I’ve recently decided that I want to get myself a new listening device, whether that’s a new set of speakers, or some headphones etc. but I find that it’s really difficult to pinpoint the language for what I want as I don’t really know exactly what to search for and was hoping someone here would be able to help me find the words.

I think I might get slated by some true audiophiles in this sub but this has all stemmed from when I listened to music on my girlfriends 2019 Macbook Pro - the speaker quality was unbelievable to me considering the size of the laptop, but what struck me the most was how much it sounded like a really loud and powerful system with deep bass and clear mids + treble, without actually being that loud at all. I notice a similar effect on my phone speakers, a Samsung S20 FE, which is of course tiny and produces no real bass, but has this effect of letting me hear the entire song, bass, higher melodics, vocals and all, at a decent perceived volume, without my neighbours or family having to hear it as well.

I currently have a cheap couple of stereo speakers with a subwoofer that sounds OK, but I really don’t have that much opportunity to play music how I want, because at the volume that I like, it’s far too disruptively loud to be something I can use on a daily basis. I’m currently looking into some more expensive Bluetooth speakers, like a Harman Kardon Go, which seems to be reviewed well, but I suspect might have the same issue where it’ll be too loud.

I’m not sure if this makes sense but it’s almost like I want a speaker that has in-built compression, so that the dynamic range is lower, and it doesn’t need to be crazy loud to get a full sense of the frequency spectrum. I’d appreciate anyone’s insight into this.