is there a large amount of people here who hype up products quite often? - Page 3

more like: If a bear ****s in the wood and no one hear it, did he really shat on the woods?

LCD3?

We'll see. The LCD2 got a lot of popularity due to its attractive price.

But the LCD3 is priced higher than some excellent headphones and speakers. A used Magnepan 1.6 costs less and can be amplified for less. We'll see how that shakes out.

 

Excellent point as always Uncle Erik! FWIW, I thought they sounded nice but definitely not $1,000 nice.
 

 

Erik, Audeze most likely only has to sell 1/4 as many of the LCD3s to be as profitable as the LCD2. So if you're going to determine success in terms of sheer volume then you'd be right. If you measure it in terms of profit I have little doubt it'll be as profitable to their bottom line as the LCD2 has been.

A small group of people are going around recommending the HTF600 for anyone looking for a <$150 headphone...

 

 

shoot 'em at sight

 

I look at this ratio:

 

Words written in a review/impression about a headphone's sound : Amount of time spent with that headphone

 

The higher that ratio is, the more they are making up/imagining things and the less I listen to them.

..

The hypists usually use the typical salesmen tactics... I shall demonstrate.

 

Innocentguy: Hi, I been lurking in these forums just joined today, looking for headphones with lots and lots of bass.

Randomguy: Hi, can you list your price range?

Innocentguy: Oh sorry. I was thinking of something around $120 but I can increase it to $150 if it is worth it.

Randomguy: You might want to take a look at the M50 and HFI-580. Both very good headphones.

Hypist: Hi there, are you looking for a bassy headphone? I have just the solution for you. Get these X-brand headphones

           for $30, and maybe some velour pads for added comfort for another $10. THIS HEADPHONE IS CATCHING FIRE.

           Everyone is saying these are great and worth many times their price. So what you got to lose? Just try them, if you

           don't feel like they're for you, then give it to your nephew. It'd make a great birthday present But I assure you man, these

           babies are worth every single penny. You won't regret it. Join the club.

Hypist2: I agree. I've spent so much on higher end headphones but this X-brand ones are just so fun to listen to. They've been

             getting more headtime than my higher end headphones. You should definitely try it. Plus like hypist said, they're only

             30 bucks.

Innocentguy: Sounds promising, I'll look into it thanks. 

 

A week later...

 

Innocentguy: Ok dude I just got my x-brand headphones but they sound really muffled and muddy, did I get a bad pair?
Hypist2: No man, they just need time to burn-in.

Hypist: First of all, welcome to THA CLUB. And what hypist2 said. These babies will start to smooth out in 20 hours but I'd

           recommend at least 100 hours of burn-in. They're real gems.

Innocentguy: oh ok I'll try that.

 

 

^ I get a bit annoyed when people recommend "giant killers" way below the OP's price range.

 

Admittedly I believe I get on the hype train for headphones I own/auditioned. I don't have a wide range of headphones so I tend to stick to threads of headphones I've heard, which can lead to recommending them to new people... and it goes on. I try to make appropriate recommendations.

Sounds familiar.. :)

 

The velour pads part gave it away 

All things are like this and it is really the fun in consumerism. The best one before headphones for me was bike parts. In road bikes we had all these different levels of parts and there was a hysteria involved which in some ways was like Head-Fi. In bike groups there could be a set of brakes with just the right finish and look. At times the parts were expensive and now days you can spend 16K on a fully dialed in road bike. One difference I see in Head-Fi is there is really not a level of pro consumers which end up being a study group for the under developed members. In the Tour De France you could see all the best equipment in this make it or fail test and there was always a factor that history was being made right on the spot. 

 

Please, can just a bike part allow you to ride the bike faster? Well maybe in an air tunnel the jet stream around the bike part is a little more smooth? Placebo? Can the LCD 3s launch you into a land of joy never to return? These purchases have a great imagination factor and that is how you get sucked in. Many with common sense realize that elephants don't fly and any improvements will be incremental at best. The use of a free on-line education increases all this as you have a wave of people to verify this so called new truth. Here, just like the rest of the web we have folks who seem to use the power of on-line communication to sell stuff through great hidden marketing. There is no way to stop it other than to make all your purchases with caution. 

 

After over 20 years in sales I had my share of shills. There is a slight smell which takes years to really understand how to hear and see. The hard part about my work was I at times while trying to sell something would spend hours with a client only at the end to find out the client was never really interested in buying my product but had other motives for spending time with me that day. They wanted me to sell for them or wanted to sell me something. 

 

That is the price we pay to have information at hand. This time I spent with the fake shills was my test as I had to ask the right questions to find the truth of the matter. There has always been blinds which mislead the new one astray as he has to pay his dues before entering the promised land. The best form to hold is trust your friends and realize that elephants don't fly. It will never end here and the best thing to do is just trust the word of the respected ones who really care.

 

It's pretty obvious what the headphones in question are, though I've never seen the velour pads in question sell for just $10 instead of $20.

 

I have a set myself, but I don't go recommending it to people willing to spend over $100 on bassy headphones. In fact, the chief reasons for owning it boil down to passing my own judgment on all the hype and getting acquainted with more sound signatures (as well as needing a portable headphone). By no means do I expect them to be "giant killers"-that's just ridiculous and a clear sign that the hype has gone too far. (Also, in my own experiences with burning them in, it seems like they lost bass impact, if not volume, and the blanket over the mids hasn't been lifted.)

 

I find that it also helps to know the preferences of those recommending certain products. I think I remember a few cases where someone was looking for more balanced and detailed headphones, and then the bassheads show up recommending bassier equipment...

We'd be naive to think viral marketing wasn't a reality in a hobby where subjective impressions far outweigh the (available) objective measurements for any given piece of kit. I don't know that too many actually get paid cash for it, but you start sending me review samples of kit I couldn't hope to afford and I'm inclined to think that I will like what I hear - if I don't, the goodies stop turning up at my door. Something I've noticed at HF is that anyone who is moving from thread to thread recommending the same gear tends to get called for it, sooner or later, but it doesnt take long to realise who the hypesters are.

 

The other side of the coin is that you can become so cynical of every new 'must have' that comes down the pike that its easy to just dismiss everything you cant afford as 'overpriced / overhyped crap'. I tend to look back over reviews from kit released 2+ years ago, and see if its still highly regarded - you will find that a lot of gear from people like Decware, Eddie Current, Headamp and DNA simply doesn't go 'out of fashion' as quickly as some others I'm not prepared to mention.