What’s the Most important feature?

[lewenborg23]

Hello Audiophiles, eXperts, Hobbyists, Enthusiasts.. Friendly people..

What is the most important feature in this chain for listening to music?

-Recording

-Vinyl/LP, Cassette, CD.

-MP3, other audio files (don’t know them all).

-Turntable, Cassette player, CD player.

-DAP.

-Cable, connectors, Bluetooth, Wifi.

-DAC

-Headphone, IEM, Speaker

-Male, Female, Big ears, Small ears, Taste of music, Preferences, Distance, Humidity, Day/Night etc… Some things I might be joking.

I red so many things, people argue, maybe placebo, maybe the brand, the looks, the price etc. So many opinions this audio world makes me Crazy.. Dutch people say(write) “Door de bomen het bos niet meer zien”.
Something like: “Because of all the threes I can’t see the forest”.

 

[2leftears]

This may be a somewhat facetious comment, but honestly I find the most important feature to be taking the time to find the music that really connects with you at an emotional level.

In terms of enjoying music, discovering new music has by far the greatest return on investment in terms of time spent. For every day you spend trying out different cables listening to material you already know, you lose a day's opportunity to dive deep and discover new bands. Life is too short, especially if scientific studies show you are on a fool's errand with some audiophile quests.

Edit: I'm Dutch and "Door de bomen het bos niet meer zien" is a very appropriate expression here, especially if you consider it as losing track of what really matters.

 

[lewenborg23]

This may be a somewhat facetious comment, but honestly I find the most important feature to be taking the time to find the music that really connects with you at an emotional level.

In terms of enjoying music, discovering new music has by far the greatest return on investment in terms of time spent. For every day you spend trying out different cables listening to material you already know, you lose a day's opportunity to dive deep and discover new bands. Life is too short, especially if scientific studies show you are on a fool's errand with some audiophile quests.

Edit: I'm Dutch and "Door de bomen het bos niet meer zien" is a very appropriate expression here, especially if you consider it as losing track of what really matters.

Thank You en Bedankt!

 

[castleofargh]

Objectively, the most important would be whatever is the weaker link for fidelity. For digital audio it would almost always be the transducers(headphone, speaker).
For vinyl, it would be everything about it.

But when the differences get closer in magnitudes, then we face the issue of how they make us feel subjectively. And in that respect, some variables can get very bad without feeling objectionable or even audible. Some might even have a euphonic property, like certain harmonic distortions. While others could rapidly make us dislike the sound even in fairly small(but audible!!!!) amounts. That's when our priorities can't just be purely about fidelity.

Personally, I guess I'd rank with something like
music
EQ
transducers
the amp that was made to drive my transducers(I don't care that it's special, balanced or whatever, just that it's not something made for a completely different range of loads and power because then there might be issues).
Whatever else, so long as it works, I never cared much and the more I know, the less I do.

 

[Davesrose]

Well objectively maybe your transducer (headphone/speaker) is the only thing that could make a difference. If you listen to a well mastered digital recording, on a digital system that has flat EQ, you'll still objectively hear differences with transducers. Cables are certainly the least. Why vinyl, cassettes, tubes are still popular with audiophiles? They either have a certain pleasing distortion, have issues that are out of print, are collectables, have nice cover art/inserts, etc. I'm not ashamed to say that I like tube headphone amps...part of it is the distortion, and yes....the glow of tubes is soothing.

 

[bigshot]

Usability. A rig where the buttons are under my fingers without looking, where it plays my music without configuring, where it packs away and unpacks simply and quickly, where it interfaces easily with my computer, WiFi network, systems, etc.

They don’t talk about this stuff here very much. Fidelity isn’t an issue for me because it’s easy to find great sound.

 

[lewenborg23]

And the so called “better audio” “better quality” between: Spotify, Amazon, Youtube, Tidal, Deezer, Qobuzz, Apple music etc..

Nothing to do with, wifi, bluetooth, streaming, DAP, DAC, Smartphone… the Speaker, Headphone, IEM is the Most inportant?

 

[Davesrose]

And the so called “better audio” “better quality” between: Spotify, Amazon, Youtube, Tidal, Deezer, Qobuzz, Apple music etc..

Oh, well if you're talking about streaming services, YouTube might be the worst about audio standards going up to latest in surround sound (like they are with video and not having the best HDR codecs). But when it comes to source between all these services, really it's about their library. Spotify, Amazon, Apple all have huge libraries...and there might be differences in available titles for more esoteric titles. Personally, I'm on Apple because I get it free through my cell phone. I also have Apple TV 4K streamers: one attached to my main theater system. While I don't have Apple headphones/earphones to try their spatial audio, I do listen to "spatial" albums through my speakers because Apple delivers it as Dolby Atmos (which is also compatible with 3D audio for speakers). They all can deliver at least 44.1kHz/16bit audio (all you need for stereo music). When you get to DAP, smartphones, and BT IEMs....my experience is that you really don't need hi-res audio: especially since most the audio you're listening to with the transducer is now easily controlled with more EQ settings from the phone app.

 

[castleofargh]

My biggest issue with BT headphones was the often very noticeable background noise(from the crappiest piece of crap amp section being forced into them). That issue has almost entirely disappeared nowadays, and that's real progress we have to thank for that. Because now you can pack en entire and fairly good DAC/amp into something smaller than the place a single op amp used to take.