For me it has to be:
- Helix mattress ($1,217). Sleep is great.
- Home gym power cage & weights (~$1,000). Look good, feel good, get strong.
- Netgear Nighthawk AXE7800 ($339). No more random, annoying internet disconnects/slowness.
- Books ($0 @ library)
- “Ultralearning” - Scott Young (how to learn efficiently)
- “Enlightenment Now” - Steven Pinker (the world overall is improving)
- “The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing” - Taylor Larimore (how to invest)
- PS5 ($500). So many great games like witcher 3, god of war, spiderman.
I’m searching for some more deep value purchases. Give me what you’ve got.
Very specifically, my Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro headphones.
I was lucky enough to go to a retail store with plenty of display models and I tried headphones that cost €2000 and up. They were so cheap for what they were (€139), I’m probably going to buy an extra pair in case they stop making them. Too good to be true. Use them everyday, and still surprised at the new things I’m hearing in songs played a thousand times.
I was wondering if investing in high quality headphones would be beneficial considering I mainly listen to streaming services music over Bluetooth. Given that Bluetooth can reduce audio quality due to its compression, and the streaming services applying their own compression are those high end headphones completely wasted on me?
Excellent question! The standardization for BT sucks. It’s vague at best and misleading at worst.
When you go BT headphones or earbud shopping, you want a headset that supports either:
It’s a good question. Probably? I use Deezer, which is lossless (and my own collection), but when I listened to mp3s, I could tell the difference between good ones and bad ones. I would see if you can find a place that allows testing of headphones, because as much as I love these ones, it really is a tone question. Find something you like. There may be online services in your country that allow test and reture too. Just avoid paying $60,000 for one. That’s too much.
Not at all.
The effect of audio compression on perceivable sound quality is greatly exaggerated. Most people can’t tell the difference between >256kbps lossy and lossless in a blind test, even with TOTL headphones.
If you configure Bluetooth to use LDAC with max bandwidth it shouldn’t reduce audio quality in a noticeable way unless you have incredible ears and know what to listen for. I use Spotify set to 320kb with normalization disabled sent via LDAC to a Qudelix 5K, high end headphones are 100% worth it. Or that depends on how you define high end, my most expensive are a set of $1500 IEMs and I wouldn’t spend more than that because there’s major diminishing returns as the price goes up.
I wouldn’t worry about that. I’ve seen them used in pretty much every recording studio I’ve been in, they’re basically the standard. (Although ATH-M50X are a solid competitor in those spaces)
I have these being fed by a JDS Labs Atom DAC and Amp in my office, and it’s a life saver being able to tune out and squeeze in some good music during the day.
I just bought a MMX 300 my self (which is similar), seems to be pretty good, tough the default velour pads are uncomfortable for me, I’ll have to replace them if they don’t get better with time.