> Can you give me an example of another battery/power pack which is built today and can continue operating for 11 years without degrading?

I have LiFePo4 batteries from K2 Energy that will be 13 years old in a few months. They were designed as replacements for SLA batteries. Just the other day, I had put two of them into a UPS that needed a battery replacement. They had outlived the UPS units where I had them previously.

I have heard of Nickel Iron batteries around 100 years old that still work, although the only current modern manufacturers are in China. The last US manufacturer went out of business in 2023.

> You want genuinely better sounding drivers, you'll pay top dollar in most cases.

I do not doubt that, but if the signal processing improves things, I would consider that to be a quality improvement.

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bayindirh 6 days ago | parent [-]

> The last US manufacturer went out of business in 2023.

Interesting, but they are not manufactured more, but way less, as you can see. So, quality doesn't drive the market. Monies do.

> I do not doubt that, but if the signal processing improves things, I would consider that to be a quality improvement.

Depends on the "improvement" you are looking for. If you are a casual listener hunting for an enjoyable pair while at a run or gym, you can argue that's an improvement.

But if you're looking for resolution increases, they're not there. I occasionally put one of my favorite albums on, get a tea, and listen to that album for the sake of listening to it. It's sadly not possible on all gear I have. You don't need to pay $1MM, but you need to select the parts correctly. You still need a good class AB or an exceptional class D amplifier to get good sound from a good pair of speakers.

This "apparent" improvement which is not there drives me nuts actually. Yes, we're better from some aspects (you can get hooked to feeds instead of drugs and get the same harm for free), but don't get distracted, the aim is to make numbers and line go up.

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ryao 6 days ago | parent [-]

> Interesting, but they are not manufactured more, but way less, as you can see. So, quality doesn't drive the market. Monies do.

They were always really expensive, heavy and had low energy density (both by weight and by volume). Power density was lower than lead acid batteries. Furthermore, they would cause a hydrolysis reaction in their electrolyte, consuming water and producing a mix of oxygen and hydrogen gas, which could cause explosions if not properly vented. This required periodic addition of water to the electrolyte. They also had issues operating at lower temperatures.

They were only higher quality if you looked at longevity and nothing else. I had long thought about getting them for home energy storage, but I decided against them in favor of waiting for LiFePo4 based solutions to mature.

By the way, I did a bit more digging. It turns out that US production of NiFe batteries ended before 2023, as the company that was supposed to make them had outsourced production to China:

https://www.terravolt.net/iron-edison

	▲	bayindirh 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		> They were always really expensive, heavy and had low energy density (both by weight and by volume). Sorry, I misread your comment. I thought you were talking about LiFePo4 production ending in 2023, not NiFe. I know that NiFe batteries are not suitable (or possible to be precise) to be miniaturized. :) I still wish market does research on longevity as much as charge speed and capacity, but it seems companies are happy to have batteries with shorter and shorter life spans to keep up with their version of the razor and blades model. Also, this is why regulation is necessary in some areas.