The Pixel 2 Proves Headphone Jacks Are Truly Doomed

nysmo said:
Actually I think the real underlying motivator for ditching the headphone jack is just to fully usher people into a proper world of "wireless-ness". Hanging on to headphone jacks is like hanging on to a landline. It's just outdated and unnecessary. The only examples you guys provide for wired headphones are just a bunch of "what if" scenarios. You talk about how you might lose your headphones, how your headphones might die, how you might notice some loss of quality, how you might need to buy a $2 pair of headphones from the airport because you left your at home, etc etc etc. You just want it as a backup plan. Well we're past that now. We're no longer catering to the lowest common denominator. Bluetooth headphones work just as well as wired ones, are not difficult to setup, are more convenient to wear, and condition people into accepting a wireless culture so that they wont be so timid about other products coming down the line.

This is no different than when ultrabooks ditched the cd-rom drive and everyone lost their shit because "OMG but i have so many linux distros burned, I need those!". No you dont.
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I don't think you really have a clue about what you're talking about. This is absolutely nothing in common to "keeping a landline". Headphone jacks are not outdated by any means. If they were actually outdated they would have been gone a long time ago. Headphone jacks are effectively ubiquitous. I can use the headphone jack on my PC, on my phone, on another person's phone (unless their phone unfortunately grew "courage") and with a hell of a lot of other devices. I don't have to worry about charging them. I don't have to worry about whether bluetooth is going to work today or not. I don't have to worry about pairing them, just plug them in and they work. I don't have to worry about sound quality because the sound quality is the same unless there's an issue with the device plugged into them. I don't have to worry about interference from other bluetooth or wireless devices. Even if something happens to my headphones I have spares already. It's not going to cost me $40, $50, $150 to replace them when the batteries die because they don't have batteries. I've had my current set of headphones for at least 10 years and am perfectly happy to continue using them; are you every going to be able to say that about bluetooth headphones?

Guess what, I'm past bluetooth already. That ship sailed long ago. I've had more issues than I care to remember with bluetooth over the years. I've lost count of the number of people I've heard bitching about their bluetooth device simply not working or pairing because of no known reason at all. The incompatibilities and issues between different bluetooth versions is legendary. The battery on my phone drains fast enough as it is, I sure as hell don't need the additional bluetooth drain on the device. Using headphones doesn't even cause a noticeable difference in battery drain.

And don't even get me started on the shit that is the dongle. Been there, done that. I'm wondering if you've even been using cell phones for all that long. Manufacturers started with the damn dongle instead of the headphone jack when they first started putting audio playback capabilities into phones. I remember and experienced that era. The dongles were shit. It was an extra item you had to keep track of. The damn things loved to fall apart for no reason. You couldn't charge your phone and listen on headphones at the same time. You know what fixed all that? Manufacturers finally wised the fuck up and put headphone jacks on phones and all these very issues went away.

Face it, there's no advantage to getting rid of the headphone jack for anyone but the manufacturers. People don't want even thinner phones and that's the only real "reason" manufacturers give for trying to get rid of the jack. They simply don't want to tell you the real reason is to sell more accessories.
 
Only the Poors need a headphone jack. My Bose Bluetooth Noise Canceling Subsonic Inner Ear Faith=Sound Edition doesn't need those pathetic thing called wires.
 
SmokeRngs said:
Headphone jacks are not outdated by any means. If they were actually outdated they would have been gone a long time ago.
Click to expand...
You could say this about any outdated technology at the time it was being shelved. "If Floppy disks were outdated it would have already been done", and then one day it was.

I don't have to worry about charging them. I don't have to worry about whether bluetooth is going to work today or not. I don't have to worry about pairing them, just plug them in and they work. I don't have to worry about sound quality because the sound quality is the same unless there's an issue with the device plugged into them. I don't have to worry about interference from other bluetooth or wireless devices. Even if something happens to my headphones I have spares already. It's not going to cost me $40, $50, $150 to replace them when the batteries die because they don't have batteries. I've had my current set of headphones for at least 10 years and am perfectly happy to continue using them; are you every going to be able to say that about bluetooth headphones?
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With bluetooth headphones I dont have to worry about the jack breaking. I dont have to worry about haphazardly placing them in my cupholder to use my phone. I dont have to worry about wires fraying. I dont have to worry about annoying cables dangling over my console, my arm, wherever. I dont have to worry about the cord getting caught on something when I pick up my phone and ripping the headphones off my head or damaging the phone itself making it permanently useless. I'd rather replace headphones than replace my entire phone. I can easily share the audio with someone without having to carefully reposition the device since it's tethered to a pair of headphones. I dont have to grab the phone to change tracks, I can do it right with the push of a button either on my steering wheel or on the headphones themselves. Wired headphones cost just as much as wireless ones if you want quality. I dont think I have any electronics that I've owned for 10 years without having the desire or need to upgrade anyway, so "disposable" headphones arent really a problem. Ear muffs wear down, headbands lose their rigidity, adjustments become weak, speaker cones degrade. I'm probably replacing any pair of headphones no matter how much they cost well before 10 years. And if I can afford some swank $300 set that lasts a lifetime then I can afford bluetooth headphones as well.

I've never once had a problem pairing them with anything, or having issues with reception with anything, nor do I know anybody who has. If it was such an issue I dont think every car made in the last 5 years would have bluetooth as a standard function, nor do I think the 2 biggest phone companies in the world would adopt them as heavily.
 
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MarkVI said:
"Lowest common denominator?" Really? Bluetooth is not a superior technology for listening to music. It compresses the signal. If you find it convenient, good for you. The presence of a 3.5mm jack in no way impedes your ability to use bluetooth, while its removal creates a hassle for many of us.

The V30 or something like it is definitely in my future. Who is really asking the manufacturers to make the phones so damn thin? Should this really be what drives design?
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The only point at which audio quality is compressed in a blutetooth stream is if it exceeds 240kbps or so. So unless all of your audio has a higher bitrate than this then it's 1:1. Most streaming audio services stream at 128kbps with some offering "high quality" modes but no real indication on what the final bitrate is, if not downright variable anyway. You also have to consider the listening environment. You can have fully uncompressed lossless audio all you want, but if your environment consists of listening while you drive then you already have a form of loss introduced in the form of road and cabin noise.
 
nysmo said:
nor do I think the 2 biggest phone companies in the world would adopt them as heavily.
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Which companies do you think those are? Samsung has the biggest market share, bigger than any other Android phone company and bigger than Apple also. The Galaxy S8, S8+ and Note 8 all have real headphone jacks. So yeah, at least the #1 phone company knows what they are doing.

Kdawg said:
is digital connector that much worse than analog?
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The sound that our ears hear is analog. Headphones require amplification. A digital connector means something on the headphone side has to provide that amplification, as well as the DAC. In the case of most bluetooth headphones that will be worse than what comes in a phone with a real headphone jack.
 
GotNoRice said:
The sound that our ears hear is analog. Headphones require amplification. A digital connector means something on the headphone side has to provide that amplification, as well as the DAC. In the case of most bluetooth headphones that will be worse than what comes in a phone with a real headphone jack.
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Yeah but consider the source, what are you listening to in the first place that has a discernible difference in audio quality between the two listening formats?
 
BlueFireIce said:
If you think Bose is for rich....Then you are the poor one, people who NEED 3.5mm to power their headphones are the ones with real quality cans.
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fairly sure Bose is synonymous with throwing away your money for crap. Always has been, always will be.

The arguments are silly. Is anyone really still concerned about phone thickness? I don't even see that in the adverts anymore (thinest phone available! buy now).

People like options. If anyone hasn't gotten a clear answer why removing it is beneficial in some way to the consumer other than more space for X stuff where X hasn't been defined yet, then it's just a lazy approach to removing something that everyone currently has accessories for.

The true test will be who buys it and who avoids it. I'm sure some companies will keep it around and see an increase in popularity.
 
Grimlaking said:
I'm fine with this as long as the device comes with wireless headphones.
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eh, the wired headphones that come with the phones are generally of crap quality, i will only assume that wireless headphones that come with phones will be crap as well.
 
nysmo said:
You could say this about any outdated technology at the time it was being shelved. "If Floppy disks were outdated it would have already been done", and then one day it was.



With bluetooth headphones I dont have to worry about the jack breaking. I dont have to worry about haphazardly placing them in my cupholder to use my phone. I dont have to worry about wires fraying. I dont have to worry about annoying cables dangling over my console, my arm, wherever. I dont have to worry about the cord getting caught on something when I pick up my phone and ripping the headphones off my head or damaging the phone itself making it permanently useless. I'd rather replace headphones than replace my entire phone. I can easily share the audio with someone without having to carefully reposition the device since it's tethered to a pair of headphones. I dont have to grab the phone to change tracks, I can do it right with the push of a button either on my steering wheel or on the headphones themselves. Wired headphones cost just as much as wireless ones if you want quality. I dont think I have any electronics that I've owned for 10 years without having the desire or need to upgrade anyway, so "disposable" headphones arent really a problem. Ear muffs wear down, headbands lose their rigidity, adjustments become weak, speaker cones degrade. I'm probably replacing any pair of headphones no matter how much they cost well before 10 years. And if I can afford some swank $300 set that lasts a lifetime then I can afford bluetooth headphones as well.

I've never once had a problem pairing them with anything, or having issues with reception with anything, nor do I know anybody who has. If it was such an issue I dont think every car made in the last 5 years would have bluetooth as a standard function, nor do I think the 2 biggest phone companies in the world would adopt them as heavily.
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What the hell are you doing that would destroy a headphone jack? I've had devices with headphone jacks for decades and used them extensively and never once have I ever busted a headphone jack. As far as I know, I've never met someone who has busted a headphone jack either. I wasn't aware that busting headphone jacks was somehow an epidemic.

You're using headphones in a car? What the hell is wrong with you? I guess the mental issues required to think that using headphones of any type while driving a car is a good idea would explain your arguments. Not only are wearing headphones while driving extremely unsafe, it's illegal pretty much everywhere as far as I know.
 
Guess this means when my Nexus 5x kicks the bucket, so too will my Project Fi service.

No 3.5mm socket. No buy.
 
Grimlaking said:
I'm fine with this as long as the device comes with wireless headphones.
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It does not come with wireless headphones. It comes with a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter without any pack in headphones (wired or wireless).
 
Bold move. Personally, I hope it comes back to bite them. I'd rather see an industry push to go to a smaller jack standard for phones and headphones than wireless only (without a dongle). Bluetooth is still unaccepable in terms of audio/video syncing IMO.
 
My S8+ has a headphone jack. Irrefutable proof that headphone jacks are here to stay!

Apple is batshit crazy and Google has done some strange things too. Both of them having no headphone jack means both of them have no headphone jack. Nothing more.
 
nysmo said:
Actually I think the real underlying motivator for ditching the headphone jack is just to fully usher people into a proper world of "wireless-ness". Hanging on to headphone jacks is like hanging on to a landline. It's just outdated and unnecessary. The only examples you guys provide for wired headphones are just a bunch of "what if" scenarios. You talk about how you might lose your headphones, how your headphones might die, how you might notice some loss of quality, how you might need to buy a $2 pair of headphones from the airport because you left your at home, etc etc etc. You just want it as a backup plan. Well we're past that now. We're no longer catering to the lowest common denominator. Bluetooth headphones work just as well as wired ones, are not difficult to setup, are more convenient to wear, and condition people into accepting a wireless culture so that they wont be so timid about other products coming down the line.

This is no different than when ultrabooks ditched the cd-rom drive and everyone lost their shit because "OMG but i have so many linux distros burned, I need those!". No you dont.
Click to expand...

I disagree on the quality of bluetooth headphones. Because of the compression used with bluetooth, every bluetooth headphone I've ever tried has sounded bad compared to my AKG K240's.
 
nysmo said:
dude, it's bluetooth, it's an open standard, there's nothing proprietary about it. The fact google makes their own line of headphones does not mean they had to ditch the jack to get you to use them. Their headphones offer a particular advantage with the translation ability which is amazing. Heck they might also just be normal headphones in which case any bluetooth set could perform the same translations. Point is you're not locked into anything, and you could translate with wired headphones just the same assuming the headphones themselves dont augment this capability somehow. I imagine there might be some hardware decoding involved to assist the translation into full blown real time as quick as it was.
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Yes it's Bluetooth but you buried, or perhaps didn't understand, the point I was making, which is the additional exclusive functionality you can wall off when you eliminate the headphone jack. Like the exclusive translation. Or like Apple offers W1 functionality with only their products. That's why we are losing the 3.5mm jack. These reasons such as it's cheaper without it or it takes up too much room or our benevolent overlords are helping usher us into the wireless future are hilarious, really.
 
Just another thing to potentially lose and need charging. Size as well; the Apple earbuds look like some kind of white goo ear leakage. I prefer the in-ear variety for both a good seal and they are discreet...not sure if bluetooth-enabled headphones can get so small.
 
bigthoughts said:
it's like assless chaps...
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a3Y4qA5_700b.jpg


Otherwise they'd just be pants.
 
Well you morons wanted waterproof phones, lives with the consequences...
 
aokman said:
Well you morons wanted waterproof phones, lives with the consequences...
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I’m still a little disappointed with sealed batteries, as there were phones with waterproofing and had replaceable batteries still.

But I do have to live with, external batteries make it much easier.
 
I'm fine with manufacturers removing the headphone jack if they use the space saved for a larger battery. But noooo, they'd rather make the phone thinner or more "courageous" or something like that.
 
aokman said:
Well you morons wanted waterproof phones, lives with the consequences...
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It isn't that hard to seal a headphone jack. Samsung did it multiple times. It's no more difficult to do than sealing a charging port... or any port for that matter.

The loss of headphone jacks is purely about money. They can strip out a $2 part and simplify manufacturing while increasing sale price because of all the other "improvements".
 
my damn sony walkman phone 10 years ago still sounds better than samsung s6e. these days, audio quality and good player apps is far down the priority list.
 
So because some people are clumsy and can't take responsibility for their actions and hardware the rest of us have to suffer!

But as mentioned earlier by others it's probably a cost thing. Watch the documentary "Making a Faster Horse!" about the design project for the 2015 Ford Mustang. In this you see the design panel discussing every single component in the car to see if they can make it cheaper or get rid of it completely.

Every $ saved on a product you will sell x million of...
 
theBrownLlama said:
my damn sony walkman phone 10 years ago still sounds better than samsung s6e. these days, audio quality and good player apps is far down the priority list.
Click to expand...

It's all about the camera now, something else that is doomed to never be flat again.
 
Guarana [BAWLS] said:
It's not that other phones don't exist, it's the fact that the two (or two of) flagship phone lines have now ditched it.

Others will follow suit sooner or later.
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It's can also go in reverse. It fails, the headphone jack comes back.


BlueFireIce said:
As a Pixel owner, I was looking at the Pixel 2, as soon as I heard this, the V30 was on my list in its place.

I am sure it will do well, as most people are fine with BT and shitty BT at that, because they have no idea what a good set of headphones are.
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I don't, to a certain degree when I'm mobile. So I use some Sennheiser Urbanite XL Wireless BT when mobile. I'm mobile about 20 mins each day and that's it. At home, damn near everything is wired. Headphones, wired. Lan connection, wired. Mouse, wired. Hell, I even keep my PS4 controllers connected up via wire.


nysmo said:
You could say this about any outdated technology at the time it was being shelved. "If Floppy disks were outdated it would have already been done", and then one day it was.
Click to expand...

If everything was dropping headphone jacks, probably could say that, but that simply isn't happening.

Wired headphones cost just as much as wireless ones if you want quality.
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Too bad they don't sound as good when they're wireless. I've tried my BT headphones wireless and wired. It definitely sounds better wired.

I dont think I have any electronics that I've owned for 10 years without having the desire or need to upgrade anyway, so "disposable" headphones arent really a problem. Ear muffs wear down, headbands lose their rigidity, adjustments become weak, speaker cones degrade. I'm probably replacing any pair of headphones no matter how much they cost well before 10 years. And if I can afford some swank $300 set that lasts a lifetime then I can afford bluetooth headphones as well.
Click to expand...

Maybe should have bought quality headphones with replaceable parts.

I've never once had a problem pairing them with anything, or having issues with reception with anything, nor do I know anybody who has. If it was such an issue I dont think every car made in the last 5 years would have bluetooth as a standard function, nor do I think the 2 biggest phone companies in the world would adopt them as heavily
Click to expand...

I only use BT in my car and I definitely run into issues with pairing. My old JVC was hellaciously bad, while my Sony at least has NFC for pairing. There are times where I either need to turn off/turn on my stereo or turn off/turn on BT on my phone.

It's not super common, like once every couple weeks, but still annoying when it happens.

Gigus Fire said:
fairly sure Bose is synonymous with throwing away your money for crap. Always has been, always will be.

The arguments are silly. Is anyone really still concerned about phone thickness? I don't even see that in the adverts anymore (thinest phone available! buy now).

People like options. If anyone hasn't gotten a clear answer why removing it is beneficial in some way to the consumer other than more space for X stuff where X hasn't been defined yet, then it's just a lazy approach to removing something that everyone currently has accessories for.

The true test will be who buys it and who avoids it. I'm sure some companies will keep it around and see an increase in popularity.
Click to expand...

I have a Z5, it's thin enough and it still retained a 3.5mm jack. Hell, I'd be fine if the thing was thicker, had a USB port on the side, so I can connect a USB key to it and transfer shit off/on.

SmokeRngs said:
What the hell are you doing that would destroy a headphone jack? I've had devices with headphone jacks for decades and used them extensively and never once have I ever busted a headphone jack. As far as I know, I've never met someone who has busted a headphone jack either. I wasn't aware that busting headphone jacks was somehow an epidemic.

You're using headphones in a car? What the hell is wrong with you? I guess the mental issues required to think that using headphones of any type while driving a car is a good idea would explain your arguments. Not only are wearing headphones while driving extremely unsafe, it's illegal pretty much everywhere as far as I know.
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It's usually the male end that breaks, not the female end. I've already had to replace the jack on my Audio Technica A700s.
 
If this was about thinner phones, they could use a 2.5 mm jack, which already exists and has cheap, small adapters already.

It's not about that.
 
I hate this development, but to be honest, I almost never use headphones on my phone.

Occasionally I'll want to free my hands during a phone call, and will use a plugin headset, but I simply do not listen to music while on the go, so I never really use headsets. When I listen to music I do it at home, army desk with my big headphones or on my livingroom on my big speakers, or in my car, never over headphones.

My most common use of the port is as a line out, connecting it to the amp in my kitchen or to the stereo in my car. This is where I will.miss the port the most.


I hate the fact that the port is going away, but if they have some sort of adapter that will allow me to use 3.5mm audio connections at the same time as charging, it's not the end of the world for me


Bluetooth or other wireless solutions are straight out. I will never use these. The audio is compressed and lower quality, there is often a lag, and now you have to remember to charge yet another device. Do not want.
 
I have a pair of Jaybird X3 bluetooth earbuds, which I really only use at the gym. They sound decent depending on the audio profile, but so far I haven't found or been able to tweak a profile that I think it sounds good or even better than my HiFiMAN RE-00 earbuds I use everywhere else. I don't know. In a previous post I said I'd be okay with the Pixel 2 ditching the headphone jack, but now I'm not so confident....
 
nysmo said:
Actually I think the real underlying motivator for ditching the headphone jack is just to fully usher people into a proper world of "wireless-ness". Hanging on to headphone jacks is like hanging on to a landline. It's just outdated and unnecessary. The only examples you guys provide for wired headphones are just a bunch of "what if" scenarios. You talk about how you might lose your headphones, how your headphones might die, how you might notice some loss of quality, how you might need to buy a $2 pair of headphones from the airport because you left your at home, etc etc etc. You just want it as a backup plan. Well we're past that now. We're no longer catering to the lowest common denominator. Bluetooth headphones work just as well as wired ones, are not difficult to setup, are more convenient to wear, and condition people into accepting a wireless culture so that they wont be so timid about other products coming down the line.

This is no different than when ultrabooks ditched the cd-rom drive and everyone lost their shit because "OMG but i have so many linux distros burned, I need those!". No you dont.
Click to expand...

Total garbage.

Everything wireless is always inferior to it's wired counterpart in performance, reliability, security and quality.

The only benefits wireless solutions have are in the realm of convenience or laziness.

I a kid everything wireless wherever possible.

Sure, I have WiFi in my house, but only our smartphones use it. Everything else has properly routed wiring for maximum reliability and performance


Wireless products are nothing but unreliable inferior turds, and the fewer of them in my life, the better.
 
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DPI said:
Ding ding ding. Right here. Everyone wants to believe their own conspiracy theory - usually that they think the manufacturers are going to get rich selling dongles (whatever), but the reality is every cubic millimeter is precious. At least so say the designers of these things.

I like a headphone jack personally but I can see how it's cleaner not having one, like a laptop coming without an optical drive.

Time marches on.
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Agreed. But at the same time, 3.5mm is fairly small and I'd hardly call the devices out dated. Optical media? I just sold my copy of SWAT 4 Gold. I will miss that game package but my PC can't even take CD/DVDs anymore, so I'd rather put the $20 towards a GoG copy for $10 and pocket the rest.

At least they will sell adapters, and while slightly annoying it shouldn't be too much of an issue. I am sure they will come out with a good one for $10 or so.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Total garbage.

Everything wireless is always inferior to it's wired counterpart in performance, reliability, security and quality.

The only benefits wireless solutions have are in the realm of convenience or laziness.

I a kid everything wireless wherever possible.

Sure, I have WiFi in my house, but only our smartphones use it. Everything else has properly routed wiring for maximum reliability and performance


Wireless products are nothing but unreliable inferior turds, and the fewer of them in my life, the better.
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I'm going to assume you represent the extreme end of the spectrum when it comes to requiring in home network performance. If I asked why you need gigabit throughput speeds you'd probably cite the necessity to replicate your 8TB backup of all systems to your backup NAS you keep tucked away in your dedicated server room you converted from a 4th bedroom. Or how you rip all of your 3d blurays and want to stream them to your 4k TV downstairs running some high end HTPC.

But for the vast majority of people who's wireless needs are the equivalent of streaming netflix at 4mbps and nothing else, going fully wireless for every single thing they use makes sense. Wireless network, wireless tv, wireless file sharing, wireless headphones, etc etc etc. Wireless is not garbage unless you make it garbage through extraordinary demands.
 
I doubt you're really getting the most out of your high end analog headphones if they're plugged into your phone anyhow. A bunch of the space they're saving is ditching the DAC and small shitty amp circuits in addition to the connector. At least I assume they push all the into the dongle, maybe not.
 
besides the lack of headphone jack...where is the wireless charging?

For this to be a buy the pixel2 should be around 400$ to start.
I mean come on this is just a phone that gets replaced every couple years.
 
DPI said:
Ding ding ding. Right here. Everyone wants to believe their own conspiracy theory - usually that they think the manufacturers are going to get rich selling dongles (whatever), but the reality is every cubic millimeter is precious. At least so say the designers of these things.

I like a headphone jack personally but I can see how it's cleaner not having one, like a laptop coming without an optical drive.

Time marches on.
Click to expand...

then why was this guy able to add a headphone jack to the iphone 7 himself?



nysmo said:
The only point at which audio quality is compressed in a blutetooth stream is if it exceeds 240kbps or so. So unless all of your audio has a higher bitrate than this then it's 1:1. Most streaming audio services stream at 128kbps with some offering "high quality" modes but no real indication on what the final bitrate is, if not downright variable anyway. You also have to consider the listening environment. You can have fully uncompressed lossless audio all you want, but if your environment consists of listening while you drive then you already have a form of loss introduced in the form of road and cabin noise.
Click to expand...

all the music on my phone is FLAC, so yes, well above 240kbps

theBrownLlama said:
my damn sony walkman phone 10 years ago still sounds better than samsung s6e. these days, audio quality and good player apps is far down the priority list.
Click to expand...

try the LG V series... I have an LG V20 and the ESS Sabre DAC in it sounds amazing... really way past what I would have expected from a phone... pushes all my big cans without issue too
 
I haven't used the 3.5mm jack on my phones in years. I don't mind it being gone.
 
nysmo said:
The only point at which audio quality is compressed in a blutetooth stream is if it exceeds 240kbps or so. So unless all of your audio has a higher bitrate than this then it's 1:1. Most streaming audio services stream at 128kbps with some offering "high quality" modes but no real indication on what the final bitrate is, if not downright variable anyway. You also have to consider the listening environment. You can have fully uncompressed lossless audio all you want, but if your environment consists of listening while you drive then you already have a form of loss introduced in the form of road and cabin noise.
Click to expand...

For those of us that listen to uncompressed audio in a quiet environment, it does matter. Genre makes a difference too. If you're listening to multi-track recordings with very stratified textures (i.e. the vast majority of pop music) then frequency response and dynamics can take a hit without changing the listening experience in a meaningful way. If you're listening to more detailed, dynamic music, it matters. If you're a musician and you're listening to uncompressed recordings you've made on your linear PCM recorder in preparation for a performance, it really matters.
 
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