Pandora isn't a thing in the UK, so that's one avenue of crap shut down for us.Here's what Grace Digital said about Pandora (at https://support.gracedigital.com/hc...ora-One-only-stream-in-128K-?mobile_site=true):
So, according to that, mobile users don't have a choice to go above 64kbps.
I do get that, but having been a hifi geek since the late 80s and being constantly amazed by the crap people are used to I'm not convinced that a phone with stock earbuds isn't a step up for most of them, as horrific as the stock ear buds are.That's what frustrates me: For such a small investment, people can have fantastic sound that prior generations could only dream of.
I think things have changed -- for the worse -- when it comes to consumers and audio. I'm going to date myself here (and at my age, no one else is going to date me), but I graduated high school in 1980 and worked a summer job at Lafayette Radio and Electronics in a shopping mall. People would routinely come into Lafayette and drop several hundred dollars on mid-fi Japanese consumer stereo components. So let's say they spent $300 on a Pioneer/Technics/Kenwood receiver. Adjusted for inflation, that's over $900 now -- and they still needed speakers and/or headphones to hear anything. The average buyer probably invested over $3,000 in today's dollars by the time they assembled a full system (receiver, speakers, turntable, cassette deck). Today's consumer, when presented the opportunity to spend a third that much for sound quality that is orders of magnitude better, scoffs and stuffs a pair of free-with-phone earbuds into his or her ears and moves on.
I think you may have caught the tail end of that era, FWIW there was little sign of it in the UK 10 years later. It probably didn't help that when they got those systems home they stuffed the speakers into random locations, and then drew a pretty design on the graphic equaliser, so the result was much worse than they had paid for. I wonder how a typical install of those systems compares to something like an Apple homepod, both awful?