MANY OF THE fine details captured in a music recording—the textured cascade of hand claps in Chic’s “Le Freak” or Billie Eilish’s breathy inhalation before she begins each verse—rarely make their way to your ears. To blame: low-quality audio streams or equipment too crude to reproduce such sonic subtleties. Happy to shell out massive bucks to hear every nuance, audiophiles have been known to spend more than $1,000 for earphones from Campfire Audio, more than $10,000 for amps from Shindo Labs or upward of $20,000 for speakers by Bowers & Wilkins.

Unsurprisingly,...