Daps have become ridiculously priced. That newer cayin is close to 4k. I sarted buying older classics like the calyx m and ar-m2 for very reasonable prices. Newer daps don't really sound better. No way would I drop 2k on an iem anymore either. Silly prices
Daps have become ridiculously priced. That newer cayin is close to 4k. I sarted buying older classics like the calyx m and ar-m2 for very reasonable prices. Newer daps don't really sound better. No way would I drop 2k on an iem anymore either. Silly prices
Agreed! I have 3 higher end DAPs and several IEM/CIEM's. After retirement my use case changed dramatically. I probably should start selling off some of the equipment.......
Too much marketing, fanboism, fake reviews and such have destroyed the forums I’d say.
Outside these forums, Head-fi is often referred to as snake-oil forum these days.
To me the fanboys are biggest PITA.
Defending products / manufacturers where no defending is needed. Certainly killing rational discussion and plain irritating. Their aggressive stance is always counterproductive.
One more thing: Ad and classified spamming by new users. These people post some random crap with the sole purpose of accessing the classified. Seen a single user selling multiple pairs of $4k+ cans - and they say they are not a dealer (do people think we are dumb)?
I must say. that I have been on here on and off but always into audio stuff ( I have too much stuff) is that possible lol.
what I was saying is I do feel that the buy in to this Hobbie is very expensive. especially if you don't know what your doing not to mention it's very addictive.
by the time you by the headphones/iem you then need some sort of player/dap then me personally I like to pair a nice amp with a dap anyhow.....
not to mention when you get to a point with this Hobbie a slight move can cost hundreds or thousands and have very diminishing returns.
Yeah. Audio in general, diminishing returns starts rather low in the MSRP. There's so many products released now from brands I'm not familiar with, yet here they get hyped to no end. Then next month it's a new flavor of something else from XYZ brand, with a review stating "the detail retrieval of these IEMs cannot be matched for the MSRP, and I'm hearing things I've never heard before." LOL, ok.
I read a post just yesterday about a DAC "burning in" and "sounding" better the second day. So many things wrong with this hobby that are passed on to enthusiasts.
That said, I don't think this place is dying. You just have to weed through some stuff sometimes.
I do think too that you do have to start somewhere, ND maybe when you first get into this Hobbie you are like yeah "burn in " than and that but with time your taste graduates into something better aND with that you also post more relevant things that have more merit than when you first started posting.
I come to realize that high end iems do have a tendency to be better detail retrieval than full size iems.
I'm just curious - I don't see nearly as much action on these forums as there used to be in the golden days.
In general, it seems the excitement over headphones has kind of died (especially recently) to where it was several years ago. Even just peeking at the main page today, some 20-ish odd threads had some post today which really isn't much at all.
This year in general (2023) has seemed slower than ever.
I'm not sure if anyone else has picked up on this but these forums were popping off with activity in the past - maybe some of the people found new places to talk about this stuff and went there or maybe it's just not as popular as a hobby anymore. I think this site is still great and clean layout and I've met great people on here so I'm wondering if my observation is shared.
I was certainly addicted to this site back early 2010s when it was my peak. SBAF was poorly moderated, they probably realize it now.
I think partly it has to do with current generation. Newer gen probably don't spend as much time on Forums as we used to. I would also assume the newer gen is different in how they consume content.
I was certainly addicted to this site back early 2010s when it was my peak. SBAF was poorly moderated, they probably realize it now.
I think partly it has to do with current generation. Newer gen probably don't spend as much time on Forums as we used to. I would also assume the newer gen is different in how they consume content.
When I joined there were a lot of modders and DIY’ers - and people were not concerned having rigs that were well under $1k.
I haven’t bought a can I’ve kept since 2019. My stuff seems average now. I went to a meet last week and I felt like an anachronism - beyond the age thing.
I have mentioned this observation here before: 2016 seemed like 1974-1978 W.R.T. stereo room systems. Everyone was into it. 14-16 ga zip cord (one side tin plated) was the cable choice. Go forward to 1980+. Big money and big egos. I wasn’t immune, not at all. My best systems (‘94-‘16) were not really that much better than what I had in 1988. 5x the money for 5% better.
I don't think the forum is dying; I mostly browse the Portable section nowadays and it's very active. But as other people mentioned, there are many more social platforms and media nowadays which took a part of the market share from H-F.
I do think the forums are a lot different from how they used to be though, before they moved to this current platform. A lot of the old regulars seem to have left after that, and many others were also banned, which seems to have led to a brain drain. Although there's always new blood and talent coming in, I can't help but think some of the old style of the forum no longer exists, or it's much less prominent at the very least.
The state of headphones are at the point where there’ll be only incremental improvements going forward. Keep in mind this is for traditional headphones. Headphones based on DSP will see huge leaps in different ways to listen to music/movies. All top vendors are working hard in this area..
I don't think the forum is dying; I mostly browse the Portable section nowadays and it's very active. But as other people mentioned, there are many more social platforms and media nowadays which took a part of the market share from H-F.
I do think the forums are a lot different from how they used to be though, before they moved to this current platform. A lot of the old regulars seem to have left after that, and many others were also banned, which seems to have led to a brain drain. Although there's always new blood and talent coming in, I can't help but think some of the old style of the forum no longer exists, or it's much less prominent at the very least.
I was oblivious to the politics of this forum, and I later realized why there were other headphone forums out there. I've seen the other headphone forums, but never really thought about why they also existed. Members of Headfi probably got banned, and this caused people in a circle of banned members to leave and create their own forums. It likely happened with people with differences from Headfi.
I feel like Headfi was different before a lot of these people got banned and left. To me at least, it was a much more interesting forum. I feel like there were a lot of garbage posts due to less restriction, but caused a lot of interesting random topics, and greater propensity for very high quality content (because a lot of these people that left were very knowledgeable). You can tell the difference even in this lounge topics from the past, many years ago. Lots of interesting, and very high quality DIYers. But times change. I don't feel like this forum is a knowledge giving community any more, but it's very commerical, and product talking/selling forum.
Years go by, people get older, and the topology of internet changes in terms of where people get drawn to. And also what the younger demographics would be into compared to those grew up with physical records and tapes, and idea of spending time is with an album/record/tape/CD, or rent movies on a video cassette/DVDs. People keep doing what they are used to, and that's generally the case for older people. Young people see new things and adapt to the new things. That's part of being young, you have a blank slate, and new stuff gets absorbed, so you are open to new things.
Where on the internet people socialize change due to changes in social media over time. I looked at the stats of this forum, and it say half of Mil members, that's not a lot compared to what we see in other social media platforms. I think Crinacle would get there soon enough. Still, even with half a Mil members, I haven't considered the amount of guests that goes through the forum daily, that would be more interesting stat. Seeing that trend over time would be the most telling.
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
