What are the worst tech purchases you or your family have ever made?
I watched a video recently and wanted to know what other have bought over the years.
What are the worst tech purchases you or your family have ever made?
I watched a video recently and wanted to know what other have bought over the years.
~$800 headphone setup. My then-employer paid for more than half of it, so I splurged a bit. Got refurbished planar magnetic headphones for ~$500 and an amp for ~$300. I later bought a balanced audio cable (I don’t remember the price, maybe $20—50).
It sounds good, but I’ve also been down the Chi-Fi IEM rabbit hole before. I think I could get similar results from $150—250 Chinese IEMs.
There’s a LOT of snake oil in the audiophile world, and the matter of cost is almost universally a matter of diminishing returns. I say this as someone whose typical audio rig costs at least $250k: At home, I use basic Sennheiser monitor headphones.
You’ll notice a huge difference between $50 headphones and $100 headphones. But the difference between $100 headphones and $200 headphones will be much less noticeable, even though there is a much bigger price difference between the two.
Also, you probably got scammed on that balanced cable. I can guarantee that the recording studio used the cheapest $1/foot starquad cable, soldered by the intern using $3 Neutrik connectors.
The only reason I’ve ever been able to justify balanced headphones were if they were too power hungry and needed extra current.
As someone that owns headphones in that range and maybe higher, I’m very curious which headphones you picked up. Also, the idea of getting “similar results” from IEMs versus some over ear headphones is a bit wacky, they’re way different IMO.
Heh yeah I used to think that about IEMs too.
My headphones are the HIFIMAN Arya Stealth Magnet Version.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the way they sound. They’re better than any other headphones I’ve had. I have no buyer’s remorse over it — but only because I didn’t pay full price.
I was wondering if they were Hifiman because while they make many excellent headphones, and I’d almost never recommend someone pay full price as they tend to have really strong deals a little while after product launch. I actually owned the original Arya and it is one of the few Hifiman that I have do have buyers remorse for as they just do not fit my head well. That obviously applies to all of the models with that shape (Ananda, Arya, Edition, Susvana, HE1000). My favorite headphones are actually very old Hifiman, the HE-6. They are stupidly demanding on power, but I like their sound more than any other headphone I have ever listened to.