Head-Fi mentioned in New York Times article about headphones! - Page 2

Congrats! 

People who LOVE Beats by Dre are also the people who rattle every last bolt in their car loose with 500W+ subwoofers

 

Audiophile: a person who is enthusiastic about high-fidelity sound reproduction

 

Is overbearing distorted bass high-fidelity?  If that's what the artist and producer were going for, then the answer is yes!

 

 

...just thought I'd throw this out there

Not to be a spoil sport or polemic about this, but I'm curious why generating more interest among folks in head-fi or headphones is necessarily (or supposed to be) a good thing?  I'm trying to figure this one out - is the thought that if more new people are interested in headphones, the more incentive there'll be for manufacturers to develop new products?  To answer my own question, I doubt that the result of greater interest in our hobby will necessarily (or likely) result in greater improvements in the kinds of headphones and equipment we typically would want or have already.  Similarly, why is it necessarily "good" that more people get educated about headphones?  Even if that happens as a result of this article or other publicity, either we end up with more undesirable mass market cans and equipment, along the lines of Beats or whatever, or headphone manufacturers will simply find yet another reason to raise their prices even higher than their overly high prices now (yeah, I'm one of those who thinks 195 dollars or more for a 2 inch LOD cable is waaay too much, for example, as nice as it may look, even taking into consideration that the manufacturers have to make a profit - to my mind, overpriced is overpriced, as I see it.)   And why is it assumed that attracting more users to head-fi will result in a better website rather than simply cluttering head-fi up with unnecessary posts?  Attracting more head-fi users may increase sales for sponsors here, but how will it improve our user experience?  

 

This is a long way of saying that more doesn't necessarily mean better.

That last paragraph was hilarious.

They've done a few headphones with Adidas, but the only ones people really talk about are the rebranded 25s.

 

 

 

awesome!

    Congrats Jude!

love the use of Pangloss.

 

Lol I love the "self proclaimed audiophile" who bought beats....it is odd she talked to the guy from Headroom and still ended up recommending some decidedly poor headphones.

Having the same "shop talk" in the story as the typical Head-Fi forum post would alienate most readers.

 

 

This article brings them in and then they can find the refinement they deserve.

 

 

Edited by hamburgerladdy - 2/6/12 at 11:51am

Whelp. 

 

Firstly... Congrats! Head-Fi is awesome. I totally understand getting eexcited over this Jude, I reckon I'd react the same had I been in you position. 

 

Secondly... A shame that this tech article was written by someone completely new to headphones and seemingly apathetic towards it. The author mentions that a new headphone changed her views of headphones-- she was introduced to the fact that not all cans sound the same; something my mom would have me believe also just to get me to stop buying new ones! The mention of good headphones make a huge difference in sound is a good thing for the average consumer. But onwards is almost like street interviews with people sharing the same background as her in terms of headphones... or that she so happens to have ended up interviewing people that are endorsed by those few unpopular brands here.

rests to say that, although she may have put the effort into writing this article, just about none has been made in researching its contents. With the changes in the way Google searches now, I wouldn't be surprised if she found Head-Fi bby total fluke; and HeadRoom by randomly typing headphone.com just cause its worth a try...

 

While I also question wether more coverage of this site is necessarily a good thing, as the way things have gone till now may have resulted in a user base more serious in HPs, I'm hoping for the best just in case...!

Nice mention.  Congrats to all!

Great to see Head-fi's name put out there to more of the general public.

 

The article is a mix of great, classic headphones and....  well...  crap ones.

 

 

Nice to see a link to Head-Fi.  People that want to become more educated on the subject can browse this forum.

 

Being a newbie myself, I have learned so much in a short time.  It is too bad the writer of this article could not take a little more time on her subject matter.

 

 

Oh well. 

 

..

Excellent exposure, dismaying content.

 

I'm glad that Head-fi got press in the NYT and even more glad the author linked to this site and mentioned Headroom prominently.

 

On the nether hind, I thought this a wretched intro to headphones by a journalistic anachronism who would have been at the forefront of the neophyte zeitgest in 2001 but is culturally inexcusable in 2012. If I'd been her editor, I would have insisted the writer do far more research and resubmit the article, since the NYT is the kind of newspaper that pulled its Circuits Section after deciding that gadget obsessions were no longer "cutting-edge."  Whether you agree with their column writers or not, the NYT tries not to publish the profoundly uninformed. 

 

I'm also surprised and pleased you're a fan of The New York Times, Jude.  Almost no one who lives in NYC is, which makes that old eroding stonehenge, Scrypt, feel a tad isolated in his enjoyment of same. Marxist and indy leftist friends dismiss the editors as fascist tools, and some of my conservative friends notch their noses skyward at the paper's supposedly "leftist" orientation (really centrist democrat according to the classic definition, as certain of our British members might confirm).  

 

All of which overlooks the fact the NYT is fun to read when the individual contributors are good, which happens to be often.

 

Head-fi's getting into the NYT signals the right cultural forces are paying attention, which is why I clink glasses with my grillfiend whenever I merit a tiny photo and/or mention in their Metro blog. Far easier than breaking into the real paper, let alone, a featured section, as Head-fi has done here.  

 

You've every right to be pleased and to call for a virtual celebration.

Edited by scrypt - 2/6/12 at 2:08pm

This. The article is nothing more than a long-winded ad for beats and bose with extremely carefully worded avoidance of comparisons and skillfully planted impressions by so called buyers.

Still, good exposure. Headphone listening will definitely overtake speaker listening. Bandwidth and storage are growing. Today, there's little reason to avoid lossless files simply based on ease of use alone, and tomorrow there won't be any reason to avoid 24/96 in favor of 16/44. All the factors for the growth of a high-end headphone market are coming together, and who knows, maybe binaural will crawl its way out of the grave.

The times we live in could be worse folks.

I will echo what has been said ad nauseum here: I love the exposure, but the article seemed like something written for a highschool newspaper.

 

It's true the author initially admited to being completely new to headphones (although with a pretty good idea of how things would scale up, going from the iBuds to the SRH240). I love the mention of a few serious headphone brands (thumbs up for Audeze and Ety!), but from there on it was like she had 5 minutes left to send the article and she just decided to google the word "headphones". She came upon Head-Fi - again, I'm glad she did, I have no problem with the mass of noobs that might come and I welcome it - she also mentioned Headroom, which are probably the 2 easiest to find links when searching headphones. Basically I think the article had little content, but might turn up very good for our community. Thanks for sharing, Jude.

 

There's no doubt headphones will surpass speaker listening, we need our space now more than ever. Everything's crowded and noisy, and simultaneously it's so easy to carry gigantic audio libraries. A freaking Clip+ can hold 40GB of songs! The price-quality ratio is better on headphones, they are more portable, debatably a fashion accessory. Why wouldn't people prefer them?