Although the comment is a bit dated, I thought that maybe this is a good chance to express some of my personal opinions on this matter with regard to my blog name; Casual & Fun Entertainment. Maybe you are already wondering how does this matter relate to my blog name. Before I went more on it, I will give a fair warning first. This is going to be fairly long.
First of all, what is entertainment? Entertainment are suppose to be something enjoyable; something that temporarily relieve you from your stress. For example, watching dramas or playing games are fun for me and consider entertainment. If I am doing them during my free time leisurely, it's called casual.
However, if I keep going on for more and more without knowing an end. For example, maybe I will buy any merchandise that I came across related to them or even went to the length to chase about all related actors/actress/producers personal information, this is called enthusiastic. If this enthusiasm, even went on to the length of affecting my personal real life, those around me and even worse those actors/actress/producers, this is called hardcore. However, if you are making a living with that enthusiasm, you are known as professional instead of hardcore.
Hence in my opinion, for the vast majority of people, we are just consumers that wanted to enjoy our entertainment casually because we are neither professional in the entertainment industry nor hardcore that wanted to burden those around us. Therefore, we read review or asked for opinions before we decided on what to do with our free time. We just wanted to enjoy ourselves while feeling our hard earned money well spent.
Therefore, I am very happy that someone read my post and give it some thought and even comment it. Hence for those that have the same doubt, if you already read up those before this, you should already identified yourself, are you a casual, hardcore or professional in the matter that you have doubt? If you consider yourself hardcore or professional, then you should already know the answer yourself with tons of theories and hundred of experimental proven results.
If you consider yourself a casual consumer, there is always the same golden rule: you must always try it out yourself before buying. This is because everyone condition and personal preferences differ. For example, the usb cable affecting sound quality myth. You just have to try it out at your own sound system to justify it. Even though some people will give you answer such that tuning it with your equalizer is a better option or so much more. There is always a lot of choices while some maybe just a gimmick until someone debunk it. And sometimes a new technology breakthrough is just want we need.
Therefore, reading more reviews or listening to more opinions before getting something really help broaden up our selection. However, trust yourself whenever you are deciding whether you wanted to get it or not.
Besides that, in order to not have buyer remorse, my personal opinions is that always asked these 3 questions whenever you feel like buying something:
1) Do you really enjoy it
2) Do you feel financially restraint after buying it
3) Do you have time for it after buying it
Never ever buy something on impulse because you saw it being discounted heavily or cheap.
Here is an example of my personal experience when getting my sound system. I am in the between of getting either a Hi-Fi system or Home Theater system. For Hi-Fi system, it would be a 2.0 system with focus on warm vocal as that is my personal preferences. For Home Theater system, it would be a 7.1 system with focus on clear speeches and blowing bass. There is also option to mix some speakers and do a hybrid system by using av processors and such. But by doing so, it skim the budget between the 2.0 pair of speaker and the sub-woofers. And also due to my personal preferences of really warm vocal, the power amplifier for the Hi-Fi does not bode well for Home Theater. Therefore, for the first and second question, I only found enjoyment in the dedicated Hi-Fi system or Home Theater system and do not enjoy the hybrid system with the same allocated budget. Therefore, the deciding factor was the third question. I found that I have more time listening and enjoying to my music collection during my leisure time doing some other stuffs while I at my home. And I can always just hop in a nearby cinema for a good movie. And due to the Home Theater system technology being upgraded too frequently, it cost more to maintain in the long run compare to a good Hi-Fi system.
