Agreed to a point. I believe something else is relevant, and if not the most important role in audio quality; the artist and producer! It all starts with great sounding musicians and artists.. then it needs to be recorded properly! Get someone in the studio who doesn't know what they're doing and mix down the recordings correctly, and you've got terrible sound no matter what it gets played through!
I've always said audio quality is 97% artist/producer, 3% audio playback equipment.
Agree with all of that... But see above!
True story: the human ear at it's best (a young person's healthy ears) can only hear frequencies between 20Hz and 20KHz. A lot less as we get older, some of us have our hearing destroyed by attending loud rock concerts, firing guns, and other loud noises that gradually deteriorate our hearing during the course of our lives.
I'm in this club with Laura. I'm 47, and have played with and experimented with all kinds of analog audio ever since I figured out how to take things apart. I think I was 8 or 9 years old when I disassembled my first radio and wired extra speakers into it. I was fascinated by how speakers worked! I remember my mom even buying me one of those "build your own radio" project kits from Radio Shack when I was like 12. It wasn't long after that when I discovered the electric guitar and amplifiers! Piles and piles of audio cables, RCA connectors, adapters, jacks, mixers, etc etc soon began to clutter my bedroom. You'd have to climb over this stuff just to walk in my room lol... This was waaaaay before the digital age.
And I still have my circa '80's turntable and my entire collection of about 2000 vinyl LPs as well.
Why am I posting all of this? IDFK.. Just saying, no matter what tech the big companies like Apple, Google, or MSFT decide they want us to use for our audio listening, I'll have no problem with figuring out what to use that works best for me, and the artists and producers that I choose to listen to will sound fantastic!
I did skim through some of the iPhone 7 announcement specs, and it all looks fine and dandy, but I'm still satisfied with what I've got for now. Maybe by the time the "7S Plus" rolls out I'll be ready, or who knows, maybe Google will have something that entices me. I seriously doubt MSFT will.
My quick thoughts on the new iPhone 7 stuff:
That new dual camera thingie on the plus model looks pretty cool! Cameras just keep getting better and better!
The Home button - I'm glad they finally did something with the mechanical switch! This is something that'll definitely be better to wait for the S model, so it can mature a little.
The 3.5 delete - ok, so what... they include the new lightning headset in the box, or there's plenty of 3rd party BT headsets (and I'm sure soon to be lightning) out there if you don't want to buy the "Air Pods"... If not, and you must use the 3.5mm headset you already have, just use the adapter...
The new Jet Black finish - this is something where if I happen to see it in person, it might negate everything I said above about being content and waiting for the S model. I've been known to make an impulse purchase before! lol