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And what do people do with this power? Listen on shitty tinny phone speakers or comically bad earbuds. Give me back my glorious 80s stereo.

jstummbillig 4y ago
You'll be hard pressed to buy comically bad earbud nowadays. In terms of fidelity and price, average earbuds beat an average 80s stereo so hard, it's not even funny.
- javajosh 4y ago
  Um, what? I mean, sure wired $15 earbuds exist that sound amazing, but their existence does NOT preclude the existence of terrible earbuds, especially of the BT variety.
- darkwater 4y ago
  Err, no? I have a pair of cheap airpod imitation, best selling on Amazon with 4 stars (and reviews looked REAL), and they suck so hard that I had better quality with my walkman copy with its earbuds in 1988.
criley2 4y ago
Audio quality was garbage then too. We have rose-tinted memories of people with hundreds-then thousands-now worth of audio equipment. The average tin can radio in a car or in your house in the 80s was so comically bad compared to now that you'd think it was anachronistically bad. Frankly phones sound better than those cars LOL For the same money as your glorious 80s stereo, adjusted up, you can still get glorious audio today.
- reaperducer 4y ago
  Audio quality was garbage then too. Not as bad as you might suppose. My wife has a 1983 Panasonic turntable/radio/cassette player that she uses sometimes. We're talking about low build quality, hot pink, designed for the bedroom of a 12-year-old girl who will listen while simultaneously squeeing on a three-way call on a Garfield phone. It's not bad. Neither of us have perfect hearing, and are far from audiophiles. The key is the right media for the right device. When she's playing brand new, 180-gram, super-hipster vinyl, her expensive modern gear in the living room is where it sounds best. But when she's playing a 1983 copy of Girls Just Want To Have Fun, it sounds best on the pink Panasonic. Pretty much any record made before 2000 sounds better on the period-correct turntable, compared with the high-end player, and vice-versa. She will only listen to cassettes — new or old — on the 1983 machine, even though she has a Panasonic cassette boom box that she bought in Japan in 2019. The old gear just sounds better. More and more she's been finding music on Apple Music during her lunch hour, then buying the vinyl or cassette to listen to the music at home. Again, she's not an audiophile by any stretch of the imagination, but she finds the sound of analog much more pleasant. To me, it's pretty close, but less "sterile," for lack of a better word.
the_only_law 4y ago
> Listen on shitty tinny phone speakers It’s crazy how bad these are, they manage to ruin a lot of great songs.

jstummbillig 4y ago

You'll be hard pressed to buy comically bad earbud nowadays. In terms of fidelity and price, average earbuds beat an average 80s stereo so hard, it's not even funny.

javajosh 4y ago
Um, what? I mean, sure wired $15 earbuds exist that sound amazing, but their existence does NOT preclude the existence of terrible earbuds, especially of the BT variety.
darkwater 4y ago
Err, no? I have a pair of cheap airpod imitation, best selling on Amazon with 4 stars (and reviews looked REAL), and they suck so hard that I had better quality with my walkman copy with its earbuds in 1988.

criley2 4y ago

Audio quality was garbage then too. We have rose-tinted memories of people with hundreds-then thousands-now worth of audio equipment. The average tin can radio in a car or in your house in the 80s was so comically bad compared to now that you'd think it was anachronistically bad. Frankly phones sound better than those cars LOL For the same money as your glorious 80s stereo, adjusted up, you can still get glorious audio today.

reaperducer 4y ago
Audio quality was garbage then too. Not as bad as you might suppose. My wife has a 1983 Panasonic turntable/radio/cassette player that she uses sometimes. We're talking about low build quality, hot pink, designed for the bedroom of a 12-year-old girl who will listen while simultaneously squeeing on a three-way call on a Garfield phone. It's not bad. Neither of us have perfect hearing, and are far from audiophiles. The key is the right media for the right device. When she's playing brand new, 180-gram, super-hipster vinyl, her expensive modern gear in the living room is where it sounds best. But when she's playing a 1983 copy of Girls Just Want To Have Fun, it sounds best on the pink Panasonic. Pretty much any record made before 2000 sounds better on the period-correct turntable, compared with the high-end player, and vice-versa. She will only listen to cassettes — new or old — on the 1983 machine, even though she has a Panasonic cassette boom box that she bought in Japan in 2019. The old gear just sounds better. More and more she's been finding music on Apple Music during her lunch hour, then buying the vinyl or cassette to listen to the music at home. Again, she's not an audiophile by any stretch of the imagination, but she finds the sound of analog much more pleasant. To me, it's pretty close, but less "sterile," for lack of a better word.

the_only_law 4y ago

> Listen on shitty tinny phone speakers It’s crazy how bad these are, they manage to ruin a lot of great songs.