I'm jealous of people who can't tell the difference and have no need to buy audiophile grade SSDs
this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2026
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that's the dumbest thing I've ever seen lol. I'd love the know how audiophiles think ssds work if they think this could actually make a difference.
If you think this is dumb wait until you find out about the audiophile network switches
Oehlbach knows.
To be fair, "audiophiles" are morons.
What do you mean? I always pay extra for the audiophile version of vinyl records!
I worked at an online shop for high end audio equipment. It was always both amusing and painful when customers asked about the sound characteristics of various power cables in the price range between $100 and $10,000 that we carried, or the same with USB and optical digital cables. Some came with the firm belief that they needed better power cables to enhance the bass of their setup. They even bought gold plated "audiophile fuses".
I know a dude who has had me fix 2 separate 800$+ DACS and then listens to only YouTube music rips on his 500$ headphones through the DACS. he swears his 1300$ setup makes a difference on his 128kbps aac YouTube downloads...
These people spend a crap ton of money to set up over priced equipment in untreated rooms.
Some of them even improve their rooms accordingly but are never satisfied.
Some search for the listening experience they had when they were in their twenties and discovered their special music for the first time. They think if they just spend enough money on improving the equipment, the goosebumps of the days of yore will come back automatically.
will be converting to bananas tonight, thanks op
Im certain I could tell the difference between a $50,000 setup, and the one i have cobbled together for a couple hundo over the past decade... And i would love to have that setup. But that cost to performance is only worth it if you have way too much disposable income. Eff the audiophile market.
This is the kind of info I would pay for
The eye opening moments for me were
-
Listening to $35 Porta Pro headphones and realizing you don’t need a lot of money for great sound
-
ABX testing and realizing I couldn’t tell the difference AT ALL and certainly couldn’t remember the last sound bite well enough to make a real comparison anyway.
Similar with mp3 bitrate. While I do think I noticed a difference going from 128kbps to 192kbps, anything beyond that I can't hear a difference for.
Which clearly means I need to dumb 15k into my aound setup because it maxes out somewhere between 128kbps and 192kbps!
The AutoEQ project is all I need for great sound.
Shit's mindblowing with some headphones I've tried that need a heavy EQ. Porta Pros are fairly balanced already so not as mindblowing, but still worth at least checking out the demos on the webpage.
AutoEQ is open source. It's just EQ settings from analyzing frequency responses of headphones.
Were they comfortable though?
Did they have good noise blocking? Good battery? Good delay? Microphone? Good warranty? Reparaibility? There's so many reasons to spend a buck extra
They don't block noise. No battery, this is mid-'80s wired tech. There's a model with a very good microphone. Lifetime warranty. Repairable with super glue sometimes.
I did get aftermarket pads for them but they are not made for long term listening. But that is beside the point - they show you don’t need to spend $1000 to get great sound and they are only one example of that.
I actually just bought a pair of porta pros three days ago—any chance you recall what pads you upgraded to? I’ve mostly seen recommendations for Yaxi
Yep Yaxi, between that and the built in comfort slider in the headphones it’s comfortable enough
About as comfortable as plastic wrapped in a thin sponge can be
This is about a digital signal right? Cause I'm pretty sure if I add a banana midway into my bass' pedalboard that I'd be getting a significantly different sound. I'm tempted to try and proof myself wrong tho lmao
Everyone knows for bass you use plantain. Poser
Electronica requires fried plantains
Do it, imagine it sounds good, the stage trick you'd gain!
This just shows that bananas and mud are materials for excellent audio equipment. I am looking forward to my gold-plated banana.
That's why they're called banana plugs
To be fair, the signal is only going through these suboptimal conductors for a very short distance.
Try wiring up your stereo with 50 feet of bananas, and you might start having problems.
There's always music in the banana chain... or something like that
Delivery mechanisms and audio quality do not matter as long as it has a good beat that I can dance to.
I mean yeah, audiophile cables are 100% a rip-off every time. You can spend thousands on a cable without it having any real benefits.
It makes more sense to just buy decent speakers and a decent amp, along with a good audio source (any CD player).
Everyone knows that the quartz cones with gold flakes is what actually makes a difference.
Bunch of amateurs!
Yeah, but if they don't buy the gold and platinum plated cables, washed in the blood of young rams, and studded with diamonds- how can they be sure they are experiencing the music as it was intended to be experienced?
Good cables are shielded well. That she makes them expensive. That's not transmission, that's shielding. I don't think they tested that but for digital audio is not surprising
Even the shielding technologies are way overdone and overpriced in the high end audio market. They act as if they're running their cables through microwave ovens or magnet resonance machines. If you have strong electromagnetic fields around your audio equipment then somethings wrong in the room.
This is why I like to get mid level stuff. Once you get past the cheap rubbish it’s all the same imo.
So, between a copper wire, a banana, and wet mud, the mid-level stuff is the banana, right?
I'll go for that, then.
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Most high end audio equipment is mostly just rich idiot tax. Though low to mid is a huge jump in audio quality.
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