I've always wanted to try putting something like a guitar compressor pedal in the audio chain just to normalize the peaks. My wife will find something to watch, but ends up spending half the time adjusting the volume, or just turning on subtitles.
That's my gold standard. I've used just about everything under the sun. They've all failed, except this one. I have a few of these now. They've survived all kinds of punishment. Hell even being left in my pocket and going through several wash/dry cycles.
I have an upcoming contender if it keeps going, and it's a Kingston Lexar. 128gig I use mostly for work. All metal housing, no moving parts and attached to my keychain. It's not been wash/dried yet. But it goes with me every day. And it's used nearly daily too.
Edit: Nvm, just looked at right now, my keychain drive is also Lexar, so NVM, Lexar all day 'er day.
To be fair, there is and has been a KDE spin. I can see an argument for gnome, as it's overall the simpler environment. Simple defaults has been fedoras thing for a long time.