It's that time of year again! I've been thinking about what I'd like to do audio-wise in 2024 and was wondering what others in the ASR community are thinking about.
Here are my three "resolutions":
1) Try some cheap schiiiit
In 2024, I plan to finally take the low-cost plunge and get a Class D amp. (Stipulating here that I know low-cost and Class D do not have a perfect Venn diagram overlap. However, while not all Class D amplifiers are cheap, nearly all amps that are cheap are class D.)
Oddly enough, the one impediment that stopped me from buying an Aiyima, which is essentially a throw-away item since it's so cheap, is that there is no A/B speaker selection switch on these things, since I have two sets of bookshelf speakers that I switch between (one is very bright, the other darker).
2) Explore multichannel
This past year, I've found myself listening to my budget 5.1 setup a lot more than my traditional and far more expensive 2.1 stereo. I've come to prefer the immersive experience. Whether I'll still feel this way once the novelty has warn off, I don't yet know.
One thing I've already noticed is that there's a big difference between native surround (Atmos, older 5.1, various DTS) and the "fake" surround you can get on any AVR.
So in 2024 I intend to try to get/buy/listen to additional native surround content. One problem here is that it's expensive to buy surround content. Most Atmos mixes thus far have been on blu-rays that are only available as part of expensive "super deluxe" sets. (With the two just-released Beatles remixed 1962-1966 and 1967-70 compilations, we may be seeing a permanent migration away from blu-ray/physical surround releases to them just being online. These Beatles comps are available in Atmos only on Apple Music. Unfortunately, I prefer physical media and I don't have Apple Music.)
My desire is to get access to more surround content, one way or another, in 2024.
3) Don't engage with pure subjectividiots
I've really tried to engage with these people, especially on that other forum that many of us spent time on before they threw us off and we came en masse over to ASR.
I don't mind if people have subjective preferences. Indeed, I myself always turn the bass way up. What I can't stomach is the ignorance of folks who think there are numerous undiscovered and uncharacterizable things -- nay, unmeasureable!! -- going on in the audio realm. These subjectivists have not a clue about what they don't know. The first thing they don't seem to understand is that audio is a mature technology (stereo was first developed in 1929).
These same subjectivist folks, who want a trained doctor when they're sick and a experienced pilot when they're flying, seem to be perfectly happy with Joe "I did my own listening" Blow telling them that electrical engineers "don't know everything." (Spoiler alert: I, and we, do!)
So, what's in the 2024 audio future for you?
