This is a repost. I am not the original author (see disclaimer at the bottom).

A bit of a long post that was inspired by a few conversations on r/headphones asking about what exactly happened (this one in particular recently). And I have the right brand of obsession with the industry to give you all the rundown.

The Main Players

• Campfire Audio or commonly abbreviated as CFA, the "antagonist" of this drama. They are a company based in the US that builds and sells high-end (>$200) earphones that the community refers to as "IEMs" (which means "In-Ear Monitors").
• Ken Ball, the CEO of Campfire Audio. Despite his position, he still participates relatively frequently on audiophile forums.
• "crinacle", an earphone reviewer. More about him later.

Why does [r/headphones](

This writeup was originally posted to /r/hobbydramma in October 2022, and has since been deleted. This version has been slightly edited for improved clarity and to add some new details that have developed since I made the original post.

Some Background on Digital Audio

This section might get a bit technical, but it’s essential for understanding the nature of this controversy. I’ll try to keep it as simple as possible.

Audio, like most forms of media, can be encoded digitally in a number of different ways. One of the key distinguishing features when comparing digital audio formats, is whether the encoded audio is lossy or lossless. Lossless audio formats store encoded audio signals in their entirety. When decoded, lossless audio is indistinguishable from the original unencoded signal. By contrast, lossy audio formats produce a signal that is close, but not quite identical to the original, hence they “lose” information. This loss is usually intentional, and is done in order to