I agree totally. People spend $1000 at best buy and they think they've got a great stereo. Then go in to a high end audio store and hear some of their products. The differences are amazing, and as our good dr has pointed out, if you have never heard a quality stereo, you don't know what you're missing. And to get into this you don't need to spend $25k, you can get awesome equipment for 1/10 of that. You just won't find this stuff at the big box electronics stores. As someone else pointed out, it's kind of like comparing Apple computers to the other cheap brands.
Just to comment on why Apple should NOT bring back the Apple HiFi: the product didn't sell well. It sounded decent, but most single speakers in that price range sound similar. It's the last part that rings most true for me though. Devices like these don't sell huge volumes, yet Apple is unlikely to release any product they don't spend money to advertise for. That advertised cost would never be recovered from the anemic sales they garner. Someone like B&O can put out a few cheap ads in a select few audiophile magazines and call it a day. They will still make money. They don't have to perform to Apple's high standards (by this I mean sales volume). Basically, there is no need for Apple to release another speaker. There are tons of great low, mid, high, and ultra-high end kit out there that works great with iOS devices. Someone made the Android analogy earlier. Google produced the Nexus device to show other Android device makers what a solid android phone should look like and the features it should bear. Apple has no need to do that.
So for about the same price you could buy a pair of AudioEngine 2s with an AirportExpress (or AppleTV) and have some sublime sounding speakers. Or spend some more for the AE5 s to get a huge, but still well defined and controlled sound.
go spend an afternoon in a high end audio store and all you have to do is bring in your favorite CDs and tell the sales people you are just doing some research and you aren't ready to buy anything, but ask them if its OK to do some listening so it can help train your ears. If the store is worth a $hit, they'll be happy to let you do that.
blah, blah, blah, blah
There's a difference between wanting and recognizing good sound and some of the true nut-case audiophile stuff. Remember the green magic markers on the edge of your CDs? And the $500 interconnect cables? Those things made zero difference in the sound (as verified both electronically and in blind a/b comparisons), yet some people swore that they were hugely important. There's an enormous placebo effect in audio.
Not to mention, of course, two other factors:
1. Anyone past about 25 years old is suffering at least some hearing loss, particularly at high frequencies. My high frequencies are down about 3 decibels and that's not at all uncommon. So what you hear at 50 is nothing like what you heard at 20, anyway.
2. It's possible to enjoy music without perfect reproduction. For example, when I'm working out at the gym, I use some cheap $5 headphones I bought at Big Lots because they're going to get ruined eventually and they produce sound good enough for me to enjoy the music - even though it's far from audiophile quality.
Sure, at home I have a $2 K set of Infinity speakers which many audiophiles would sneer at, but which (to my ears) are the most natural sounding speakers out there. They're nice and when I want to listen to music loud, I appreciate them. But my enjoyment of music would not be all that much lower with much cheaper speakers.
It's like anything. Too much of a good thing leads to extremism - which is not good.
A lot of things go into "producing a better sound" :
in order: file encoding transport (wire, Bluetooth wireless codec, AirPlay, DLNA) enclosure amplifier speaker drivers
Any one of these can strangle the audio quality.
With Bluetooth, there's a codec that is used to encode and decode the wireless audio as it is sent. For Apple, this is AAC over Bluetooth. For Zune, WindowsPhone, and some-but-not-all Android devices, this is aptX. AAC has codec licensing fees associated with it, aptX doesn't any longer. The default if it's not either of these is SBC, which is the usual old lousy sounding Bluetooth codec.
AirPlay uses AAC. No surprise. DLNA uses mp3 / mp4.
Apple does not need to provide a reference design for wireless speakers: they have partners for this who can provide the AirPlay reference designs.
Comments
There's a difference between wanting and recognizing good sound and some of the true nut-case audiophile stuff. Remember the green magic markers on the edge of your CDs? And the $500 interconnect cables? Those things made zero difference in the sound (as verified both electronically and in blind a/b comparisons), yet some people swore that they were hugely important. There's an enormous placebo effect in audio.
Not to mention, of course, two other factors:
1. Anyone past about 25 years old is suffering at least some hearing loss, particularly at high frequencies. My high frequencies are down about 3 decibels and that's not at all uncommon. So what you hear at 50 is nothing like what you heard at 20, anyway.
2. It's possible to enjoy music without perfect reproduction. For example, when I'm working out at the gym, I use some cheap $5 headphones I bought at Big Lots because they're going to get ruined eventually and they produce sound good enough for me to enjoy the music - even though it's far from audiophile quality.
Sure, at home I have a $2 K set of Infinity speakers which many audiophiles would sneer at, but which (to my ears) are the most natural sounding speakers out there. They're nice and when I want to listen to music loud, I appreciate them. But my enjoyment of music would not be all that much lower with much cheaper speakers.
It's like anything. Too much of a good thing leads to extremism - which is not good.
in order:
file encoding
transport (wire, Bluetooth wireless codec, AirPlay, DLNA)
enclosure
amplifier
speaker drivers
Any one of these can strangle the audio quality.
With Bluetooth, there's a codec that is used to encode and decode the wireless audio as it is sent. For Apple, this is AAC over Bluetooth. For Zune, WindowsPhone, and some-but-not-all Android devices, this is aptX. AAC has codec licensing fees associated with it, aptX doesn't any longer. The default if it's not either of these is SBC, which is the usual old lousy sounding Bluetooth codec.
AirPlay uses AAC. No surprise.
DLNA uses mp3 / mp4.
Apple does not need to provide a reference design for wireless speakers: they have partners for this who can provide the AirPlay reference designs.