mvw2
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2007
- Posts
- 1,879
- Likes
- 106
Head-Fi is a great world. We are all a bunch of audio enthusiasts and have a lot of fun sharing our hobby. I want to bring up the idea of a public share system. Many of use own several headphones at a time. We also have a lot of members who are curious about a wide range of products, many of which they are unwilling to purchase just to try. A member loan setup can offer a lot of members the opportunity to try out various products before buying. This can not only provide valuable listening experience and being able to try before you buy, but it also promotes more educated discussion on products, more reviews, and just gives opportunities to people who otherwise would never have been able (or willing) to experience a product on their own.
I've seen this setup work elsewhere. On DIYMobileAudio in the past where were several demo drivers transitioning from member to member to give people the opportunity to try out a number of products. On here, I've had the opportunity to try a few earphones that I questioned or wasn't willing to buy out right. I was fortunate enough to not only purchase a product from Joker but also share products with each other. We each had several products that interested the other, and we have gone back and forth with a number of earphones each of us owned.
I like the concept. I like what it offers. I see a great opportunity because a lot of us own a slew of headphones. Most members here seem to have 3, 4, 6, or more headphones that we own at any one time. We only listen to one or two most of the time, and the rest just sit. This provides a golden opportunity to share some of these products with others and let them experience some really wondrous headphones that they wouldn't normally experience.
The challenge would of course be the system to govern the process. Some obvious guidelines would exist. For example, you pay your own shipping, and maybe insurance is mandatory. If the product is on loan to someone, that person has all liability for damages. You break, you buy, simple. If someone is planning to receive a shared product, they have to be willing to cover costs if anything goes wrong. The loader program may work off a public availability list. People would offer up what they are willing to share. People would work off this list to ask to demo that product. There would be the option to keep a product available for a while and have it floating from person to person or take it off the listen and have the last person mail it back to the original owner instead of a next individual. A system would need to be in place that says who has what at any time and if there is a queue on the item and were you may be on that queue. This lets people know what's going on with each item. The original owner would have full control over his earphone, so if there was a queue of 5 people and he wanted it back now, he would inform the current loan-e to send it back to him and it would be taken off the list. It should be relatively public. There may be some limitations associated with eligibility of members like post count, join date, if the member is being active on the site, etc. This may even include public info like name and address and the product can only be shipped to and from that location. There may be limits to where only each member can have one earphone in their position at any given time.
These are just my thoughts. I'm sure there are a lot of people on here that are interested in something of this sort. Comment, share opinions, share thoughts on the idea.
I've seen this setup work elsewhere. On DIYMobileAudio in the past where were several demo drivers transitioning from member to member to give people the opportunity to try out a number of products. On here, I've had the opportunity to try a few earphones that I questioned or wasn't willing to buy out right. I was fortunate enough to not only purchase a product from Joker but also share products with each other. We each had several products that interested the other, and we have gone back and forth with a number of earphones each of us owned.
I like the concept. I like what it offers. I see a great opportunity because a lot of us own a slew of headphones. Most members here seem to have 3, 4, 6, or more headphones that we own at any one time. We only listen to one or two most of the time, and the rest just sit. This provides a golden opportunity to share some of these products with others and let them experience some really wondrous headphones that they wouldn't normally experience.
The challenge would of course be the system to govern the process. Some obvious guidelines would exist. For example, you pay your own shipping, and maybe insurance is mandatory. If the product is on loan to someone, that person has all liability for damages. You break, you buy, simple. If someone is planning to receive a shared product, they have to be willing to cover costs if anything goes wrong. The loader program may work off a public availability list. People would offer up what they are willing to share. People would work off this list to ask to demo that product. There would be the option to keep a product available for a while and have it floating from person to person or take it off the listen and have the last person mail it back to the original owner instead of a next individual. A system would need to be in place that says who has what at any time and if there is a queue on the item and were you may be on that queue. This lets people know what's going on with each item. The original owner would have full control over his earphone, so if there was a queue of 5 people and he wanted it back now, he would inform the current loan-e to send it back to him and it would be taken off the list. It should be relatively public. There may be some limitations associated with eligibility of members like post count, join date, if the member is being active on the site, etc. This may even include public info like name and address and the product can only be shipped to and from that location. There may be limits to where only each member can have one earphone in their position at any given time.
These are just my thoughts. I'm sure there are a lot of people on here that are interested in something of this sort. Comment, share opinions, share thoughts on the idea.