| ▲ | bayindirh 6 days ago | |||||||
> 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. | ||||||||
| ▲ | 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: | ||||||||
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