M4 Macs can't virtualise older macOS

The remarkable thing is that 90% of listeners don’t seem to notice.

Their reference point is a lossy 128kb/s file from a streaming service double transcoded over bluetooth so that must be what music sounds like. Who would have thought technology would progress backwards.

That's not a remarkable thing, it's the reason.

(And out of the remaining 10%, a good fraction may notice but prefer the new convenience. Those who remain can find the difference between most and all, or go corded.)

Let’s also ignore any understanding of the DAC quality between older iPods and newer iPhones, where even the dongle Apple sell are considered a high quality DAC.

Let’s also ignore any advances in Codecs in that time, or advances in audio hardware itself.

Let’s also ignore that most iPod users would have bought low quality MP3s or medium quality AACs at the time. Not to mention that most customers use streaming today so wouldn’t even be able to take advantage of the higher quality codecs today.

Finally let’s ignore customer preferences and what niche set of customers would have bought high end enough audio equipment and have the hearing to appreciate and also not want wires today to even fall into your narrow band description.

Who would have thought that if you ignore all aspects that are inconvenient to an argument that you could make any argument you want?

Spotify uses OGG Vorbis codec and streams at 160 kbps at standard bitrate and 320 kbps at high quality

In addition to AAC, the entire Apple Music catalog is now also encoded using ALAC in resolutions ranging from 16-bit/44.1 kHz (CD Quality) up to 24-bit/192 kHz

Amazon Prime Music at 256 kbps

That's about 99% of the streaming music market people actually use

Form has a huge impact on acoustic properties and comfort.

You’d want to compare them against IEMs.

The only major streaming service that doesn't do lossless is Spotify.

Further just about no one is going to be able to tell the 256kb/s AAC that the iPhone sends to headphones across bluetooth from the lossless audio file.

Also, portable headphones have progressed leaps and bound since 2005 and they'll all basically sound better playing over bluetooth than the portable headphones that were out in 2005.

Doubt. Doubt. Doubt. Airpods Pro 2 are actually decent headphones worth the amount of money they are. They are most definitely better than $100 DJ headsets.

Now if you like it that way, great! But that doesn't mean the headphones are objectively better than the Airpods Pro 2. It just means you like those ones better.