I’d prefer lossless, sure, but the library is more important to me. I tried Tidal, but it was missing several artists I wanted and then the whole MQA controversy meant I wasn’t really getting lossless anyway. Not touching Apple Music with a 10 foot pole because I don’t use Apple devices and they actively spite users on other platforms.

At the end of the day, I prefer my own FLAC copies anyway, but Spotify fills in when I want to listen to something I don’t have.

I knew the tech was around for a long while, it was just so uncommon until recently. I guess that’s an even bigger indication of how little tech advancements there have really been in headphones.

Try 25 years. The Sennheiser HD600 is still considered great.

I will say that there’s a way better selection of great headphones now than pretty much ever, but things largely haven’t changed. Planar headphones were the biggest thing to happen since then and they’re not necessarily better than old dynamic drivers, just better at different things.

At the end of the day, a headphone just turns squiggly electric waves into a medium that wiggles and pushes air in ways that make noise. Tech advances don’t really do much to change that basic concept.