The quality is good but it’s not going to be the same as playing CDs or vinyl through a real stereo. Definitely can’t replace that use case. But for general purpose, and even modest home theater usage, there’s less of a tradeoff in quality than you’d probably expect.
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The house I built (circa 2008) I had wired for sound. The speaker system I installed in the living room would’ve worked for an AC/DC concert. It had beam-forming tweeters in the ceiling and a sub-woofer that made the street bounce. I had wired speakers in almost every room and outside on the patio that were all driven from the A/V receiver, and each room had its own volume control on the wall.
I was immensely proud of this technological terror I had created, but then barely used its full capability beyond showing it off to guests for a minute or two before turning it down to background music levels. It was a marvel, and a complete waste of money.
I am starting with a clean slate in my new place. WiFi connectivity means that piping music around is a simple as plugging in a softball-sized HomePod mini. I have two, and I have a battery pedestal for each so that I can pick them up and move them around if I want to take music outside or into the bathroom.
Nowadays, sound fidelity is a casualty in the name of convenience. Streaming music is compressed so the sound quality is compromised even before it comes out of baby speaker. “Lossless” music is starting to become a thing, so maybe this will change but maybe it won’t. I think the war between convenience and quality is over, and convenience has won a resounding (get it?) victory.
So, coming back to your question, I don’t have the time, energy or desire to devote to recreating the theater experience in my living room. I will accept a compromised sound for the sake of convenience. It’s going to sound better than TV speakers whatever I do, and that’s all I have currently.
I suspect most people don’t use stereo receivers anymore, probably mostly due to the fact that they’re usually analog. Those that want premium audio quality have probably gone the route of a home theater A/V receiver with their speakers of choice.
This reminds me a lot of the headphone discussion we had a while back. My Audio-Technica headphones have objectively better audio quality than my AirPods Pros, but the latter are good enough that I use them a lot more often (even on devices that still wear a headphone jack) due to bulk and convenience.
In all things everyone has their tipping point when it comes to quality vs. convenience/cost/time/energy. The great thing about modern technology is that you are having to make fewer and fewer compromises on quality.
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I get that it’s good for home theater usage, but what is the drop off for audio? If you’re simply adding more stuff, that’s one thing. But if you’re replacing hifi with home theater, what are you sacrificing? I know there is high end stuff that will do both well, but I’m not particularly interested in home theater, as I don’t watch much other than sports, so I pick my battles. Again, not knocking anyone, just curious where people are putting their resources.
Except on the headphone jack.
Your sad devotion to that ancient device has not helped you conjure up the missing audio quality.
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You would prefer another speaker? An analog speaker? Then name the system!
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This would be more impactful if I knew to which of my ramblings this is in response. But the choices are too numerous.
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I like it when Limey says he doesn’t have the time or energy to tackle some project. After submitting a 400,000 word essay on ADHD and rigging his home up to where if he blinks his right eye while facing northwest the plantation blinds along the eastern wall open 35%, wait, it might be you have to blink both eyes for this, I’ll have to refer to the technical specifications, yeah, time and energy are obviously in short supply over there.
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The funniest thing about this, which is incredibly true, is how a 400,000 word post about how that’s just the nature of ADHD would also be incredibly true.
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Should such a post appear I would read it with great pleasure.
And then admit that I have never once in my life not once watched a television of mine with an audio source being anything other than its internal speaker(s).
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You’re both correct. ADHD means that I have no control over where my brain chooses to deploy time and energy. Priorities are ranked by interest, not by real world importance.
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I have meant to follow up and thank you for those posts actually—really helped me start to work toward addressing my own, uh, similar tendencies.
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You win this thread.
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“Never…not…other than…”. I still don’t know if you have a sound bar.
With ADHD you can focus intently on anything that is giving your brain a much-needed dopamine hit but, faced with something we have to do that isn’t such a rich vein of dopamine, our brain will refuse to let us do it. We will sit around and do nothing rather than do the thing that doesn’t reward our brain. It’s one of the reasons that we drive those around us completely mental.
This is what I’m talking about:
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I find your lack of vinyl disturbing.
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No lie, until this came up yesterday I had never even heard of a sound bar. I literally had to google it.
One of these days Limey will successfully drag you, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century.
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I doubt it. I may one day buy an EV, although my strong preference would be to live car-free.
My wife has one of those portable cylindrical speakers and she was all aflutter the other day telling me how great it is now that she’s figured out how to hook it up with a television. Pshaw, I said.
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