Here’s a factor that seems to be underappreciated. Those differences are a lot less important when you aren’t comparing side by side. Just because you can hear or taste the difference between a thing and a more expensive version doesn’t mean you will really appreciate that difference later. Diminishing returns does play into this, and the small differences between two things at a high level is often too small for your memory to even capture.

And even when it comes to the bigger differences, how it affects enjoyment has a large psychological component, in how much satisfaction do you get just knowing you are using something excellent, and does it bother you knowing what you are experiencing could be better.

I have nice quality speakers and headphones, but sometimes I’m lazy and will listen to a piece of music through my crappy laptop or phone speakers. I still enjoy that music. And if that was all I had access to, I’d still enjoy the hell out of music. I’m not about to give away or stop using my nice speakers, but I’m not convinced they make me happier in any significant way.

I never cared a lot. While I do notice the difference immediately, it never makes the experience differ in the long run. I have watched full length movies on the cover screen of my Samsung Zflip5 without feeling that I missed out on anything.

I have a nintendo switch which I have used a lot. Even though I have a nice 55" TV and a decent soundbar, I very rarely connect the switch to the TV. I much rather use it in handheld mode so I can sit in any angle in the sofa. I guess I value comfort a lot higher than high fidelity.

I’m into this, especially sound quality. I have a top-of-the-bottom/bottom-of-the-middle 5.2.4 setup for movies and listen to music on that same space as well. I have made solid progress on acoustically treating my space, and it sounds pretty good.

My wife, who has done all the A-B testing with me and understands what high quality equipment and a well-treated space brings to the table would be perfectly happy watching Netflix on her phone speaker.

I know for sure she does not hear things like I hear them. I have a couple of demo tracks I use to evaluate changes in my system, and I have described to her what I’m listening for (soundstage depth, for example), and she cannot distinguish whether or not this quality exists. So, I think one part of this is that there is something cognitive going on that she and I perceive things so differently. Another thing that I think is different between us is the way music affects us. For me, music is an emotional experience and ties deeply with my memories of events/time periods/feelings. When I hear a song, I know the artist, facts about the band and its members, the name of the song, the album, and I can describe the album art. My wife, on the other hand, usually can’t remember the names of her favorite songs or who the artist is. And, like, no shade on my wife for this at all; I’m just saying we experience these things much differently, and I think that may be illustrative of the differences your seeing with other people too.

Additionally, as far as diminishing returns go, I think a lot of people do not understand the importance of acoustic treatment. You’re listening to your room, not your speakers. You can’t out-speaker a bad sounding room at any cost. If you think you want new speakers to upgrade your sound quality and have given zero thought to room acoustics, you should do a little investigation before upgrading your equipment. I think that money is better spent elsewhere first.

Once you have a good sounding space to listen, I really don’t think most people need to spend any more than 10k (at the extreme upper limit) for a pair of speakers for 2 channel listening. That said, I have been in a fantastic room with a $15k pair of Sonus Faber speakers, and I have been chasing that feeling for a couple of years now.

I mean, to a point.

In the end it’s all a matter of priority. Do I want a sound system for 10k+? Sure. But that money would probably be better spent elsewhere

For me, I wanted a 65inch OLED tv and splurged a bit on that, but on discount. And I got a surround sound Sonos setup. That’s good enough

To me the recording and mastering makes more difference than the fidelity or absolute quality. I consider myself lucky that my ears aren’t that discerning.

I like a certain level of quality when it comes to audio.

When I’m making music, I use in ear monitors from shure with a flat response because it would throw off my mixes otherwise. Same with my presonus speakers. Flat response.

But for causally watching content, its fine for me to use some bookshelf speakers or even a bluetooth speaker. Its not super important for watching content for me as long as its not total trash.

I just want to say how happy I am that good sounding audio equipment and large screen TVs are relatively cheap. With a bit of research and tinkering, one can have a nice A/V setup for not much $$$. Of note, I am very impressed with the audio quality of Class D amplifiers nowadays. I was conditioned to believe that Class D would always be inferior until I tried it myself.

To some extent. For audio, I don’t really have to much experience with expensive headphones/earbuds but I do notice a difference. I still usually go with cheaper headphones though because the difference in audio quality and durability aren’t really enough to justify the price difference.

For visuals in games, I do prefer to have the best experience but what settings I use depends on the game. There are some settings that are universal to me, like for example, if anti-aliasing is available, I always have it set to 2x (or 1.5x if the game has it) because every option for anti-aliasing in every game I’ve tried looks exactly the same to me, so going higher is just a waste of system resources. For similar reasons, while both of my monitors support higher resolutions, I still prefer to use 720/768p.

I think the only time I really don’t care about visual quality, is just when I’m watching videos online.

I do value high fidelity media, but frankly I can’t say that I notice a difference between say, 320 kbps mp3 audio and FLAC audio-- and yes I have a nice DAC + headphones so there’s no bottlenecks. I used to have all my music as FLAC files but these days I don’t have the $$$ to buy more storage so I find myself converting everything to 320 kbps MP3 files and I’m okay with that.

For movies, I’ve only got 1080p monitors + a 720p projector so for the most part I just download 1080p movies. I burn movies and TV shows to Blu-Ray discs so for some S-tier stuff I’ll download the 4K release and burn it to a BD-R in hopes that someday I can afford 4K and all the damn PC hardware upgrades that’s going to require. But I’m in no rush, 1080p is fine by me and 720p on the projector is great.

I’m into photography, and I’m like you when it comes to lenses. Quality > quantity, any day of the week. I’d much rather choose a nice 40mm prime lens over a 17-70mm lens with mediocre glass.

My friends are kind of like yours but they know that when they want something of high quality, they can ask me and I’ll gladly do the research then give them several options. I really enjoy well-made products and I despise poorly-made products so much. As a result, I’m finally at that point in my life where quality purchases I made 15+ years ago are still working great and it feels good.

That said, I do try to keep my purchases to a minimum because it’s way too easy to fall for marketing + consumerism.

Yes and no. It depends on the circumstance and what I’m listening/watching. Audio fidelity is important to me when I listen to my vinyls, when I’m driving down the road and listening to podcasts or music, I don’t really care because the road noise is strong enough that the fidelity doesn’t really matter much. When watching TV or a movie, I do care about it being 4K and HDR, unless it’s something I’ve seen before.

I often can’t tell. I will also tweak other settings and my use so I am less bothered. I went from an Alienware m14 (2013) to a system 76 lemur pro 9 (2020) and was finally able to see the gap. I would make the font bigger or do things that took long during other chores, so the age didn’t always bother me. I’m still semi broke so I often compromise on my purchase of things when I am aware.

Never let perfect be the enemy of good enough. Do you want to do the thing or do you want to stress about the thing for days, delay it for months while you save up then suffer regret anxiety about whether it was the correct choice? For a lot of people the latter is the part they enjoy about the hobby. For others it isn’t worth the time and resources requires, they’d rather do the thing now with what they have and enjoy it as it is. Where does the inflection point lies between hassle and enjoyable results is personal and everyone has different criteria for different goals and contexts, and that is OK.

I’ve always been pretty picky with audio, but have made some changes recently. The 5.1 system was absolutely worth it. In fact, I got rid of my turntable speakers and just run it through the surround sound and it sounds great.

Although, for reference – even before tinnitus I couldn’t tell the difference between 320 and FLAC/lossless.

Depends. It’s a mix of all the reasons you’ve mentioned, and I’m sure this will vary from person to person. For me, high fidelity audio matters only with headphones, and if I’m listening to music. I can absolutely tell there is a difference with speakers but I don’t enjoy them as much so I don’t care as much.

Similarly I’m not much of a HD4k+ person when it comes to video. I do see the difference but for the most part my brain will filter most visual noise, issues and distortion away while I’m engaged in narrative. I don’t need large TVs nor too much high resolution. PC monitors/laptops/phone screens? I want every pixel you can give me, the higher the resolution the better. Completely different experience than TV. I’m annoyed when I can see the pixels on a screen I’m working on.

I’m with you on the binoculars and microscopes. Yeah, quality does make a huge difference and I would absolutely get the best if I can afford it.

Food- I’m a lazy cook and very picky about condiments. I really enjoy most foods plainly. I don’t mind if my stir fry got a bit soggy or if I forgot to salt the roast. I’ll eat it all the same and be content with it like it had been perfect. For me to really appreciate the difference in food quality you need to add significantly more than 1% effort, so I leave that to professional chefs.

What are your tips on glasses? I choose standard uncoated lenses nowdays after finding that anti-reflective/anti-scratch coatings often scratched easily or had an optically-rippled surface, but maybe things have improved?