[jgray91]

Quote:

The problem is it's always the same people replying, and there's a lot of headphones we have no experience with, so it's hard to compare sometimes
 
Just from hanging out on that thread and reading the last couple pages I had an idea. What if we had a reference thread/wiki similar to what ljokerl and CLIEOS have now that lists headphones by price, style, open/closed, sound sig, etc, with links to all the reviews/comparisons/etc that are on here? Not the most elegant solution, but I think it might be a good place to refer people, as they always ask with the same qualifiers, and I think this could be an easy place to refer people to. Also preface it with a concise guide explaining what all the categories mean in terms of what they're looking for.
 
I might start one soon, but does anyone else think it's a good idea?
 

If you are going to start being a full-size "ljokerl" then good luck LOL.
 


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If you scroll to the bottom of any Head-Fi page, it's the first article.

Yeah I found it that way too. IMHO it should be stickied alongside with Boomana's "Hopefully helpful guide". Also IMHO the size or rather presence of them should be made priority more than the sponsors' links. By the amount of ads already here, I don't think that should affect anything much. 
 

 

[Roller]

In all fairness, there would need to be some redesigning, even if there were just mild changes. But structure wise, it wouldn't make much sense to add direct article links on the Wiki drop down menus, for instance. Maybe there could be an introductory hub/articles center that would be locked so both new and old users alike could benefit from the resources there.

 

[Currawong]

Thanks for pointing out keanex's guide. I didn't know it existed! I'll add that to the stickies at some point. I want to ask him about updating it first and how he feels about changes and contributions.
 
I have some other ideas about how new members are greeted which I'm working on. You guys wont see them obviously, but the idea is that they know where to find useful information early on.  The trick is working out how much or little to push to them in one hit, as people have short attention spans these days and are unlikely to read a bunch of links (articles) in one sitting.

 

[Arboginge911]

As long as we're on the subject of improving the site. I personally think that more should be done the promote the interaction of Head-Fi'ers. I understand we have a 'suscribe' and a 'PM' option, but I don't really feel as if these are utilized enough. I would also love for a chat room type option, where members on certain forums can chat about specefic things. Albeit, I realize this is incredibly hard to accomplish and would be plagued by trolls, it would still be fun nonetheless.

And maybe update the articles on the Home screen a little more often

 

[barleyguy]

Quote:

As long as we're on the subject of improving the site. I personally think that more should be done the promote the interaction of Head-Fi'ers. I understand we have a 'suscribe' and a 'PM' option, but I don't really feel as if these are utilized enough. I would also love for a chat room type option, where members on certain forums can chat about specefic things. Albeit, I realize this is incredibly hard to accomplish and would be plagued by trolls, it would still be fun nonetheless.

And maybe update the articles on the Home screen a little more often

I personally wouldn't use a chat room.  IMO, the asynchronous nature of the site is one of its strengths.  People in different timezones can enter a discussion hours after it starts.
 
But in general I think chat rooms on forums are a bad idea.  If people know each other well enough to chat, they can exchange IM addresses.  If they don't know each other well enough to IM, then the possibility for trolling is eminent.  In other words, the technology to chat already exists, so why add the anonymity of a forum to that technology?
 
My two cents...

 

[jgray91]

No, chat rooms are bad. I came from a dead forum that has one. Suffice it to say I am broken now in more ways than you could imagine. Although through all that hardship and mental pain, I made some iron-blooded "friends" enough to exchange IM details. But then that forum is pretty much unmodded and corrupt, and now it's dead. For that to happen in a Head-Fi chat room would be impossible as Head-Fi is quite moderated. Besides, during that rare peak hours when a hot topic is up, the forum moves at light speed anyways. I think this is okay for now.
 
My 2 cents.

 

[rainblack]

Totally against chatrooms. Reasons why have been stated above PLUS 90% of the time I spend here is at work (the wife doesn't want me to lurk around here too much... scared that our "house money" will go away on Denon's or else !) and I couldn't follow a chatroom while being at work !

 

[50an6xy06r6n]

Quote:

Sorry for double post, but I had a completely different idea I wanted to post.
 
When I was searching for headphones, I really wished that there was some way for me to compare the differences in headphones and hear the portions of sounds that I was missing through audio clips. I know there is no way to really demonstrate the full extent of what you would be experiencing from a headphone and several factors are involved, but is there a way to give people a sense of what we could get from different headphones? We see those graphs of the sound levels from headroom. Is there some way to use those graphs to create several versions of the same song utilizing different EQ based on those graphs to give the listener a sense of what the specific headphones would emphasize/ de-emphasize in terms of sound signature? I think this would be helpful to the layman.

While I agree that this probably wont be an end-all be-all solution for helping choose headphones, I do think that anyone with a decent pair of headphones thinking about sidegrading to a more preferable signature might find this useful. I think the basic idea would be you add the headroom graphs of the headphones you have and the ones you want to simulate to create a custom EQ profile that could give you a general idea of how it sounds. Not a sure thing, but certainly an intriguing concept IMO.
 


Quote:

If you are going to start being a full-size "ljokerl" then good luck LOL.
 

Haha definitely not... Not enough time, experience, or resources. I meant more like an aggregate wiki or portal that lists all the different options in each price range/styles, with links to the most helpful reviews available on each of them. Similar to what keanex is doing now, but with a wider selection, more sorting options, and perhaps a bit less description on the wiki as to be less judgmental.
 


Quote:

In all fairness, there would need to be some redesigning, even if there were just mild changes. But structure wise, it wouldn't make much sense to add direct article links on the Wiki drop down menus, for instance. Maybe there could be an introductory hub/articles center that would be locked so both new and old users alike could benefit from the resources there.

Yeah, I guess more like a hub with a quick guide to what all the terms mean at the top.
 

 

[catscratch]

Definite no to chatrooms. The same people that spam the forum with inane nonsense will be the people that dominate chatrooms. If you want to give them even more of a presence on HF, then go right ahead.

HF has plenty of traffic already. It's the signal to noise ratio that needs to be better.

 

[LizardKing1]

 
Quote:

No, chat rooms are bad. I came from a dead forum that has one. Suffice it to say I am broken now in more ways than you could imagine. Although through all that hardship and mental pain, I made some iron-blooded "friends" enough to exchange IM details. But then that forum is pretty much unmodded and corrupt, and now it's dead. For that to happen in a Head-Fi chat room would be impossible as Head-Fi is quite moderated. Besides, during that rare peak hours when a hot topic is up, the forum moves at light speed anyways. I think this is okay for now.
 
My 2 cents.

 
 

Definite no to chatrooms. The same people that spam the forum with inane nonsense will be the people that dominate chatrooms. If you want to give them even more of a presence on HF, then go right ahead.
HF has plenty of traffic already. It's the signal to noise ratio that needs to be better.

 
You are forgetting a few things. First in pure chatrooms there is usually no registration, here there is, and if you ask me I value my account way too much to have it banned because of something stupid I said in a chatroom. I assume most people here think like me, basically really liking this hobby instead of being so "meh" they wouldn't care about being banned. Second, like most people have mentioned and I agree, Head-Fi is one of the "nicest" forums out there. I've been to a few and none compared to this. When people complaint about trolls, arrogance and ignorance I wonder if they've ever been to any other forum. For this reason a chatroom on Head-Fi wouldn't behave like any other because the forum is composed of a much more self-controlled crowd than the usual internet forum.
 
 
 

Totally against chatrooms. Reasons why have been stated above PLUS 90% of the time I spend here is at work (the wife doesn't want me to lurk around here too much... scared that our "house money" will go away on Denon's or else !) and I couldn't follow a chatroom while being at work !

 
 
I've already replied to the other reasons (trolls), but I don't think your second point applied at all. You'd be against a chatroom because you can't use it?
 
Personally I like the chatroom idea. I'm fine with Head-Fi the way it is and maybe I wouldn't even use the feature that much, but I still think it would be a cool addition. Why not a poll?
 


Quote:

Thanks for pointing out keanex's guide. I didn't know it existed! I'll add that to the stickies at some point. I want to ask him about updating it first and how he feels about changes and contributions.
 
I have some other ideas about how new members are greeted which I'm working on. You guys wont see them obviously, but the idea is that they know where to find useful information early on.  The trick is working out how much or little to push to them in one hit, as people have short attention spans these days and are unlikely to read a bunch of links (articles) in one sitting.

Since we're talking about ideas for newcomers I'd like to (again) mention Head-Fi TV. I don't know in which direction Jude is thinking of bringing it, but I really liked the idea of having a few episodes dedicated to quickly explain core concepts of headphones, like soundstage, speed, frequency response graphs, what amps and DACs are (one of the questions most asked). I know there's already a lot of threads explaining this, but a video is simply easier to watch than to read a wall of text, not to mention the visual advantages of explaining something in a video (like showing how an EQ works on a graph with the voice on background). I knew what electrostats were long before Jude made a video about the SR-009 and I still really liked re-learning all that.
 
Also let's not forget some people just don't care enough to create a Head-Fi account, and those can still watch the youtube videos - much more attention-span-friendly. Imagine the exposure Head-Fi gets from being in the 5 results when people search "headphones" on youtube. Instead if someone watches a video they are treated with stuff meant for long-time users who consider buying 2000$ amplifiers. I'm not saying Head-Fi TV should be for newbies only, but a few episodes would definitely help since it's a tool much more efficient for them than text. Older users don't mind reading huge articles, but for someone who doesn't really care yet it would be much easier.

 

[rainblack]

Quote:

 
I've already replied to the other reasons (trolls), but I don't think your second point applied at all. You'd be against a chatroom because you can't use it?
 

Well actually it was more like a joke.
 
I wouldn't be 100% against a chatroom, but I'd have to say that I would fear that most users here with great experience won't really have the time to read the threads, post, and chat also. Therefore, like me, (while I am not an experienced head-fier) I believe that many won't be able to use it / follow requests. Therefore, newbies might invade the chatrooms since many of them have a lot of free time to kill and that would also scare away the experienced users.
 
Again, I could be wrong... but I've seen this scenario before in other forums. 
 
 

 

[HesterDW]

 
Quote:

I've tried to explain this idea as best as I could. If you guys like, hate, or think it's impossible, it is all fine to me. I am just putting it out there. If someone wants to actually try to implement it, that would be great too. I'm going not trying to defend or advocate for this idea any further so you won't be receiving any replies to any more responses regarding this. I wrote down everything I had to say already about this idea. Whether you believe it might be a potential good tool or not is your choice. Thanks guys for the responses.

 
I think you're over reacting a bit! No one hates your idea at all. It would be awesome, it's just that the concept seems impossible. I feel like it would be similar to saying "lets try to simulate how a GTX580 will perform on max settings, using this 7800GT". The only situation it seems to work in is when you're comparing very similar headphones.
 
Also if I understood your explanation correctly, wouldn't there have to be specific EQ settings for each headphone, for each headphone? That was confusing...what I mean is: if you want to simulate the D2000s on HFI580s the EQ settings will differ from the EQ settings needed to simulate the D2000s on ATHM50s...and so on? That's a lot of custom EQs! Or am I over-complicating things?
 
I hope you didn't get mad and run off this is an interesting idea.

 

[Currawong]

Just to get it out of the way, chat rooms are out.  I like the idea of them, with careful management, but it's not going to happen.
 
Quote:

Since we're talking about ideas for newcomers I'd like to (again) mention Head-Fi TV. I don't know in which direction Jude is thinking of bringing it, but I really liked the idea of having a few episodes dedicated to quickly explain core concepts of headphones, like soundstage, speed, frequency response graphs, what amps and DACs are (one of the questions most asked). I know there's already a lot of threads explaining this, but a video is simply easier to watch than to read a wall of text, not to mention the visual advantages of explaining something in a video (like showing how an EQ works on a graph with the voice on background). I knew what electrostats were long before Jude made a video about the SR-009 and I still really liked re-learning all that.
 
Also let's not forget some people just don't care enough to create a Head-Fi account, and those can still watch the youtube videos - much more attention-span-friendly. Imagine the exposure Head-Fi gets from being in the 5 results when people search "headphones" on youtube. Instead if someone watches a video they are treated with stuff meant for long-time users who consider buying 2000$ amplifiers. I'm not saying Head-Fi TV should be for newbies only, but a few episodes would definitely help since it's a tool much more efficient for them than text. Older users don't mind reading huge articles, but for someone who doesn't really care yet it would be much easier.

I like this idea. It doesn't mean Jude has to do it, just someone who can articulate ideas clearly in front of a camera. 
 

 

[paradoxper]

Again no disrespect. But the mods don't always take care of threads. They do let things get out of hand for whatever reason. IMO they play favorites and don't obey their own rules. Again just MY OPINION.  I can just imagine a chatroom and the hell it would create for this site. A chatroom would end this site for good.

 

[Currawong]

Quote:

Again no disrespect. But the mods don't always take care of threads. They do let things get out of hand for whatever reason. IMO they play favorites and don't obey their own rules. Again just MY OPINION.  I can just imagine a chatroom and the hell it would create for this site. A chatroom would end this site for good.

Every day, there are thousands of posts made, so if there are threads getting out of hand and we don't see it, then it's more likely because we don't read all threads and posts. We do rely on members to report inappropriate content.
 
I'm not sure what you mean by saying moderators "play favourites". If you want to PM me some examples of where you believed this happened we can discuss it.