[Barry]

I am in the market for a DAC and have been following the various threads about the newish Chinese DACs, Yulong, Zero, Valab Zaolu, etc. with interest. Now, I have not heard any of these DACs and thus have no opinions about them. Neither do I have an opinion about Chinese equipment per se.

I have, however, noted that these threads typically have one or two active members with maybe a hundred or three posts. The threads are also punctuated with a handful or so of other individuals offering accolades or forwarding a discussion about the DAC in question. These handful of others almost always (perhaps an exaggeration) only have one or two posts. They are new members. Maybe not all, but it seems to me most. I will say that most of these new member posts seem pretty well written. If these were not brand spanking new members, I would pay them some heed. I do wonder, however, if these posts, almost invariably by new members, are legitimate and not shills of some sort. Mind you, I am wondering, not asserting. I really don't know the answer. It is just that the pattern is curious.

What do you all think?

 

[MrSlim]

I think they would be rooted out by now if they were shills.. there are to many people comparing notes, and doing mods to be bogus.. Check out this thread for example.. http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f6/zer...-h-amp-370969/
Prickly Pete has over 1700 posts..
For a second point of view check out this guy:
Lukasz Fikus Lampizator
He has done major testing on all sorts of dacs, including some of the ones you see here.. and some of the diy board dac's that he loves, after he does his mods to them..
His style is a bit rough, but He's a man after my own heart.. Bang for the Buck baby..
Besides.. you can buy a Zero for what? $120? or there abouts.. we're not talking kilo bucks..
Im thinking of picking up one of the "dac in a Box" diy packages to play with myself , like this one:
High Grade 24bit/192khz DAC with fully assembled kits - eBay (item 120355127925 end time Jan-03-09 01:00:00 PST)

 

[krmathis]

I always question the legality of those overly positive feedbacks from fresh members. Enough said!

 

[apatN]

I got my DAC only recently and I was just like you. I don't trust them and I never will. Most of the raving newbies are only active in one thread. Like that kind sir from Oslo said: Enough said.

 

[Currawong]

Good observation. I don't know how well the mods pursue it, but if someone was signing up with multiple accounts, it can be detected in the forum software easily enough. A lot of people browse head-fi, then sign up to comment on some item they've decided to purchase. Quite a few people have bought mid-range headphones and have been using them out of their crappy sound-card before getting something like a DAC/head-amp combo, and are not surprisingly quite amazed at the difference. Afterwards, they sometimes become what others might see as a little too enthusiastic about the device or company. One musn't dismiss this, as with at least one person/company who hand-made amps, people were willing to wait for up to 2 years, the company with their money, for their amp to materialise, sometimes after it had been sent back for repair. This even after numerous promises about delivery dates and false tracking numbers.

About the Zero specifically, since it's exceeding being "flavour of the month" to becoming "flavour of the year" as a cheap getting started box, it's worth noting that nobody has ever talked about contact with the manufacturer (their site is only in Chinese) and all dealings have been primarily with two eBay sellers. Considering the profit on the unit must be stuff-all, I doubt they could afford to pay anyone to be a shill, and nor is the manufacture quality good enough to bring about any kind of loyalty. The reviewer is a disabled war veteran on a pension who was looking for the cheapest decent-sounding DAC he could find for use with his laptop and took a chance with it.

Since the Zero has lead on to my asking another (small) Chinese company to design and make something better than the Zero, always in the back of my mind is my conduct as a result. I'm getting a sample unit to review, and am conscious to disclose that when I later will write a review. I'm also conscious that the maker is out to get a foot in the door in the HP amp market. I don't blame him. I believe he's a good person and he puts pride in the quality of his products. I'd rather be suggesting what he makes over the Zero, which has been a luck-of-the-draw product.

That's my take.

 

[ClieOS]

It is funny how things operate so differently when I compare most (if not all) Chinese audiophiles' forums to our.

Here we tend to believe we all follow the code of honor when we post and over enthusiastic newbies (and some not-so-new newbies) are often treated as fanboy rather than shill. In China, shill seems to be a part of some businesses' strategy and unfortunately it turns the public into an hypersensitized state where people can no longer tolerate a person's positive or negative opinion without labeling them as shill or anti-shill of one certain brand.

The whole community becomes very unhealthy as you can find accusations and attacks in virtually every reviews and impressions that have an overall positive or negative tone - the idea of false-positive doesn't seem to apply anymore. Not only so, many local companies are also accused by the community for employing shill often without any proof. The situation gets so bad now, some local companies actually decide not to market locally out of the fear of being labeled. Instead, they start by selling their products oversea to build up their reputation first before they open up to the local market (and a few of them are actually well known in our forum).

I have been called shill (or 'gunner' in Chinese) quite a few times in some of the largest Chinese audiophiles' forums when some of my reviews were translated and referenced by thier members who ventured to our forum. In fact, many here who's review were translated and referenced to Chinese forum eventually will be labeled as shill unknowingly. As hard as I tried a few times to explain to them, many of them still can't accept the fact the honest reviews do exist and HF isn't composed mainly of shill.

I think the question is, are we willing to go so far? I am sure most of us here won't want the same situation to happen, but this should still serve as a good and scary reminder to us about the value of trust, and how it shouldn't be taken as granted.

 

[Barry]

It seems to me that this is an important question to this forum. Or maybe it is important only to me. I would hate for this forum to have a series of posters who are linked to a given manufacturer without a clear and public statement of that linkage in each case. It seems to me that this linkage undermines much of the value of this forum.

On the other hand, I have learned much from the various opinions and observations of so many of our members, both new and old. Not that I agree with them all- but isn't that the point. Still, I would hate for these voices to be attenuated.

I don't know about the cultural commercial values of non-Western countries. This is my shortcoming and one that I am not especially proud of. And I appreciate ClieOS's description of his experiences. I would love to learn more about it.

The result of all this for me is that I may miss out on some valuable products because of my concern that that the threads on the products could be manipulated by the manufacturer as part of some business strategy.

These "new" commenters may provide some useful information, but it would be helpful, perhaps essential to fully the understand the source of accolades or even comments designed to keep a thread moving so as to increase publicity for a given product. Otherwise, from my perspective, the integrity of the forum becomes compromised.

Just my two cents.

 

[cwell2112]

I can understand your concern, though I think issues such as these need to be investigated a little further in each scenario. I also sometimes wonder if various members are somehow affiliated with companies. I'm generally wary of those who refuse to admit drawbacks or problems with different products.

With regard to post count, I think it's garbage that those with low post counts are taken less seriously (regardless of the content of their posts) while there are several members with thousands or tens of thousands of relatively meaningless posts. It's so obvious when someone posts in a thread just for the sake of boosting their post count, and downright irritating when they post the same meaningless reply a few days later, as if those reading the thread didn't see the first one...

I will admit that I take post count into consideration to a small degree when judging the validity of a post, but I prefer to pay attention to who says what and form impressions of various members based on their actual contributions.

Maybe we should have another stat such as "average words per post". Of course that presents it's own problems...

EDIT: I'm surprised I'm the only one who sees a problem with this system of judging the validity of posts based on post count, while at the same time allowing threads whose clear purpose is simply to boost post count. Then again I don't know how a "meaningful post only" policy could be enforced without too greatly limiting what members can and cannot say.

 

[wuwhere]

Well, I do have a lot of posts, mostly on the music thread.

I've been in audio for awhile then stopped then came back this year and joined HF. I used to read the two major audiophile magazines to learn the lingo and what to listen for. That's how I learned. When I discovered HF and started reading reviews, opinions, etc... here, I was mildly surprised, to say the least. However, there are many very good and honest reviewers here as well with keen ears, very knowledgeable and experience. And those are the ones who's reviews I respect.