What annoys me today in marketing and media that too often today then talking on hi-fi, science is replaced by bizarre belief structures and marketing fluff, leading to a decades-long stagnation of the audiophile domain. Science makes progress, pseudo-science doesn’t. Hi-fi world is filled by pseudoscience, dogma and fruitloopery to the extent that it resembles a fundamentalist religion. Loudspeaker performance hasn’t tangibly improved in forty years and vast sums are spent addressing the wrong problems.
Business for Engineers: Marketers Lie article points tout that marketing tells lies — falsehoods — things that serve to convey a false impression. Marketing’s purpose is to determining how the product will be branded, positioned, and sold. It seems that there too many snake oil rubbish products marketed in the name of hifi. It is irritating to watch the stupid people in the world be fooled.
In EEVblog #29 – Audiophile Audiophoolery video David L. Jones (from EEVBlog) cuts loose on the Golden Ear Audiophiles and all their Audiophoolery snake oil rubbish. The information presented in Dave’s unique non-scripted overly enthusiastic style! He’s an enthusiastic chap, but couldn’t agree more with many of the opinions he expressed: Directional cables, thousand dollar IEC power cables, and all that rubbish. Monster Cable gets mostered. Note what he says right at the end: “If you pay ridiculous money for these cable you will hear a difference, but don’t expect your friends to”. If you want to believe, you will.
My points on hifi-nonsense:
One of the tenets of audiophile systems is that they are assembled from components, allegedly so that the user can “choose” the best combination. This is pretty largely a myth. The main advantage of component systems is that the dealer can sell ridiculously expensive cables, hand-knitted by Peruvian virgins and soaked in snake oil, to connect it all up. Say goodbye to the noughties: Yesterday’s hi-fi biz is BUSTED, bro article asks are the days of floorstanders and separates numbered? If traditional two-channel audio does have a future, then it could be as the preserve of high resolution audio. Sony has taken the industry lead in High-Res Audio.
HIFI Cable Humbug and Snake oil etc. blog posting rightly points out that there is too much emphasis placed on spending huge sums of money on HIFI cables. Most of what is written about this subject is complete tripe. HIFI magazines promote myths about the benefits of all sorts of equipment. I am as amazed as the writer that that so called audiophiles and HIFI journalists can be fooled into thinking that very expensive speaker cables etc. improve performance. I generally agree – most of this expensive interconnect cable stuff is just plain overpriced.
I can agree that in analogue interconnect cables there are few cases where better cables can really result in cleaner sound, but usually getting any noticeable difference needs that the one you compare with was very bad yo start with (clearly too thin speaker wires with resistance, interconnect that picks interference etc..) or the equipment in the systems are so that they are overly-sensitive to cable characteristics (generally bad equipment designs can make for example cable capacitance affect 100 times or more than it should). Definitely too much snake oil. Good solid engineering is all that is required (like keep LCR low, Teflon or other good insulation, shielding if required, proper gauge for application and the distance traveled). Geometry is a factor but not in the same sense these yahoos preach and deceive.
In digital interconnect cables story is different than on those analogue interconnect cables. Generally in digital interconnect cables the communication either works, does not work or sometimes work unreliably. The digital cable either gets the bits to the other end or not, it does not magically alter the sound that goes through the cable. You need to have active electronics like digital signal processor to change the tone of the audio signal traveling on the digital cable, cable will just not do that.
But this digital interconnect cables characteristics has not stopped hifi marketers to make very expensive cable products that are marketed with unbelievable claims. Ethernet has come to audio world, so there are hifi Ethernet cables. How about 500 dollar Ethernet cable? That’s ridiculous. And it’s only 1.5 meters. Then how about $10,000 audiophile ethernet cable? Bias your dielectrics with the Dielectric-Bias ethernet cable from AudioQuest: “When insulation is unbiased, it slows down parts of the signal differently, a big problem for very time-sensitive multi-octave audio.” I see this as complete marketing crap speak. It seems that they’re made for gullible idiots. No professional would EVER waste money on those cables. Audioquest even produces iPhone sync cables in similar price ranges.
HIFI Cable insulators/supports (expensive blocks that keep cables few centimeters off the floor) are a product category I don’t get. They typically claim to offer incredible performance as well as appealing appearance. Conventional cable isolation theory holds that optimal cable performance can be achieved by elevating cables from the floor in an attempt to control vibrations and manage static fields. Typical cable elevators are made from electrically insulating materials such as wood, glass, plastic or ceramics. Most of these products claim superior performance based upon the materials or methods of elevation. I don’t get those claims.
Along with green magic markers on CDs and audio bricks is another item called the wire conditioner. The claim is that unused wires do not sound the same as wires that have been used for a period of time. I don’t get this product category. And I don’t believe claims in the line like “Natural Quartz crystals along with proprietary materials cause a molecular restructuring of the media, which reduces stress, and significantly improves its mechanical, acoustic, electric, and optical characteristics.” All sounds like just pure marketing with no real benefits.
CD no evil, hear no evil. But the key thing about the CD was that it represented an obvious leap from earlier recording media that simply weren’t good enough for delivery of post-produced material to the consumer to one that was. Once you have made that leap, there is no requirement to go further. The 16 bits of CD were effectively extended to 18 bits by the development of noise shaping, which allows over 100dB signal to noise ratio. That falls a bit short of the 140dB maximum range of human hearing, but that has never been a real goal. If you improve the digital media, the sound quality limiting problem became the transducers; the headphones and the speakers.
We need to talk about SPEAKERS: Soz, ‘audiophiles’, only IT will break the sound barrier article says that today’s loudspeakers are nowhere near as good as they could be, due in no small measure to the presence of “traditional” audiophile products. that today’s loudspeakers are nowhere near as good as they could be, due in no small measure to the presence of “traditional” audiophile products. I can agree with this. Loudspeaker performance hasn’t tangibly improved in forty years and vast sums are spent addressing the wrong problems.
We need to talk about SPEAKERS: Soz, ‘audiophiles’, only IT will break the sound barrier article makes good points on design, DSPs and the debunking of traditional hi-fi. Science makes progress, pseudo-science doesn’t. Legacy loudspeakers are omni-directional at low frequencies, but as frequency rises, the radiation becomes more directional until at the highest frequencies the sound only emerges directly forwards. Thus to enjoy the full frequency range, the listener has to sit in the so-called sweet spot. As a result legacy loudspeakers with sweet spots need extensive room treatment to soak up the deficient off-axis sound. New tools that can change speaker system designs in the future are omni-directional speakers and DSP-based room correction. It’s a scenario ripe for “disruption”.
Computers have become an integrated part of many audio setups. Back in the day integrated audio solutions in PCs had trouble earning respect. Ode To Sound Blaster: Are Discrete Audio Cards Still Worth the Investment? posting tells that it’s been 25 years since the first Sound Blaster card was introduced (a pretty remarkable feat considering the diminished reliance on discrete audio in PCs) and many enthusiasts still consider a sound card an essential piece to the PC building puzzle. It seems that in general onboard sound is finally “Good Enough”, and has been “Good Enough” for a long time now. For most users it is hard to justify the high price of special sound card on PC anymore. There are still some PCs with bad sound hardware on motherboard and buttload of cheap USB adapters with very poor performance. However, what if you want the best sound possible, the lowest noise possible, and don’t really game or use the various audio enhancements? You just want a plain-vanilla sound card, but with the highest quality audio (products typically made for music makers). You can find some really good USB solutions that will blow on-board audio out of the water for about $100 or so.
Although solid-state technology overwhelmingly dominates today’s world of electronics, vacuum tubes are holding out in two small but vibrant areas. Some people like the sound of tubes. The Cool Sound of Tubes article says that a commercially viable number of people find that they prefer the sound produced by tubed equipment in three areas: musical-instrument (MI) amplifiers (mainly guitar amps), some processing devices used in recording studios, and a small but growing percentage of high-fidelity equipment at the high end of the audiophile market. Keep those filaments lit, Design your own Vacuum Tube Audio Equipment article claims that vacuum tubes do sound better than transistors (before you hate in the comments check out this scholarly article on the topic). The difficulty is cost; tube gear is very expensive because it uses lots of copper, iron, often point-to-point wired by hand, and requires a heavy metal chassis to support all of these parts. With this high cost and relative simplicity of circuitry (compared to modern electronics) comes good justification for building your own gear. Maybe this is one of the last frontiers of do-it-yourself that is actually worth doing.
3,079 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
How long does a vinyl record really last? Some say a few plays are enough to wear it down, while others claim thousands are possible with the right care.
Then there’s the long-running fear that cheap turntables, especially those with ceramic cartridges, destroy records. Plenty of collectors swear budget players will grind grooves into dust in no time.
To test these claims, a YouTuber conducted a two-month experiment. He played identical records on different turntables to see how much wear they’d take.
Here’s what he found out: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/02/many-plays-take-destroy-vinyl-record/?utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=caption
Tomi Engdahl says:
Modern budget turntables are easier to love than ever. They fit on a shelf, pair with wireless speakers, and skip the fussy setup that used to scare people off vinyl. The trouble is that none of those upgrades touch the part that matters once the needle drops, and a record player is still a sensitive machine no matter how simple it looks.
Spin speed, tracking, vibration, the cartridge path, all of it still decides how a record sounds and how long it lasts.
But walk through the budget turntable aisle and you’ll see words like premium, next-gen, and audiophile-grade stuck on decks selling for under $500. And while they’re mostly leaning on convenience, there’s a single spec they tend to leave unprinted that explains the damage piling up, at least according to experts.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2026/06/audiophile-grade-sticker-turntables-hides-records/?utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=caption
Tomi Engdahl says:
Passive xovers aren’t obsolete at all – typically a higher market demand for them as audiophiles like to rotate source gear. But yes, active are far more versatile and can sound fantastic. But nothing wrong with these speakers, many high-end passives like these exist.
Yes. And it’s one example where audiophiles celebrate inferior technology. Passive crossovers + stereo amp, exotic or not, can be outclassed by an active crossover + amps for each driver, built into the speaker or in a dedicated control unit. But I’m sure the visuals play a big part here. A heavy steam punk last century solution just looks a lot more than a little dinky digital control solution. So it sounds better. Thinks the brain.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.gearnews.com/headphone-amplifiers-studio/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.headphonesty.com/2026/06/audiophiles-paying-format-record-labels-feared/?utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=caption&fbclid=IwdGRjcASohfVjbGNrBKhxcmV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHqkOCEO0zwcVC5rIjZhTAxdGIqOdvqnVr3Tmc6PTO8kp_udvX-vUENyaKiF4_aem_OJYXOZVKnjsMUzJyq8_Brw
Tomi Engdahl says:
Plenty of turntables sound great the day you unbox them. The trouble starts a few years later, when speed drifts, parts get scarce, or the deck just stops feeling worth what you paid.
We wanted to know which brands actually hold up over time, so we pulled votes from across the audiophile community and ranked the names people trust enough to recommend without hesitation.
The results lined up with reputation in some places and went sideways in others. A few brands you’d expect near the top even landed well below where their legend suggests they belong, and the spread of votes tells its own story.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2026/06/most-trusted-turntable-brands-ranked-audiophiles/?utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=caption
Tomi Engdahl says:
A discontinued Philips chip called the TDA1541A has quietly become one of vintage audio’s oddest collectibles. Builders prized it for decades and kept using it long after the industry moved on, and now that the supply is finite the prices have turned strange.
As the remaining stock dries up, the chips at the top of the market are no longer judged by their model number alone, and the marks that decide their worth are easy to fake and hard to verify.
One designer who builds DACs around this exact part started measuring what collectors were actually buying, and what he found goes well past a few doctored listings.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2026/06/dac-designer-exposed-fakes-disguised-chips/?utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=caption
Tomi Engdahl says:
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/12/audiophiles-avoid-worlds-biggest-vinyl-pressing-plant/?utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=comment
Tomi Engdahl says:
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/09/audiophile-ruins-system-bad-ai-advice/?utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=comment
Tomi Engdahl says:
This wasn’t a one-time fluke. Three different labs, working in different years with completely different amplifier designs, all slammed into the same hidden wall while testing some of the cleanest amps ever made.
And each time, the gear doing the measuring hit a limit it couldn’t push past.
One reviewer even suspected his readings looked worse than the amp’s real performance, because his analyzer simply couldn’t dig any deeper.
The newest module goes further into that territory than anything before it, across more power levels and a wider stretch of the audio band, and it now shows up in a finished product.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2026/06/engineers-name-amp-broke-best-test-equipment/?utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=caption
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Objectively, using the benchmarks for measured performance, this is indisputable,” NAD’s Greg Stidsen acknowledged. “Subjectively, this is more complicated since not all distortion sounds bad.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
A pyramid chart sorting dozens of hi-fi brands into seven tiers has been tearing up Reddit and Instagram for days and pulling in hundreds of comments. It runs from mass-market names at the base up to an ultra-luxury reference tier at the very top, where a single brand sits alone above the giants most audiophiles consider untouchable.
That one placement set off the loudest reaction. A well-known creator argued the brand belonged two full tiers lower, and once people started doubting the top, they began picking apart everything beneath it.
The chart even carries a disclaimer, which somehow made things worse.
Still, many audiophiles agree with it.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2026/06/viral-hifi-ranking-angers-audiophiles/?utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=caption
Tomi Engdahl says:
For a hobby built around taste, measurements, price, heritage, and brand loyalty, that was always going to be risky.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amplifier manufacturers have been racing to inflate one particular spec for decades, printing numbers that sound impressive on paper and even more impressive in ads. The problem is that engineers figured out the ceiling for this spec back in 1967, and nothing since has changed the math.
A regular speaker cable alone is enough to erase most of the advantage these companies are selling you. Even an amplifier CEO has admitted the benefits flatten out early, which makes the rest of the industry’s obsession with this number all the more telling.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/11/amplifier-damping-factor-marketing-bs/?utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=caption
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/01/obsession-measurements-leading-worse-sounding-gear/?utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=comment
Tomi Engdahl says:
Love it when companies ‘fix’ a problem that doesnt exist
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1DthVzVxpW/
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/18ry1myRcK/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nakamichi
https://youtu.be/WcV1SZOI80w?is=xRzFKsY1nFXass13
Tomi Engdahl says:
You know it’s a scam when it has “Research” in the brand title. Yeah, researching how to find suckers
Tomi Engdahl says:
McIntosh is one of the few audio brands with genuine historical weight behind its name. The company powered some of the most legendary live sound systems ever built, and their reputation in the hi-fi space kept the community loyal through every ownership change and product releases.
But even loyalists have limits. When their own dealers admit they avoid mentioning certain products, and factory workers treat the assembly line as comic relief, something weird is clearly happening.
And this $2,000 device isn’t even the most controversial thing they’re selling right now.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2026/03/audiophiles-calling-mcintosh-product-biggest-joke-sold/?utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=caption
Tomi Engdahl says:
Finding a solid-state amp with truly clean sound takes more than reading spec sheets. Audiophiles weigh transparency in different ways, from distortion levels and tonal accuracy to bass control and long-term listening comfort.
To build this list, we asked hundreds of audiophiles which amps consistently deliver clarity without added coloration.
Here are the top 25 amplifiers serious listeners consistently choose when transparency matters most:
https://www.headphonesty.com/2026/03/best-solid-state-amps-ranked-audiophiles/?utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=caption
Tomi Engdahl says:
The audio hobby has a habit of turning assumptions into rules. Certain advice gets repeated so often across forums, reviews, and social media comments that people stop questioning whether it actually works.
But when we surveyed hundreds of audiophiles and asked which common tips they’d warn others against, the same answers kept coming up. They pointed to advice that most people follow without hesitation, and that’s exactly what makes it so effective at steering listeners in the wrong direction.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2026/03/common-hifi-advice-ruins-setup-audiophiles/?utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=caption
Tomi Engdahl says:
Full list: https://www.headphonesty.com/2026/06/most-dangerous-vinyl-myths-people-defend-online/?utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=reel
Tomi Engdahl says:
You forgot: Vinyl sounds better than digital because it contains analog artifacts that enhance the audio quality and the performance of the music itself. ( In case it wasn’t obvious this is sarcasm)
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.facebook.com/share/1Dp4uBx7Kj/
The list of legacy audio brands in trouble is getting longer. Bang & Olufsen fired its CEO in early 2026 after another year of declining revenue. Devialet posted a €15 million loss and lost both its CEO and co-founder before entering debt restructuring. Masimo bought the Sound United portfolio for $1 billion in 2022, lost money almost immediately, and sold it all to Samsung’s Harman three years later for $350 million. Even Sennheiser is getting sold.
And the list goes on.
None of these companies are failing because they make bad products. They’re failing because the performance gap that justified premium pricing has largely disappeared.
Meanwhile, budget gear from brands like Topping and Schiit now reaches a level of fidelity that most listeners can’t distinguish from gear costing ten times more.
That leaves legacy brands squeezed from both directions, with a shrinking middle market and fewer buyers willing to pay for small or uncertain improvements over what affordable gear already delivers.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2026/02/legacy-hifi-brands-dying-new-brands-winning/?utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=comment
Tomi Engdahl says:
Headphonesty there’s probably a handful more, but Nakamichi, JBL, Polk, Harman Kardon, Altec Lansing, Martin Logan, Klipsch should get things started.
Headphonesty All
It’s not about brand, but about product. All brands have lost what made them special, but there are some particular products, which are still standing. Mainly AVR’s (probably due to licensing of still-valuable intellectual property like Dolby’s or Dirac’s) and speakers (too much raw physics). For the time being.
most of them that have been bought up by corporate investors and their production outsourced.
B & O were always an overpriced novelty
Brands like Rolex, Hermés, Ferrari, and other luxury brands remain steady even through periods of severe economic downturns. Audio equipment manufacturers art vying for that “ultra” demographic. Only a few will survive.
they are failing because the prices have gone insane, in just the past 10 years the prices have increased way more then inflation or other reasons. Greed got them there, and when you can get a “budget”setup that comes to 80% of the sound for 80% cheaper then why would they go for these premium names?
Of course many legacy iconic British brands like Quad, Audiolab, Wharfedale etc etc were bought out by foreign manufacturers,but they kept making similar product lines based on the original designs. Already their factories had largely moved East.. I agree sound quality of budget components is fine, in fact if often was in the past though- look at those from the likes of sony and rotel for example. They made some cracking budget amps and players during the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.
The market for these high end audio products is constantly shrinking simply because people don’t sit still home listening to music to the same extent anymore. Back in the day you had to sit at home listening to your stereo equipment if you wanted to listen with good sound, these days with streaming people go mobile and with a decent set of headphones you get pretty good sound for a fraction of the cost. I myself have several stereo setups in my home, nothing fancy but carefully selected, but many of my music loving friends just listen to Bluetooth speakers or headphones. It’s just evolution I guess.
The Chinese are killing legacy industry industries in the Western world, one by one. We as a consumer gain, we as a worker loose.
Truth is most people have never heard quality. If you grew up on Mp3, and you can’t hear the difference, it saves allot of $$.
There are far better ‘honest design’ speakers, that have much truer sound qualities and are far less expensive that the myriads of Brands spouting break through theory and design.
The Spin is UNBELIEVABLE…
RIDICULOUS PRICING…
Sadly these People ignore those Younger 18yrs ++
(Entering the Market aware that Headphones/Inner Ear Phones ruined their Hearing quicker
when they turned 50+)
done Correctly installs BRAND LOYALTY…..
Looks at Sony. Yamaha, Jbl, +++
Tomi Engdahl says:
Maybe not surprising, but seems like majority of comments here are from people who appear oblivious about the realities of running a business in a niche market. Small hi-end audio companies have never had economies of scale, so their (high) prices are reflective of their lack of efficiency & volume, not “greed”…
I remember a fairly recent article from Paul McGowan, CEO of PS Audio, talking about the global market for “hi-end” audio. His research indicated that there was likely as few as 250,000 potential buyers worldwide for products like theirs. Spread that out across all the various global brands, and account for the lifespan of the products, and you’ve got a relatively small annual total spend in any given year. Nobody ever started a serious audio company because they thought it would make them rich…it’s a VERY difficult environment for a business to survive in.
https://www.facebook.com/share/1Dp4uBx7Kj/
Tomi Engdahl says:
It’s as simple as this : 99% of these silly claims are based in a single statement: ” I can hear what can’t be measured”. Conversation over. As soon as the “can’t be measured” comes into the argument you can claim anything you want.
Tomi Engdahl says:
For a couple of years, the CD revival looked like it might be real. Search interest climbed, polls showed people were open to buying discs again, and outlets ran with the narrative. But the actual sales data never cooperated, and the 2025 RIAA report makes that impossible to ignore.
Meanwhile, vinyl just achieved a major milestone that pushed physical media to a record-high year-end total.
But the number that really kills the CD comeback narrative has nothing to do with how many discs sold. It’s about how even the biggest CD distributor is dealing about it, and it’s not looking good for CD.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2026/03/cd-comeback-story-crashes-vinyl-hits/?utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=caption