foolwhofollows

That's definitely true! This, I think, is the major misunderstanding about HiFi - high fidelity means highly faithful, i.e. the equipment is designed to create a faithful reproduction, and not to needlessly embellish.

If the track you are listening to was recorded in some teenager's bedroom on a crappy cassette deck, then it should sound as such. This is equally as important as being able to pick out the detail on a track that has been produced with all the latest state of the art equipment.

Music is fundamentally about communication of emotion that transcends language and the purpose of a good HiFi is to facilitate that communication.

However, when it comes to consuming things like video content, particularly that made for youtube, tiktok, etc. then it is probably unfaithful to even attempt to listen to it on a high-end system, just as you say. It's like eating MacDonald's in a michelin starred restaurant or scranning gourmee steak from a takeaway container while drunk on a street corner at three in the morning: context matters.

See also: https://hard-drive.net/hd/entertainment/100-gecs-song-blasti...

Is there room in your paradigm for an audiophile 1.5? Someone who buys the $2000 pre-amp but knows full-well that interconnects are snake-oil; someone who knows that spending more than $1000 per separate will not be worth the money unless you have a dedecated listening room with accoustic panelling.

Their main USP IMO is their catalogue and their multi-room support.

The catalogue is a work of art - incredibly detailed information about every artist and album, lyrics for most. I know a lot of other streaming services have good info about the things in their catalogue but, as has already been mentioned, these catalogues are volatile where Roon's catalogue doesn't carry the risk of being pruned at any time.

Same here except I run Roon on my homeserver with unRAID. The last thing I remember them trying to "up-sell" me on was their new "RoonARC" app which I now use all the time as it just allows remote streaming of my own music. The multiroom support with Roon is also very well implemented - I can move the music I'm listening to between rooms as I move throught the house or I can play the same music in multiple rooms simultaneously.

Qobuz subscription for streaming and discovery, and I buy an album for keeps as a celebration of every payday - there's no nicer feeling than owning your own media!

Disclaimer: I work in HiFi so may be a little biased towards the audiophile lifestyle.