It seems to me that there is very little cross-interest from portable headphone users with those who are interested in IEMs. Is there any particular reason we're forcing people to wade through so much noise to find what they're looking for?
I'm sure that someone who is looking to upgrade from Sennheiser IE8s is just about as interested in HD-25-ii's as I am in reading countless threads about getting customs made, etc.
Totally different market, totally different tastes.
Mmm, I think the same as you. Just like full-sized cans doesn't have much to do with portable cans, portable cans have little to do with earbuds and IEMs.
Since IEMs seem to be very popular, they may benefit from having their own forum. Just like I'm not very interested in anything except IEMs, I can fully understand people being a bit frustrated when reading this subforum when looking for a new pair of earbuds and finding that most of the threads are IEM related.
I think its nice to have both types in the same forum, so at least you catch a glimpse of what is over the fence. To the average consumer coming into this forum as a new user, I don't think they will be overly prejudiced towards either in ears or headphones - they will just want advice on what is something good they can use with their iPods. I think splitting the forums in two would hamper that kind of discussion.
I guess if you consider the actual normal usage of IEM's and portable headphones - ie: they are both for out and about use - there is no real reason to preference one more than another. I think after getting a few nice headphones, my insight into IEM's has improved as well - namely what I'm missing in terms of visceral bass response and soundstage, but also surprisingly some advantages in terms of speed and resolution.
^x2
The average consumer who comes to these forums for the first time can hardly discriminate between IEMs, portables, and earbuds. It's better to have a single portable forum where advice can be tailored to a person's situation (eg. do they need noise isolation) and preferences (eg. do they mind things being shoved up their ears).
I think its nice to have both types in the same forum, so at least you catch a glimpse of what is over the fence. To the average consumer coming into this forum as a new user, I don't think they will be overly prejudiced towards either in ears or headphones - they will just want advice on what is something good they can use with their iPods. I think splitting the forums in two would hamper that kind of discussion.
I guess if you consider the actual normal usage of IEM's and portable headphones - ie: they are both for out and about use - there is no real reason to preference one more than another. I think after getting a few nice headphones, my insight into IEM's has improved as well - namely what I'm missing in terms of visceral bass response and soundstage, but also surprisingly some advantages in terms of speed and resolution.
I agree with this as well... though I am not only thinking of the average consumer, my insight for portable audio equipments in general has improved a lot as well due to the exposure of both types of equipments. In fact, I am slightly disappointed that sources and portable amps have their own forums, so I have to waddle all the way over there to look up stuff that I need. So, I am not really agreeing with this entire "because it is Head-Fi, we should be even more specialized than what is needed".
I think a lot of us would have started as an average consumer on Head Fi at some point. While you might take pride in knowledge and experience, theres a fine line between that and insular elitism. Starting out between portable headphones and in ears, it really may not be possible to know the difference in sound between the two.
To split the forum into two, you'll need both to have sufficient 'flow' of threads/posts on both subjects, or else you just ends up with one popular and one deserted forums. People are inherently lazy - a person with both IEM and portable cans will likely to spend the majority of time in the sub-forum that (s)he is most involved in and not likely to contribute as much on the other sub-forum even though (s)he could. The thing is, I don't think we have seen enough portable cans discussions right now for it to need to be independent from the IEM discussion. If we separate them, eventually you will see people posting portable cans discussion over at the IEM forum because they don't get enough reply from the portable cans forum.
Plus, the forum isn't particularly busy now - we are seeing an average of 2~3 pages of threads-turnover-time daily, so you won't actually miss any particular discussion because of too many postings resulting in thread being pushed to the back. That is different from the time when Full-size and portable / IEM / earbuds in the same forum (where threads-turnover-time can go up as far as 5~10 pages daily).
I agree that it should be split. I've been perusing portable cans lately and all I see is freakin' IEM threads. If the 'average user' need's to see over the fence...it's only a click away. Who cares if it doesn't see as much action? At least it will be less frustrating to people. It's not like it's going to take up 100TB of storage just sitting there.
It might sound nice and logical at an end user's POV to divide everything into pieces so everyone gets a slice of the pie, but it is not just simple clicks and resetting things around for admin. They have to balance between making the forum easy-to-use for everyone and keeping the forum at both stable and sustainable grow at management level.
I don't see the upside. If there's not that much traffic on the forum as it is now, what's the advantage in splitting it up?
I also think that when people are looking around for a resource, they may not have their mind clearly made up between portables and iems, so why not have the information nice and accessible?
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