The Unofficial Impressions About Meet Impressions Thread - Page 4  

I think we are all forgetting an important thing: impressions are FUN. We love to hear the opinion of other members, and we know that many times they are spontaneous and they may be wrong or have their biases. This is normal. We are not always buying new gear and researching for our future purchases -- at least not me! . We read and write impressions because we like to do it. We do it for fun.
Head-Fi is not (or should not be) a free marketing platform for small manufacturers. They cannot expect responsabity of its members if a new product gets burned because one of us had a bad day. They have other tools to promote their products, and they are responsible if they do not use them. We cannot do their work for them, doesn't matter the size of their companies.

Well, I'm not lobbying for people to be aggressive. Just that people should feel free to be honest about their own experiences. I tend to think that over-the-top behaviour tends to get damped pretty fast---and fairly diplomatically--- by the long time posters here. Jude and the mods have done a good job of setting a tone, and, by and large, opinions tend to settle out pretty well in the natural course of conversation.

I really don't see the need for adding a layer of political correctness on top of that.

My use of the word "aggressive" was inappropriate for communicating what I was trying to say. What I meant was that Head-Fi should urge people, who have negative comments, to communicate their thoughts to manufacturers, by PM. This would be in addition to whatever comments they post openly, for the benefit of all.

Meets are good places to chat, hear new stuff/stuff you never heard in rigs that are already synergized and may be hard to cobble together at home (time/money).

Home is where you can hear stuff any way you want as long as you want (and as quiet as you want!) but are restricted by the old rig around your new purchase and your budget.

Head-Fi is a good reference place if you can't do either of the above to check something out, but is the WORST of the three. Nothing replaces live experience, even if that experience isn't ideal.

So there you go!

I was not the one who suggested you should apologize for anything, David.

I don't think I am a reviewer the same way that a Stereophile writer is, and I don't have the same journalistic ethics to maintain. But I didn't say, or certainly didn't mean, that we as Head-Fiers should not post negative comments about the vendors even if we like them personally and/or professionally. I have posted negative comments and ranked products in reviews, etc, and I have even gotten heat from vendors for it occasionally, but I wrote those comments thoughtfully and with an adequate basis for my conclusions. Hearing something in a crowded meet room for one minute without knowing all of the variables involved (source, cables, burned in, brand new, etc) and then making a definitive statement that the product sucks or that the product is the greatest is not productive and can be harmful. That's all I am saying.

And my recollection of your typical meet post is that you go out of your way to set all those expectations, inform on your biases, and then state your comments in terms of your opinion. It doesn't require writing a tome each post, and it doesn't mean people always must say "in my opinion" or "to my ears," but the context and depth of your analysis does help frame your thoughts.

All vendors should take the same attitude and can benefit from good and bad feedback. I agree with that 100%, but I don't think that making sure one's comments are well-taken requires softening of opinions or political correctness.

Thank you for saying it better than I did, Tao.

Agreed! Now, back to the fun part because I still have some random pics and thoughts to post...

Yes, back to the fun, I'm still waiting for some more of your thoughts.

Impressions are not only suppose to be fun, but should express honest opinions; not mere puffery. Since that can get dull after a while.

So be just, polite and fear not. Yet it isn't easy to dish out constructive criticism. Whether it be out of some sense of loyalty, backlash fears, or if you don't have anything positive to say don't say anything mentality. However, I think it does a major disservice to the manufacturer (whether they realize it), their competitors, and the Head-Fi community. Because it can erode trust, falsely promote, and doesn’t encourage improvement.

I've been contacted by one manufacturer after an unflattering post. I've held back on occasion, waited, or not posted. But I try balance my opinion as much as possible especially when I am dealing with a negative.

It is unrealistic to think everyone is going to like every product and only positives should be posted, but certain people and some manufacturers expect it or prefer it that way. Sadly only positive comments may result in skewing public perception and others’ opinions, and unjustly shifting market share.

When I saw this as the latest post, I was sure it was in this thread. Seems appropriate here too, in my opinion and to my mind, of course.

You thought my post appropriate--nice to know, sorry I can't say the same with yours here.

Kind of like thinking you're drinking water, but in fact it's pop or something. Similar to what happened yesterday--a bit bizarre. But don't derail the purpose for which you created this thread as those particulars persist on granodemostasa's comments. Maybe we need another thread for that topic since it also derails (imo and mind) the actual impressions thread. Keep it clean.

For the OP, unless the posts have been deleted, and I can't think why, it's not your posts that you have to read, but the posts of others. I promise you, there was a negative feeling about what you said - NOT about the gear itself, but attitude towards the hotel and then the fiasco with the cd player. It's all there. At this point, I think it's just attention-getting. The OP posts something that will insight bad feeling, then makes an "oh woe is me why is everyone angry at me" thread, under the guise of civilized discourse.

When of course the topic at hand really isn't the topic at all, and if I'm wrong then I'm wrong, but that's what happens when you add context.

David is right. I started this thread by pulling out a lengthy exchange from the main meet thread because I thought it made more sense as a separate discussion. When I did it, I also wrote a post indicating why I did so, but that came at the end of the thread because it was chronologically later. With my meager moderator skills/knowledge I could not figure out how to put in a new first post, so I just added that comment in David's first post.

In the meantime, I think plenty has been said on the initial topic, plus there has been a lot of discussion on David's comments in the meet thread. I think he has clarified his comments and he has even apologized if his comments were construed as being out of line. That's more than enough closure.

I started it, now I am going to stop it. Thread is closed.