[Currawong]

This discussion is good, I reckon. I've added, to the Posting Guidelines:
 
 
Quote:

Please don't recommend equipment you don't own or otherwise don't have a reasonable amount of familiarity with. You wouldn't recommend someone a car you've never driven or suggest someone live in a country you haven't been to, so recommending headphones and equipment you haven't owned or used is unhelpful. Even if you've seen the same comments about something from a dozen members, save discussion of that if you're intending to buy it yourself.

 
Please DON'T be rude to people and start arguments on the forums over this, however. If you must, point them to the Posting Guidelines. I wrote them up in the hope of setting a high(er) standard here, so I'd hope everyone reads them. It's important the focus remain on positive contribution, not warnings and rules. I hope that more people will post product reviews and add pictures, for example. 
 
What I've done myself is made posts with qualifiers, which I think is reasonable, eg: "I own product X, so if their new product Y is anything like X, it should be promising."  When someone posts a thread asking a question that I've been pondering as well, I might post "I've seen lots of positive comments about Z for this and am interested too." The furthest I've stretched this is, being familiar with the thoughts of other members who own the same gear I do, I can say "N had good things to say about X and since he has similar tastes to me, it is something I'd consider in your position." When I say these things, there are a great deal of other factors I take into account, however, which may not be obvious.
 
Priorities, in my mind, should always be:
 
A person's music tastes.
How loud they listen.
How they intend to use it.
Getting to a meet or shop where they can try first.
 
But regardless:
The wise man doesn't give the right answers, he poses the right questions. ~ Claude Levi-Strauss
 

 

[Sonic Defender]

I am going to chime in here. I don't think there is an absolute right or wrong on either side of the divide here, there are certainly subtle shades of gray. There are highly experienced members here who have years of experience in the hobby. Sometimes they make educated deductions on headphones they don't own based on limited experience, or even no experience. Howevere, their opinions/observations are based on highly applicable experience. Such an opinion in my mind is still valid depending on how balanced the advice given is. In my experience most people will freely mention that they do not own the equipment or have limited experience with it. It is then up to the reader to decide what and who they best feel can help them.
 
There are people with very limited experience with something they just bought that will gush, but perhaps not have much experience with other sound signatures/products. Should we take this persons guidance over say a contributor who has many years experience and perhaps has owned many varied headphones? There is no absolute position that I feel should be adopted here. Buyer beware, listen to what others say, consider the source, but realise that you are ultimately responsible for the decisions you make. Posters in this community seem to me to try very hard to provide meaningful advice regardless of their personal experience. I have no problem with thoughtful responses from others if they offer supportable reasons for their position taken. Before I make a decision I will read a very large cross-section of reviews and thoughts here, then at some point I must gamble. It is conceivable that even taking the opinion of those who own a piece of equipment may still result in me buying the equipment and not liking it. There are no guarantees. I have purchased three different headphones all based on advice I received here, and to date the expectations created by the membership here were balanced, and realistic.

 

[Tyll Hertsens]

Quote:

measurements can truly give you a great idea of how a headphone sounds without actually hearing them. It's not exactly a substitute for first-hand experience, but you can get a sense of how a headphone sounds (ie. bassy, bright, sibilant, shouty mids, balanced, etc.) by just looking at a few graphs.  

 
You just made my day. That's exactly what I'm shooting for.
 
That, and not giving manufacturers a way to hide.
 
Mix those two things together and you get better headphones for everyone.
 
I wouldn't have to say a word ... but I will. It's fun sayin' stuff!
 
 
And yes, Purrin's stuff is outstanding. 

 

[EYEdROP]

 Its best to just not to get into HiFi and just use your ears and best judgement. If I could go back to the beginning of all this and just listen to all the headphones in the world without having been influenced by everyone, I would be a lot happier honestly. Most average people go to the store, buy what sounds good to them, and call it a day. When you start making it a science and know all the descriptive words for describing fidelity, listening to music is just not the same. It does have its benefits and you do learn a lot, and your sound preferences change for the better in a technical sense. But as a musician you come to realize how an ignorant bliss can be a great thing, because it leaves more room for creative thought, which is what music is all about. I miss being an audio virgin and messing with terrible sounding EQs and effects to make it my own. But now that Im into this, it bugs me that my car stereo sounds so bad when the average person can just jam out to the music without even thinking about the road noise or stereo imaging.  
 
HiFi opened my eyes to what good sound is, but in the end I wish I just didn't care honestly. Its an expensive and annoying habit that is rewarding at the same time. I miss the good ol days of being a kid and not even knowing. And back then, I recognized Bose specifically as speakers that really made me enjoy the music and got me dancing and banging my head. In a HiFi sense, Bose are terrible.  
 
I don't mean to bash audiophiles, crash the party, or anything like that. This is a unique and great hobby. Its just that there is so many different preferences out there that the more people you listen to and take seriously, the more confused you get. If you are addicted to this like me, its best to follow people that happen to have similar tastes for their opinion. You can't take all these threads and suggestions seriously...
 
Sorry if this is all off topic, I'm just slightly altered right now...

 

[50an6xy06r6n]

Quote:

This discussion is good, I reckon. I've added, to the Posting Guidelines:
 
 
 
Please DON'T be rude to people and start arguments on the forums over this, however. If you must, point them to the Posting Guidelines. I wrote them up in the hope of setting a high(er) standard here, so I'd hope everyone reads them. It's important the focus remain on positive contribution, not warnings and rules. I hope that more people will post product reviews and add pictures, for example. 
 
What I've done myself is made posts with qualifiers, which I think is reasonable, eg: "I own product X, so if their new product Y is anything like X, it should be promising."  When someone posts a thread asking a question that I've been pondering as well, I might post "I've seen lots of positive comments about Z for this and am interested too." The furthest I've stretched this is, being familiar with the thoughts of other members who own the same gear I do, I can say "N had good things to say about X and since he has similar tastes to me, it is something I'd consider in your position." When I say these things, there are a great deal of other factors I take into account, however, which may not be obvious.
 
Priorities, in my mind, should always be:
 
A person's music tastes.
How loud they listen.
How they intend to use it.
Getting to a meet or shop where they can try first.
 
But regardless:
The wise man doesn't give the right answers, he poses the right questions. ~ Claude Levi-Strauss
 

Not to be nitpicky or anything, but is it acceptable to suggest a set of cans that fit a certain profile, and encourage further independent research? It's something I use a lot on the headphone guidance thread, and it seems to work ok. The problem with a strict rule on suggesting headphones you haven't heard is that there are only a couple people regularly replying on that thread, and it's unlikely that any one person will have heard all possible headphones that fit a certain profile. Also, the thread lacks input from the super-experienced members, who, admittedly, probably don't need to waste their time there, given that it's a general guidance thread (or should be).
 

 

[thedjswn]

The issue is people who giving an opinion of a headphone that they haven't heard.  Sure, you can talk about resonances and distortion products and frequency response. You can break out graphs and charts and talk about the differences between ring radiators and planar magnetic drivers, but at the end of the day, if you can't tell someone how they sounded to you. You don't have anything really to say. When people ask for advice, they aren't looking to get educated about near field acoustics. They just want to know whether or not the music they listen to will sound good on a particular headphone. 
If you've never heard that headphone, guess what? Someone else, somewhere on head-fi probably has! Wouldn't it be the more honest thing simply to redirect the person asking for advice towards someone that has heard the headphone they are asking about?  Instead of paraphrasing the reviews you read, let them read the reviews themselves.
I have spent a large portion of my life building, deigning testing and repairing sound systems. I have a fairly good grasp of acoustics and sound design. when it comes to how people hear things, I know what I'm talking about. However, when someone comes to me and asks about a particular brand of speaker I haven't heard and wants to know if it would work in their home, do you know what I tell them?
"I don't know"
try it, say it slowly.
I.
Don't.
Know. 
There! Did that hurt?
I think more Head-fiers need to learn how to say it.

 

[Saintkeat]

I have a personal gripe with people who haven't heard the product but claim they know how it sounds based off the graphs and frequency curves. If a dynamic and an ortho-dynamic are tuned the same way does that mean they sound the same? There are so many things that could have one speaker/headphone/earphone/etc, sound completely different from one to the next. It could be just different enough to have you not like them even if they have the holy FR curve you've been looking for.

 

[50an6xy06r6n]

Quote:

The issue is people who giving an opinion of a headphone that they haven't heard.  Sure, you can talk about resonances and distortion products and frequency response. You can break out graphs and charts and talk about the differences between ring radiators and planar magnetic drivers, but at the end of the day, if you can't tell someone how they sounded to you. You don't have anything really to say. When people ask for advice, they aren't looking to get educated about near field acoustics. They just want to know whether or not the music they listen to will sound good on a particular headphone. 
If you've never heard that headphone, guess what? Someone else, somewhere on head-fi probably has! Wouldn't it be the more honest thing simply to redirect the person asking for advice towards someone that has heard the headphone they are asking about?  Instead of paraphrasing the reviews you read, let them read the reviews themselves.
I have spent a large portion of my life building, deigning testing and repairing sound systems. I have a fairly good grasp of acoustics and sound design. when it comes to how people hear things, I know what I'm talking about. However, when someone comes to me and asks about a particular brand of speaker I haven't heard and wants to know if it would work in their home, do you know what I tell them?
"I don't know"
try it, say it slowly.
I.
Don't.
Know. 
There! Did that hurt?
I think more Head-fiers need to learn how to say it.

See, I agree with all of this on principle, but in practice, it's pretty difficult for newbies to find the right threads and people to ask, given the state of the search function. Also, as much as I try to redirect people to useful threads, a lot of people simply don't have the time to trawl through all those reviews and threads, and they want some way to narrow it down.
 

 

[grokit]

I think a big issue here is the fact that many have heard a particular headphone, but haven't heard it with the right amplification (for example). Then they say that they didn't care for that headphone, doing it an injustice and misleading their audience because they have no idea how good that headphone can sound.

 

[Currawong]

What I've wanted to do as much as possible is have people qualify their opinions.  By "qualifying their opinions" I mean that they need to explain the basis of their reasons. An example might be someone suggesting a pair of IEMs saying that they listen to similar music, but they don't have a lot of experience with other models so that should be taken into consideration. I've had this exact experience recently with active speakers, the pair I bought being the first I've experienced owning. I like them, but have almost no basis for comparison to really say whether they are great or not. But first, on the other end, people need to learn to ask good questions giving as much information as possible.
 
Hopefully as the amount of useful guides grow, there will be more basic information available to people to help them make informed choices. The way the headphone market is going, with a steady increase in quality at lower price points, most of the issue I reckon will come down to people new to this finding headphones with a good overall frequency response to match their ears and music preferences.

 

[justingregoire]

You shouldn't make blind recommendations, but there is such a things as a price/performance ratio.

 

[MalVeauX]

Quote:

You shouldn't make blind recommendations, but there is such a things as a price/performance ratio.

And that ratio is completely subjective to whoever has an opinion on the performance of the headphone in question.
 
A good example is the M50 is a poor price for performance in my opinion, but is widely copy & pasted as being one of the most recommended headphones around for it's cost & performance.
 
Very best,

 

[jgray91]

Quote:

Quote:

You shouldn't make blind recommendations, but there is such a things as a price/performance ratio.

And that ratio is completely subjective to whoever has an opinion on the performance of the headphone in question.
 
A good example is the M50 is a poor price for performance in my opinion, but is widely copy & pasted as being one of the most recommended headphones around for it's cost & performance.
 
Very best,

Slightly off tangent here, but bare with me. Judging from my countless hours of reading, the M50 was a good headphone for its priceerformance, when the price was around $100. But since then AT has jacked the price up, the competition got hotter, and thus the ratio came down. IMO. This was utterly confusing to me before, back when I was looking for my first pair of headphones, as most reviews have it at "best pricereformance <$100" because all I can find are at least $150. Of course this also might be affected by my less than stellar googling skills.
 

 

[RayleighSilvers]

I don't really have much of a problem on this issue, although I haven't been here as long as most of you guys
 
For example if I were to say " I need a headphone for such and such. My requirements are this, and my budget is this". I believe the person who is asking the question should do as much research as he can while asking for advice but if people said " x headphone might be good for you because I've read it has this and this" then this is very useful because it broadens my list and I can always search on the forum for reviews from people who actually own it. If the person didn't suggest it at all, I would have no idea it even exists, and I could potentially spend a lot more money buying something that I don't really like when what I was looking for could have been achieved without blowing the wallet.
 
Problem with the "looking to buy headphones, ask here instead of starting a new thread" thread, is that only a handful of people reply on it, and their advice would be very limited.
 
 

 

[LizardKing1]

Quote:

Could someone with an HD650 correctly recommend an HD600? 
 
It is admittedly somewhat different for your example, being that Grados are rather similar...
 

I should but the sennheiser HD438 at 40$ so I could go on Summit-Fi and recommend the HD800! But yes, Grado has a very characteristic house sound (not house music!).
 
Responding to what others have been saying, I don't understand why I can't post at all unless I own a certain headphone. I never try to fool someone into believing I have any experience when I don't, but if I have already made the research I can tell him to look in a certain direction. "Hey you want something with this signature? Maybe this, I never tried it, but from what I've read it's close to what you want". I don't try to have my opinion be valued as much as someone who owns the model, but if no one else will help it's better than nothing. And I always mention what experience I had with said model.
 
I still think the QC aren't worth their price. People always boast "amazing comfort" like that adds 100$ to the price, you can make a pair of DIY pads for like 10$ or you can search for comfy replacement pads. The ANC is good and probably justifies a lot of the price, but to the most important thing is the sound itself, and they don't sound like 300$ headphones. I'd be pressed to say they sound like 150$ headphones really.