Once I reported a listing, because it was initially selling something like hair clips, got great reviews, and then somehow changed everything to a BBQ Grill whilst keeping all the old reviews.

The listing was still up a couple of months later. Half five star reviews about some random product, half bad reviews about how the grill would randomly collapse or something.

That's if you buy the marketing. You can find very good headphones in the 200-500 range. Hell, for portable audio you can get an akg k361 and a Qudelix 5k for $230 and that'd be a pretty good setup.

I personally use either that akg headphone or the Moondrop Aria hooked up to my phone and I think it's decent enough.

For a home setup I have a Topping DX3 Pro+ and the Hifiman Edition XS. In total that would cost around 550 I think and the quality (to my ears) is phenomenal.

It is such a blessing to have unrefined taste. My brother is an audiophile and has fallen into this hole. I can't tell the difference. I got cheap bookshelf speaks for the TV and that's good enough for me as an upgrade from the TV built in speaker. My 15 year old PC Logitech speakers are doing great. Anker earphones had good enough reviews from soundguys.com. I listen to my brother's speakers with his lossless music and it really makes no difference to me. It has been great for my wallet. I mostly listen to podcasts anyway.

I could say a lot on this, as I've been in the whole premium audio/audiophile thing for a little while (I don't buy the hype, I just want something that sounds good but doesn't break the bank).

What I want to mention is that cd shavers have a purpose, but it's not necessarily good for audio/audio quality. To put it simply, if a disc is unbalanced and wobbles in the reader/player, it's prone to errors. With audio, most of these errors are correctable, and at most generate artifacts in the sound (like ticks or pops), but with faster readers, usually with data storage (like 48x or 52x cd/dvd readers) those errors can cause some significant issues where the disc needs to be re-read. The wobble of the disc due to balance issues can be a significant factor at high speeds.

Shaving a disc, which is really just trimming excess material until the disc is circularly uniform, can reduce errors and increase access speeds.

While all of this is possible, in practice, it doesn't really matter all that much.

I will finish by saying: you won't notice if a CD/DVD/BluRay is in balance, but you will definitely notice if it's significantly out of balance.

https://www.rtings.com/headphones

I have used this site to buy monitors and displays. They are generally pretty objective and provide thorough data and they often document their methodology.

You can get good quality headphones for not that much money. Linsoul KZ ZS10s are surprisingly good for only $40. Grados SR-80s and Hifiman HE400s are both audiophile quality for a bit over $100.

Moondrop Chu is a $20 earphone that has audiophile-tier sound according to many audiophile reviewers. Don’t bother with the built-in microphone though.

What’s a CD shaver?

You might find some DankPods videos on YouTube helpful. He does a lot of silly videos about e-junk, but he is also a musician who, in some videos, points out good and affordable headphones. Sorry I can’t recall off the top of head what those are, though.

Yep, it's a big problem in audio and other subjective areas, because you have no way of knowing what the anonymous reviewer's point of reference is, and most professional reviewers' reference points are not suitable. It's worse too, because purchaser-reviewers self-select into their category, so you expect most people to be satisfied with the subjective aspects of a product they've purchased, even though most people would not be satisfied with a random cheap product. This is all not helped by the fact that, in audio when differences are so minute, virtually no-one is conducting blind reviews so confirmation bias probably accounts for huge amounts of the final score. Sure, any professional reviewer is going to be able to identify a bum product that costs thousands, but I bet most of them will rate an identical product more highly if they're told it costs 10x as much and comes from a fancier brand.

I've ended up crowdsourcing my recommendations from places like reddit where people tend to make tiered recommendation lists so you at least know they have the goal of producing the best products at each price level.

Lots of middle ground out there.

Marantz, NAD, Cambridge Audio, and others all can put together great semi-audiophole systems. If a shop tries to upsell you on cables etc., judt tell them 'you're already covered.'

Meanwhile, small speakers for under $500 have never sounded better.

Or you can step up a notch and by used. I've got Rotel and Rega gear, which is way over-value.

I use NixOS btw

Assuming this is not entirely a joke, I would guess that those are resonant chambers which are meant to amplify bassier frequencies.

This image came from a post on Reddit. The user who posted it (on Reddit) said they're headphones with a 60Hz Helmholtz Resonator. In other words: more bass

No unsolicited DAC-pics, please!

no DAC, he streams the digital signal directly to his consciousness.

he's got big DAC energy

With the power of my「WORLD'S END RHAPSODY」I'll show the true quality of music to all the lowlifes using airpods! As they hear the crystal clear sound, they'll become free of their shackles and expand their mind to a new dimension of entertainment!

My first impression was the US knockoff of John Oliver