It often surprises me to see people with time, money, and knowledge settling for subpar experiences that have night and day differences to me. Even at my brokest (pretty darn broke), speakers, headphones, and glasses were always worth researching and some saving up, and the difference between what I'd end up with and the average always feels like it paid off tenfold.
I've got a surprising number of friends/acquaintances who just don't seem to care, though, and I am trying to understand if they just don't experience the difference similarly or if they don't mind. I know musicians who just continue using generation 1 airpods or the headphones included with their phone, birdwatchers who don't care about their binoculars, people who don't care if they could easily make their food taste better, and more examples of people who, in my opinion, could get 50% better results/experiences by putting in 1% more thought/effort.
When I've asked some friends about it, it sounds as much like they just don't care as they don't experience the difference as starkly as I do, but I have a hard time understanding that, as it's most often an objective sensory difference. Like I experience the difference between different pairs of binoculars and speakers dramatically, and graphical analysis backs up the differences, so how could they sound/look negligibly different to others? Is it just a matter of my priorities not being others' priorities, or do they actually experience the difference between various levels of quality as smaller than I seem to? What's your take on both major and, at the high end, diminishing returns on higher quality sensory experiences?
I do value high fidelity media, but frankly I can't say that I notice a difference between say, 320 kbps mp3 audio and FLAC audio-- and yes I have a nice DAC + headphones so there's no bottlenecks. I used to have all my music as FLAC files but these days I don't have the $$$ to buy more storage so I find myself converting everything to 320 kbps MP3 files and I'm okay with that.
For movies, I've only got 1080p monitors + a 720p projector so for the most part I just download 1080p movies. I burn movies and TV shows to Blu-Ray discs so for some S-tier stuff I'll download the 4K release and burn it to a BD-R in hopes that someday I can afford 4K and all the damn PC hardware upgrades that's going to require. But I'm in no rush, 1080p is fine by me and 720p on the projector is great.
I'm into photography, and I'm like you when it comes to lenses. Quality > quantity, any day of the week. I'd much rather choose a nice 40mm prime lens over a 17-70mm lens with mediocre glass.
My friends are kind of like yours but they know that when they want something of high quality, they can ask me and I'll gladly do the research then give them several options. I really enjoy well-made products and I despise poorly-made products so much. As a result, I'm finally at that point in my life where quality purchases I made 15+ years ago are still working great and it feels good.
That said, I do try to keep my purchases to a minimum because it's way too easy to fall for marketing + consumerism.
Buy once, cry once. Ironically itβs saved me a ton of money in the past.