sounded like. Metal recordings are also generally very compressed and so not a good test of dynamics and transients. A good test of a Hifi would involve acoustic instruments, violins, cellos, pianos, orchestras etc. You also need very well recorded source material.

> really knows what it originally sounded like

Is matching the original recorded sound really the purpose of a good hifi system ? From what I understand, studio monitors as used in production / mastering have this goal (to sound "neutral").

Hifi speakers are supposed to add their own character to the recorded sound, no?

When talking about acoustic instruments, doesn't each one sound different? Like you could buy two violins from the same manufacturer and they wouldn't have the same exact sound, esp as the years go by. Same goes for analog synths & drum machines, and that's the good thing about them, the fact that they develop their own character.

> Is matching the original recorded sound really the purpose of a good hifi system ?

Yes, at least it used to. Hifi means High Fidelity, which means a high degree of exactness in reproducing the music, as the artists and recording engineers intended.

> Hifi speakers are supposed to add their own character to the recorded sound, no?

I would argue they should not. But consumer "Hifi" certainly does often colour the sound. This is why many audiophiles had to seek out "studio" monitors and earphones. However, even this term has lost its meaning. You will not find "Beats Studio" earphones in any studio.

> When talking about acoustic instruments, doesn't each one sound different?

Maybe slightly yes, but only in certain ways. A bad audio system might make them sound unnatural. Pianos and violins certainly have much less variation than electric guitars.

Im not testing, Im listening. Sure there are degrees of creativity involved in mastering & mixing, but oddly enough, more often than not I've actually seen them live. And your definition of metal is amusing - id suggest you Ne Obliviscaris, Fleshgod Apocalypse within the segment I mentioned or Dream Theater, Haggard or Epica as multi-instrumental, operatic recordings.

> And your definition of metal is amusing

I did not attempt to define Metal. I only tried to point out that it is often heavily compressed, as is pop music, see for example:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/sep/17/metallica.guit...

I certainly find the idea of playing this stuff on a 10K Hifi amusing, which was perhaps your original point?

EDIT:

You can check your favourite albums, by using this resource: https://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/1/dr/asc?artist=Epic...

Compare with e.g. some classical music recordings: https://dr.loudness-war.info/?artist=Berliner%20Philharmonik...

> so its not related to mixing

That seems like a huge claim. There used to be different mixes for vinyl, radio, and cd. It’s hardly inconceivable that streaming would have a dedicated mix (I’d assume something which “pops” so it’s noticeable as standalone in the middle of a streaming session, whereas the CD would be part of the album flow)

Interesting thought which also begs the question whether streaming mixes can be targeted at cheap (in ear) headphones.

It would make sense since this is the way most people listen to music these days.

Knowing almost nothing about DSP is this something you can do?

For sure. The issue is the zillion variables in headphone mechanicals and transducers. Eventually someone will be making mems transducers in relatively cheap - acoustically inert - form factors and you'll just dial in your sound.

It's close with using hybrid anc but still too many variables to claim no sonic difference.

Definitely. Engineers historically would monitor in the car, in tiny speakers like Avantone Mixcubes, on even on boom boxes (I think Michael Brauer and Michael Beinhorn have gone on the record about doing it).

Today a lot of them are checking on Airpods and the like.

Definitely, and there are specialized plugins and EQ presets for this, as well for other media, such as vinyl. Have a look at this article about mastering for different streaming platforms https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/mastering-for-streaming-pla... (from a software manufacturer)

It might be the same mixing, but a different mastering.

On mastering it is completely usual to have extra compression/limiting, some light EQ and even extra "color". It is supposed to be subtle, but that hasn't been the case for quite a while.

Mastering is also when you get the final "bits" that go into a CD, so you need two different mastering sessions to get two different sounding CDs.

Fair enough. But consider this: If you're pressing 1000 units at a time, you probably don't have the budget to have separate mixes for each media. There is plenty of stuff edited by small labels (ex. transcending obscurity) on a tight budget.

Skullcandy crushers are the peak of headphone evolution.

The meal would taste even better without the wine