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jonro said:

Why bother to review headphones without comparing the sound? Seriously, features comparisons mean little without discussing the sound quality, which is the core feature of headphones. It's like comparing cars without mentioning the engine or doing a test drive.

I think it's absolutely correct to compare competing headphones based on objective physical and functional characteristics and features. Anything beyond that gets into areas where a great deal of subjectivity is involved. They could go one step further and look at objective things like frequency response curves or noise cancelation performance when subjected to the exact same audio waveforms. This may provide more data for potential buyer who have a reasonably good understanding of how their hearing responds to audio with certain frequency response curves.

Nothing compares to putting the headphones on your head, adjusting them for a comfortable fit that you can tolerate for extended listening sessions, and listening to actual music that is at least characteristically similar to what you enjoy listening to. If you can repeat the same subjective evaluation for different sets of headphones you're considering, all the better. Every head is different, every ear is different, every person's hearing frequency response is different (and changes with age), and every person's brain and emotions reacts to sound in a unique way. 

I'm not suggesting that headphone evaluator's listening experiences and reactions are invalid, but they are always subjective and in many cases are more discerning. The higher you go in the range of audiophile hierarchy the more the terminology spoken or written about becomes more like a foreign language to a lot of people who are in the market for a new set of headphones, like me. No matter what anyone says sounds better or worse is only their opinion, but the only opinion that matters is your own. If you have a history with a particular reviewer who has helped you based on his or her subjective opinion, that can be helpful as a filtering process. It's no guaranteed but it's not totally random either.

Articles like this one do help you narrow down the list of candidate products based on objective visible, touchable, and measurable differences. No more and no less. It's a great step in the right direction. I'm not going to say that someone else's opinion of what sounds good or what sounds bad does not matter because it is a data point to consider.  I've bought $30 headphones that delivered a far more enjoyable listening experience than $300 headphones. This is why I'm wary of buying any product that has so many dependencies on my subjectivity without the option of trying it myself or having the ability to send it back if it doesn't meet my expectations. In a lot of ways the old brick & mortar experiences were actually much better than the YouTube, blog, online articles, or Amazon review based ones are. 

Tim Cook is stuck between a rock and a hard place.  Apple has, since its inception, tried to coexist peacefully in the world market while still holding on to its core values that do not always align with the whims of any particular center of power.

 Just look at how well Apple has been able to remain relevant to consumers in China, South Korea, Brazil, the EU, etc., even as the political situation in those countries did not always play in harmony with the political and/or social climate on either side of the relationships. Apple has always wanted to do what’s best for their customers and stakeholders. They certainly do not want to be exposed to the kind of turmoil they now face. 

Apple Silicon is one of the best planned and best executed moves by Apple - ever. If you're going to talk about Tim Cook's legacy, Apple Silicon has to be one of the crown jewels of his accomplishments at Apple. Truly masterful. 

Fortunately, Apple does not appear to be resting on its laurels with Apple Silicon. The competition is hot on Apple's heels and they have emerged from way way over the horizon to be within striking distance. As long as Apple continues to leverage not only the success of Apple Silicon, but everything else that makes Apple so unique, they will be in great shape. There can be no pause in the action. Intel paused and AMD caught them. Intel paused some more and Apple abandoned them. Now Intel is struggling to get back just to the wake of the slowest leaders. 

I know there has been a lot of turmoil and disruption in the marketplace caused by politics, and Apple has stumbled a little bit with Apple Intelligence and Siri, but it seems from the outside looking in that Apple still has its foot firmly planted on the accelerator pedal when it comes to Apple Silicon. They have to. Apple can't wait for the dust to settle from the passing bullshitnado to figure out where their next opportunity will be. Apple Silicon needs to stay on the fast track.

Everything the current president is doing is purely for his own personal pleasure and to fulfill his deep personal yearnings for power, control, and forced allegiance. The basis of his relationships with all of these compliant corporate and political leaders, Tim Cook included, is FEAR.

discountopinion said:

The tariff game sort of makes sense in its destructive chaos. I do not like it one bit, but there is some method in the madness.

Ensuring that chips, electronics and other increasingly strategic products have a geopolitically diverse footprint makes perfect sense. There is a huge concentration risk at present which does not help anyone other than China.

Short term we will stumble and make mistakes brining these processes back to the US and Europe. That is ok and normal for any large transition. But a change like this does not happen on the Trump time scale, but if Trump does not blowtorch the industry to move then it will likely never do so.

Love him or hate him - Elon Musk’s Tesla is the most geopolitically resilient company from a supply chain standpoint. Very few other companies are.

I want to see a future where high tech is manufactured and invented in hubs of awesome across the globe. We are in the very early stages of spinning up the robots economy and why on earth should a small island off the coast of China be a single point of failure and why should mainland China be a single point of failure for such a large quantity of goods when many other countries can do the same work to build planet wide resilience.

I go along with the supplier diversification challenge, but that’s always been a problem with all forms of production, manufacturing, energy, raw materials, natural resources, mining, fishing, farming, … you name it. I can’t easily come up with a continent, region, country, city, town, or village outside of perhaps a few undiscovered tribes in the Amazon rainforest that are totally self sufficient. Trade has existed as long as humans have existed, even if it’s internal.