The times are surely crazy, but I urge people to try to not jump on every hype train and if possible to wait for someone with more experience to chime in before jumping on. It just seems that there are way too many people who don't have proper point of reference when they are recommending the new giantslaying stuff and then a month later comes along the yet another giant slayer and the cycle continues. This advice is especially aimed at people who don't have spare money to burn for monthly experiments. If you only have $50, $100 or whatever amount of money to buy a new product and don't intend to spend such an amount on monthly or even weekly basis, then do your research and get something tried and proven rather than being swayed by the current hype train, which will never return once leaving the station.
yet when a reviewer or someone experienced says something bad about a model, they can get flamed for it. Funny how things work out like that. All because people need to justify their purchase. Not to mention even other reviewers **** on other reviewers, which sets a really bad example and missing the point of a "review".
yet when a reviewer or someone experienced says something bad about a model, they can get flamed for it. Funny how things work out like that. All because people need to justify their purchase. Not to mention even other reviewers ****ting on other reviewers, which sets a really bad example and missing the point of a "review".
First, you have all the people who ask someone more experienced not about something they consider buying, but about something they already have. They divide in two groups.The people who need justification because they aren't that impressed what they are hearing and want someone else's opinion that tell them if the product is good, so they can sleep sound. The second group are the people who need someone to tell them how something fares against more expensive stuff, so they can go in other threads and say that their stuff is better than this or that even if they haven't heard those products. They are the most likely to get into arguments with others even though their arguments are usually based on someone else's experience.
The second issue is the reviewers themselves. I'm not pointing fingers, but in recent years a lot of people got into reviewing audio gear, but IMO very little of them are good enough or completely unbiased. Of course, in this hobby the personal preference plays the biggest role, but I miss reviewers like joker, I knew what he liked and even though I disagreed with him on few occasions, I could trust him. He had specific preferences but acknowledged products's strengths that my cater to someone else's liking. Something I tried to also do when I used to write reviews. Nowadays, there is a certain inconsistency with a lot of reviewers. Yeah, if a product is good it consistently receives praise, but there are also a lot of mediocre products that receive praise from the same people. And you start to doubt the hearing or integrity of these reviewers - and all it takes is a single such review to start questioning the integrity or experience of someone. Now, some people take things too personally and feel the need to get into heated feuds with others because of that. There are even a lot of people who quit head-fi and moved to other platforms because of that.
I personally support a well-founded dispute or discussion as it gives potential buyers a different view on a product and something to consider before jumping into purchases. But they have to be reasoned arguments with pros and cons and not just blindly bashing stuff (be it a product or a review about it).
So here's another overlong opinion. Maybe my doctoral thesis should have been on audiophiles' psychology rather than criminology. I could have become a professor by now.
The second group are the people who need someone to tell them how something fares against more expensive stuff, so they can go in other threads and say that their stuff is better than this or that even if they haven't heard those products.
We all know there are a lot of "I just want free crap" reviewers.
A blog doesn't make you qualified or right. That's why I like seeing people having their gear listed in their sig, you can see where their experience comes from.
Even then, our senses of hearing have a lot more differences from individual to individual than people realize. A FR Graph, even dbA, may be totally different to how YOUR ears hear things and is of dubious scientific rigor to begin with. The only thing it matters is relative to other headphones to your sense of hearing (assuming they've even been measured accurately using the same methods and that those methods actually apply to your ear anatomy).
Like I've said before, people generally don't hate on others when they don't like a food, say onions, so why treat this stuff any different? "Taste" plays a big part. Trying to insert "objective truth" into this is silly. A flatter FR curve may taste like onions to some people. A quicker attack and decay may be harsh to some, more accurate and realistic to others.
Another example, i don't care what foodies think of gourmet dishes, they like flavors I hate.... Give me a giant burrito over any of that fancy crap any day of the week and I'll be a happy camper.
The general messagee, stop worrying about people agreeing with you and enjoy the music. Don't overly trust anyone elses opinion.
yet when a reviewer or someone experienced says something bad about a model, they can get flamed for it. Funny how things work out like that. All because people need to justify their purchase. Not to mention even other reviewers ****ting on other reviewers, which sets a really bad example and missing the point of a "review".
A lot of these "reviews" are rushed and first to the presses.
You can't, in my opinion, write a credible review before spending at minimum 200 hours with an iem.
This might be a controversial take for a lot of the people here, but I am sick of show floor reviews that some people are now considtently pushing out there to get clicks.
A lot of these "reviews" are rushed and first to the presses.
You can't, in my opinion, write a credible review before spending at minimum 200 hours with an iem.
This might be a controversial take for a lot of the people here, but I am sick of show floor reviews that some people are now constantly pushing out there to get clicks.
Here we go again. We already know that for you "spending at minimum 200 hours" means burning it in for that amount of time. Give it a rest, you don't need everyone else's justification that your CL2 is great - if you think it's the best sounding iem you've heard, then by all means enjoy your audio nirvana, you don't need the confirmation of X or Y reviewer that it's the best. Your opinion and preferences will never match those of everyone else, not to mention the fact that to say something is the best you need to have heard absolutely everything else in the same price range, which is doubtful.
Here we go again. We already know that for you "spending at minimum 200 hours" means burning it in for that amount of time. Give it a rest, you don't need everyone else's justification that your CL2 is great - if you think it's the best sounding iem you've heard, then by all means enjoy your audio nirvana, you don't need the confirmation of X or Y reviewer that it's the best. Your opinion and preferences will never match those of everyone else, not to mention the fact that to say something is the best you need to have heard absolutely everything else in the same price range, which is doubtful.
I am saying 200 hours is required also for brain burn in, and gives you enough time to listen to different genres of music to know the ins and outs of an iem.
Anything less, is like writing a review for a movie after watching the 1st 15 minutes.
And if you are not willing to spend that much time to do a review, please do us all a favor, and don't write bunk reviews that are not worth the paper they are written on.
Probibly my first Head-Fi “Hype” IEM was the HiFiMan RE0 back in 09. I have to say I’m susceptible to reading endless posts about some special IEM value. But......there have been a bunch of purchases which I’m glad I didn’t jump on. It maybe has always been the same, but to me the last two years have been intense with expensive IEMs coming into and falling away from the limelight very quickly. It seems some IEMs can go out of fashion fast; making room for the next thing. Common sense says that there is no way each of these manufacturers can technologically leap-frog over each other every 90 days to win with some current famous model? And it seems to take the group census to air the dirty laundry about some lacking drawback of an IEM; which was 30 days ago the second coming of Christ. So even though it’s fun to be the first person on the block with the new IEM, it seems the group opinion is real and can even be more clear showing what we may have missed on a listening demo. Not only is there Head-Fi hype, there is personal hype, where your emotions can get in the way of common sense with a purchase. We are all guilty of this to a point. The fact is there is an enormous amount of qualified IEMs already invented. There is no such thing as perfect. Guitars are the same in a way. There are bad quality guitars and nice performing guitars, but there are no perfect guitars, only application of a guitar in a perfect way.
The only thing that keeps stuff moving is that stuff IS getting better in sound quality. Also mid-fi now sounds like what summit-fi was 9 years ago. And..... of course due to the economy of scale in China, they can mass produce some really strong value pieces.
Many folks have a favorite IEM from 2012 or 2014. And if they like the ability and tone all is well. I’m pretty sure it’s all about getting the right tone. But that could be just me. Obviously some pretty detailed IEMs have surfaced the last two years, and for those into amazing detail they are better than any IEM ever made.
I haven’t figured out if expensive is better or not. At times it’s better, but there is nothing wrong with getting into value gear and enjoying it. The main thing to remember is we are all getting more experienced all the time. And...........there are many different types of folks here. Some have TOTL gear and use what they feel is the “correct” reproduction to judge everything else. They do hear where the response deficiency is in comparison to this absolute they have remembered in their minds. I have had experience with this type of person at shows and such. I don’t judge them, even if they thought my set-up at the meet was not perfect. Reason being............I do the same in a smaller way when I hear a set-up that doesn’t have the sound I’m looking for. I don’t think equipment has to be perfect to be enjoyable. It just has to have the sound your looking for, and be lacking the response personality you don’t like.
But everything IS moving along. One way to judge the movement is to keep favorite IEMs or headphones that you used to love. After four years you dust them off and hear how far everything has come. That or maybe for some their tastes have changed.
A response to some of your points:
1. Folks with 2012-14 favs: a well-respected manufacturer is citing three very positive reviews/reviewers on their product page. There is no doubt that this particular item is good. But, I wanted to know whether these reviewers actually use them as their daily-drivers. One did, the other two mentioned more expensive and older iems some of which I had never heard of [ok, to be honest, the more reviews one does, the more samples are in the drawer, and the more difficult is the choice]. One of my most enjoyable earphones is technically not particularly great.
2. Stuff getting better: I recently pulled out the highly appreciated original Urbanfun Hifi ($20) and compared them to the cheaper, recent EZAudio D4 single DD ($10). The Urbs sounded "spongy" in comparison, only two years later. And then you go back to the "old" reviews and think..."...".
3. Expensive vs. really expensive: Sennheiser offer a single DD for $1000 and Campfire another one for $1300, and there are some multi-drivers available for as much as $4000. Before committing to such an expensive, most of us probably want to make sure they will really like their purchase and get a good perceived value for their money. The risk that there is another model they should have bought instead is relatively high. And every reviewer will tell you that it takes a lot of time with a premium iem to evaluate it...and the iem has to harmonize with our other equipment...therefore (long) listening is more informative than (brief) reading.
4. Listeners/hobbyists improving continuously: Yep, schooling one's ears by listening to many and also really expensive/good sounding iems is critical (eye...or rather ear opening), as Crinacle tends to say. And he got it down to an O to characterize earphones with one quick sentence and group them in different classes. Very useful as a start.
5. Sennheiser HD600: a well respected, highly lauded, proven headphone at $350 CAD (on sale) - and it still is. Done!
I am saying 200 hours is required also for brain burn in, and gives you enough time to listen to different genres of music to know the ins and outs of an iem.
Anything less, is like writing a review for a movie after watching the 1st 15 minutes.
And if you are not willing to spend that much time to do a review, please do us all a favor, and don't write bunk reviews that are not worth the paper they are written on.
I am urging again for you to be realistic. No one spends 200 hours on something in a week or two. That's the amount of time most people would have spent in 3-4 months. I also bet you haven't listened to your cl2 for anywhere near that unless you listen to it all they long at the expense of any work and social interactions.
In my experience, I personally need about 4-5 hours of eartime to know the pros and cons of something. I do 20-30 hours of burn-in to give it the benefit of doubt and do extensive tip rolling, but most of the time my impression from the first hour remains the same. Once you have a playlist for reference that you know how it should perform with a good reference gear, it's not that hard to hear shortcomings or strengths. Your analogy with the movie review is totally off, what you actually expect is the equivalent of telling someone to play a movie in a loop a few hundred times and then watch it everyday for at least a month and then write a review of it.
I am saying 200 hours is required also for brain burn in, and gives you enough time to listen to different genres of music to know the ins and outs of an iem.
Anything less, is like writing a review for a movie after watching the 1st 15 minutes.
And if you are not willing to spend that much time to do a review, please do us all a favor, and don't write bunk reviews that are not worth the paper they are written on.
I agree with this completely. If anything, it is too lenient and should apply to everything! Don't review a car unless you've driven it 100k miles. People shouldn't be reviewing food unless they've eaten 80 pounds of it. No one should say pants don't fit unless they've worn them for an entire month. If I ask what the weather is like, don't say crap unless you've actually been outside continuously for the last 24 hours. If you click 'like' on this post, mother****er, it better be because you have already read all my others posts and understand the wider context.
As an engineer, if you need to burn something in for that long (or for any length for that matter), you failed in your product development or quality engineering/analysis and quality control. If something is constantly changing over time, that's what we call a hardware defect. It totally falls out of line of any distribution to be predictable. And predictability is very important to quality control. This isn't a living breathing headphone. It's a solid piece of equipment made of solid materials with relatively constant power going through it. Or at least I hope it is.
As for reviews, it's wise to read as many reviews as you can and get opinions when you can before making a purchase. But that's not everyone's mentality so do what you wish. Its always best to understand where the reviewer is coming from, what they enjoy and what they've used before if possible before passing judgement. Same should go with anything in life.
I agree with this completely. If anything, it is too lenient and should apply to everything! Don't review a car unless you've driven it 100k miles. People shouldn't be reviewing food unless they've eaten 80 pounds of it. No one should say pants doesn't fit unless they've worn them for an entire month. If I ask what the weather is like, don't say **** unless you've actually been outside continuously for the last 24 hours. If you click 'like' on this post, mother****er, it better be because you have already read all my others posts and understand the wider context.
I actually break my car in 300K miles before I decide if I like it or not. But for some reason, I hate every car I review.
For food, I typically eat 100lbs just to be safe. Then I am able to really describe the finer notes of the grass-fed, free-range all-natural waygu beef I am eating. 100lbs. Nothing more, nothing less.
You got me. That's professional deformation from being a lawyer. You are lucky there aren't any judges here coz I rarely see any judgments and rulings with sentences shorter than 10 lines or any punctuation for that matter.
I actually break my car in 300K miles before I decide if I like it or not. But for some reason, I hate every car I review.
For food, I typically eat 100lbs just to be safe. Then I am able to really describe the finer notes of the grass-fed, free-range all-natural waygu beef I am eating. 100lbs. Nothing more, nothing less.
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