[gr4474]

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[gr4474]

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[gr4474]

 

[elee703]

I used to love audio magazines since high school back in the early 90's. I came to realize reviewers are professional marketers. They would say "you must spends $$$$ to get this level of sound". That is the game.

Then comes youtube. Finally we can get regular people to tell us the truth. Wrong. Youtubers are all about their own wallet. The honest ones can't truly give good opinions, because they don't get enough constant free gear to even be able to say something is "best" or whatever. I have no problem with affiliate links, but I do have a problem with being played. basically if they have actually listened to a LARGE variety to know, then you can bet they are manipulating marketers.

I didn't realize, but could have bought a recapped vintage receiver back then (and even now) and have powerful house filling sound for very affordable money. Those vintage receivers have powerful headphone outputs that make all these modern dacs and headphone amps obsolete.
My first system had a new Denon surround sound receiver that I paid $900 for. Pretty much when I got it home I read about dolby digital coming soon. My speakers had a VERY audible hum that dolby digital eliminates. Ok fine...but wait....one channel dies just about a year later. I was burned.

YEARS LATER THE SAME THING HAPPENED TO A 1 yr old Harmon Kardon stereo receiver. Burned again. I sold an Emotiva 2 channel amp to get that ZHK because I wanted another rca input.

Now I have a recapped Pioneer SX-1000TD from 1968, and I LOVE it.

You better believe the marketers are planted in forums as well. If you think I'm exaggerating or crazy...then you haven't been red pilled yet.

Are there people who actually DON'T realize this? Maybe some one time buyers but if you're at the point where you're actually signing up for a dork ass headphone forum (and not calling names.....Im a dork ass) I think you have an idea that youtubers are all just out to make a buck. Some are dishonest, some are open and frank, some in between.

 

[gr4474]

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[silentraindrop]

Fair enough. I let my emotions and frustration get the best of me. I tried to delete the thread, but it won't allow me.

Don't. This was an entertaining read. We live in a society where someone asking for color choice of a headphone. Shill or not, some are entertaining to watch. Ones that I can not stand to watch are the ones that can not pronounce "HIFI" or "bass" correctly. And English is not even my first language.

 

[catscratch]

When you have an industry where you need people to send you free samples so you can review them, you can't make the manufacturers angry, because then they'll stop sending you samples. You can get around this by having a big enough following or budget where you can just get stuff on your own, but if you're not there yet, what do you do?

Make softball reviews, of course, where everything sounds good, just different.

And then people buy stuff on your recommendation, and guess what, it sucks.

Don't feel bad. It's just the way it is. Find the reviewers who don't do this, try to account for their preference and bias, and you'll have a more reasonable chance to find gear you like based on their reviews. And by reasonable I mean, they'll still be wrong a lot of the time, but at least they'll be consistent enough where you can translate their preferences to yours.

Not having bad experiences with buying audio gear is not really possible. But you'll also have some good experiences, and over time you'll lean what you like, what works for you, what doesn't, and you'll build a system you're happy with.

Here's a hint: people who provide measurements and then put those measurements into context with subjective impressions, who talk about the sound directly and understand at least some of the engineering that goes on behind this stuff, are more reliable and they're the ones you generally want to pay attention to. Reviewers who only say how their own test tracks sounded like on a headphone and nothing else are mostly useless.

So if you see a review that sounds a bit like "this headphone's tuning is mostly linear, save for a peak around 1khz followed by a dip in the upper midrange, which leads to a nasal vocal tembre, and here's how it looks like on this FR measurement," it's probably a good review and a worthwhile data point. A review that sounds like "I listened to [insert another Chesky binaural recording] and the snap of the snare drum had a vivid and lively quality" is completely meaningless because the lively quality of the snare drum depends on the recording just as much as it does on the headphone. Stuff like that you want to avoid.

 

[gr4474]

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[catscratch]

Focals aren't bass anemic but there's a physical limit to how much bass they can put out, because of their driver design. However that limit is around 105-110db which is still quite a lot of bass! I've never been able to get my Elex or the Utopia, back when I had it, to clip, but I did get the Clear to clip a few times cranking up the sound in Fallout 4. So I'd say it's generally not an issue but it can be if you like to add a 10db bass boost or more, and then listen loud.

The X2 should be a good place to start. There's no substitute for getting our own ears on something, so use it for a while, see how you like it, and depending on what you like and what you don't you can move on from there, if at all.

There's no need to rush. I've been in the hobby for 20 years on and off and learning your preferences or what accurate sounds like to you takes time. Rushing generally means throwing money away. And I've done that too.

 

[gr4474]

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[gr4474]

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[ubs28]

Why are you guys reading these magazines or watching YouTubers?

Just go out and listen to these headphones yourself.

 

[Sebbai]

You also have the new gear honeymoon syndrome on forums that you should be aware of. And hype trains with new releases.

 

[gr4474]

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[gooeyrich]

I think it’s important to remember that they have to walk a fine line because they need manufacturers to send products for review. That said I think Joshua Valour, DMS, bad seed tech, the headphone show and some others try to their best to give honest reviews without totally trashing products they don’t like. I think it’s also obvious Z just schills everything to create hype and views because it seems like his channel is his main source of income.