from Julian Shapiro | by Julian Shapiro

I went to a "hifi audio" store and listened to a $160,000 pair of speakers 😂 I need to explain what happened. 🧵

It started with me seeing a famous YouTuber crying his eyes out in a thumbnail I clicked He's notorious for calling out fake sales claims Here, he tests $4K headphones said to play music so intensely they make you involuntarily cry. He roasts 'em. Then 11min later.. he cries. t.co/P9qDs5Nau5

🤔 Are you telling me that, with the aid of clever engineering, speakers can tickle your brain into a state of catharsis—on command? How did I not know this was a thing?

Sounds like a catch-free way of giving yourself dopamine hits throughout the day. Like eating your favorite snack with no repercussions. Over and over again. So the next day, I visited local hifi audio stores. My plan:

1. To hear if the best speakers could hijack my brain and send me to euphoria. 2. I also wanted to hear my favorite songs sound 10x better. What would that be like?

The first speaker setup I listened to was priced at $160,000, which is crazy. It was engineered by university researchers to maximize control over sound reproduction with razor-sharp precision. It was fascinating to hear music sound so... t.co/D5tURDNm4u

... controlled. Think of a race car with high-end calipers that can stop on a dime. That’s what these do. This is not something you'd hear in nature. It was the first time I realized there are ways of reproducing music I’d never heard before. Interesting. However...

... the speakers eventually fatigued my ears. Next up was this $38K pair of speakers: t.co/mqkHSdAovt

They sounded good. More of everything you'd want—more dynamics, more bass, more immersion. But they certainly didn’t make me cry. After four hours of listening to this stuff...

... I began to realize that hifi is an engineers’ pursuit of one-upping each other for greater sonic clarity, scale, dynamics, and bass. And the reason Linus the YouTuber cried was actually due to his song choice (it was emotional). Before leaving the store, though...

...I asked to listen to one more system: the Audiovector R6 Arreté. I had seen it among the best-reviewed speakers. The store owner obliged, asked me to sit in a particular location, and did something he hadn’t done before... Stayed in the room to watch me.

Specifically, to watch my feet. He hit play and we listened to a test track. t.co/rt7NoOLkAo

Sweet. Mother. Of. Johannesburg. Whereas the other speakers sounded like my ears were being hit with sound, this speaker sounded like it filled the room with a river of sound, and that I was standing in the middle of the stream.

Meaning, the music was no longer being played *at* my ears, rather it was flowing through my ears. What the heck was going on? How was this being achieved? Was this the equivalent of those $4,500 headphones that made Linus cry? I asked the store owner to crank the volume up.

I noticed that, unlike with other speakers, instead of the music sounding like it was playing louder, it became increasingly absorbing as it wrapped around my shoulders and hugged me.

When playing a live concert track while closing my eyes, it got hard to tell that I wasn’t actually at a concert. But it was so much better than a concert. It was like being perfectly centered in a stadium’s acoustic sweet spot—while music engulfs you completely.

I now realized why the store owner was watching my feet: because I couldn’t stop tapping. It was impossible not to when your brain was being hijacked by your favorite song suddenly sounding 10x better than you’ve ever heard it before.

You would not believe @mattreevesLA + @m_giacchino's The Batman score. Sheesh. This wasn’t the "more of everything" I described earlier—more dynamics, more bass, and so on. No, this speaker transcended to a different level.

Think of it like this: Imagine only eating rice and beans for 40 years then suddenly being handed a Twix caramel chocolate bar. The Twix isn’t merely more of what you’ve already experienced—more starchiness and more chew.

No, it’s a different experience altogether involving sugar-induced insulin and dopamine release. That's what this was. It reminded me of Perfect Level from Rick and Morty: something you never knew existed and you'll never shake once you’ve felt it. t.co/t6fgB9VZkl t.co/OlYHqJs14e

Or maybe it's more like those Magic Eye puzzles where a hidden holographic dimension emerges when you have the right view: t.co/Yda4MHyLMJ

So it was that afternoon that I discovered there’s a subculture of brilliant engineers devising ways to provide non-stop dopamine hits in the form of euphoric audio. In the comfort of your home. Oh, I haven't mentioned movies yet.. I will rewatch @JamesGunn's movies now.

After a year of hifi testing, I've written a guide on t.co/8y68CQA9Ep to give you a taste of this experience. It shows you how to buy your own speaker setup too. I have nothing to sell—no ads—just having fun like usual.

Many speakers are returnable with 30-day return periods. So if you can afford a test, perhaps try it. It also covers why the Audiovectors sound so good. What’s going on with those? Plus, I bet you're curious: What does hifi sound like? Well, the guide features audio samples.

Before you click, feel free to retweet this thread if it was interesting because I want everyone to know about hifi :) It's good for the soul imo. Listen to hifi samples and look at speakers here: t.co/tWxNiyTVGC