[Kitechaser]

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 **** 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.

Most car reviews are written after extensive testing, not just on what it drives like straight off the lot.
You guys are making my point for me.
And the fact that you are getting so triggered by my suggestion that reviewers spend some time with the product before they write half baked reviews, tells me you are all in the review business.
And business on the review "gravy" train is good.

 

[Zerohour88]

Well, this is an extremely complicated matter.

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.

First part, I actually don't mind if someone can defer to a more experienced person, but at the very least, don't argue it too extremely as if its your own personal experience.

Second part, now that's tricky. A reviewer might have a huge following but its entirely possible few have actually made a baseline comparison with any gear he/she tested and reviewed. Which is how I personally do if I need to gauge whether the reviewer's taste aligned with mine or at the very least I can trust his judgement. Only finding people you agree with might create an echo chamber of sorts, but isn't that the point of audio, sounds that are agreeable to your ears? A reviewer can both be objective and have his own preference (someone who might say, ranks/classes purely on technical ability despite also having his own preference sound sig that might not reflect that), but at the end of the day, its still their own perception of "objectivity". Its up to the readers themselves to decide whether to trust it.

I guess its a matter of someone relating themselves to not only the product they purchased and like, but also the reviewer that praised it (and by extension, they feel like a kindred spirit of sorts?). Anyone criticizing the product is seen as invalidating not only their purchase but their reviewer and by extension themselves, so they feel the need to defend the perceived "attack".

For a specialized thread (ones catering to a model or brand), maybe that's acceptable (since people flocking there would generally like that particular model/brand and actually wants an echo chamber). For a general discovery or discussion thread like this, its probably best to just leave if you feel that you're being "attacked". Of course, its all my opinion.

 

[SciOC]

Y'all need to take more medication.... So much hyperbole going on in all directions. Just keep lighting each other's strawmen on fire, everyone wins!

Seriously. Can we get back to headphones?

If I had to buy one, which is more unique for my collection, the dm6 or the DMG?

 

[darkwing]

Y'all need to take more medication.... So much hyperbole going on in all directions. Just keep lighting each other's strawmen on fire, everyone wins!

Seriously. Can we get back to headphones?

If I had to buy one, which is more unique for my collection, the dm6 or the DMG?

based on your collection, the DM6

 

[papa_mia]

Y'all need to take more medication.... So much hyperbole going on in all directions. Just keep lighting each other's strawmen on fire, everyone wins!

Seriously. Can we get back to headphones?

If I had to buy one, which is more unique for my collection, the dm6 or the DMG?

Deep down, you know that you already had the answer to this question. Do you hear it? The calm, constant voice in you head?

Get both.

 

[hemipowered007]

Damnit no more burn in talk!!! Black Friday is upon us, let us all feast on cheaper gears, dm6 or toneking bl1 to sit aside my ex1000. I'm leaning towards the bl1 as it seems the dm6 would be more similar than different. Thoughts?

 

[Zerohour88]

Y'all need to take more medication.... So much hyperbole going on in all directions. Just keep lighting each other's strawmen on fire, everyone wins!

Seriously. Can we get back to headphones?

If I had to buy one, which is more unique for my collection, the dm6 or the DMG?

sorry, too broke to afford any medication, head-fi killed my wallet

If we wanna talk audio, well, recently a friend loaned me a CA Andromeda for 2 weeks, but sadly my Breeze Audio SE4 weren't up to task and I don't have IEMatch or such gear to get rid of the hiss. (Pondered on getting an impedance adapter, but on further research its not really the same thing)

didn't stop me from wholly enjoying it, definitely one for the hall of fame (I daresay even better than the UERM I auditioned before, though that have a different sound sig, of course)

How much does the hissing (I'm assuming from the mismatched impedance) would've ruined the actual sound quality of the Andro, I'll never know.

 

[kova4a]

Most car reviews are written after extensive testing, not just on what it drives like straight off the lot.
You guys are making my point for me.
And the fact that you are getting so triggered by my suggestion that reviewers spend some time with the product before they write half baked reviews, tells me you are all in the review business.
And business on the review "gravy" train is good.

No, they aren't. If you get into a car and you don't like something you know it right away. All it takes a single test drive. You can't tell me that when you got the cl2, you didn't like something about it but told yourself everything will be alright in 200-300 hours. The passion you put into defending your opinion is something that you have only if you though it was the best thing ever right away and as I said before no one will spend 800 bucks on an iem and not return it right away if he/she doesn't like it.

When most people buy something they expect it to perform respectively of the price it costs right away. If I buy a $20 iem I wouldn't be judgmental coz I don't expect it to sound like a $500 one, but when people buy something that costs $1000 and it sounds off or not as good as something else that costs the same or cheaper, you can't honestly expect that they will dedicate so much time using something they don't like, not to mention affecting its resale value or losing the right to return it, in hopes that it will get better in a few weeks or months.

There isn't a single reviewer in the world (of anything) that will dedicate the time and effort you expect unless it's personal. Reviewing a lot of gear makes you a faster reviewer because you have plenty of points of reference. Like if you asked me to review a brand of whisky in high school I wouldn't know a thing about that, but now I need a sip to know if something is good or not, I don't need to drink a bottle of the same whiskey everyday for a month to let it grow on me, because I already know what I like and what are good whiskey qualities that should be their right away. The brain adjusts extremely fast, you don't need to spend a few months, it takes days, even hours as eyesight and hearing are the fastest adjusting senses. The problem comes when you come back to your reference and hear the things that it does better.

As far as reviewers go, you should refrain from overgeneralising. I am not a reviewer, haven't reviewed anything in years. My time is way more precious and I don't need gravy trains as I can buy any TOTL iem I want, but that's none of your business.

 

[Lurk650]

Most car reviews are written after extensive testing, not just on what it drives like straight off the lot.
You guys are making my point for me.
And the fact that you are getting so triggered by my suggestion that reviewers spend some time with the product before they write half baked reviews, tells me you are all in the review business.
And business on the review "gravy" train is good.

Please write a review...or in your case a few, ya know, "review burn in", before calling out reviewers.

 

[RvTrav]

I read a lot of reviews of earphones and headphones and want to thank all those people who take the time and effort to write them. Although I do not always hear things exactly as the reviewers do, I have always believed that this is due to the fact that we all hear things differently. Thanks again and keep up the good work.

 

[peter123]

Please write a review...or in your case a few, ya know, "review burn in", before calling out reviewers.

I wouldn't expect that he/she can be bothered giving that much to the community when he/she don't even bother to fill out his/her profile page. It's so much more easy to throw crap on others and not doing jack crap self.

This is typical TROLL behavior in my experience .......

 

[SciOC]

Deep down, you know that you already had the answer to this question. Do you hear it? The calm, constant voice in you head?

Get both.

The Seroquel takes care of the voices, but the answer, as you surmised, is both.

sorry, too broke to afford any medication, head-fi killed my wallet

If we wanna talk audio, well, recently a friend loaned me a CA Andromeda for 2 weeks, but sadly my Breeze Audio SE4 weren't up to task and I don't have IEMatch or such gear to get rid of the hiss. (Pondered on getting an impedance adapter, but on further research its not really the same thing)

didn't stop me from wholly enjoying it, definitely one for the hall of fame (I daresay even better than the UERM I auditioned before, though that have a different sound sig, of course)

How much does the hissing (I'm assuming from the mismatched impedance) would've ruined the actual sound quality of the Andro, I'll never know.

I'm still waiting on a comparison between the Andromeda and dm6, that's what I really want to know. The dm6 looks like a budget Andromeda to me, and the dmg a budget ee legend x. The Andromeda is really picky, and that's part of the reason I got rid of them. They sounded great, but could be a pain. Also, I hate iematch, wrecks the soundstage for me. You get used to some hiss after a while....

 

[chinmie]

"show ignored content"

i see no changes in attitude. I'm still glad i put him on my ignore list

 

[Otto Motor]

New Thread?
Somebody mentioned discussion of "burn-in", "break-in" etc. should go to the Sound Science thread. I hope I got that wrong but the Sound Science appears to have been orphaned for quite a while. And it should deal exclusively with physics (impedance, waterfalls etc., stuff that is largely opinion-independent and has a scientific foundation). I wonder whether we should rather start a "Philosophy" thread for this as well as for the discussion of the value of reviews and more of the kinda-off topics discussed here recently (what I am NOT suggesting is a "Punch and Judy" thread where people beat each other up verbally).

My personal holy grail is how to describe sound as accurately and in as few words as possible. I am struggling in particular with writing my own reviews while distinguishing the big-picture sound quality: how would the reader know right away that the item discussed is in the $20 category and not in the $2000 class (or the other way round). Or the eternal question cost vs. fun vs. value: where are the sweet spots? Another one is standardization of sound description: for example, how is the midrange defined - in real life there are choices offered. What is mid-bass, for example: the bass sensu stricto between sub-bass and midrange or the middle in the commonly accepted bass area between 60 and 250 Hz. All this is not really sound science or discovery. And people who are not interested in these topics simply don't subscribe to it.

 

[peter123]

Tenzh P4 Pro vs Brainwavz B400:

Both IEM's are burned in for 240 hours (=10 days for those of you without a calculator at hand) and both have the same gold coated platinum 80 core cable (or might it have been silver coated 8 core copper, my memory fails me...). I must admit though that one cable is black and the other is white but I haven't yet been able to detect any difference in sound due to the difference in color but I'm sure that others with more sensitive ears might be able to.

Built quality on the P4 is impeccable and doesn't loose out on anything to my Aurisonics ASG-1PLUS (originally $500 , they're also extremely comfortable to wear. The B400 loses out to pretty much any pair of IEM's I've see over $15 when it comes to built and finishing. Even though I've exchanged my pair once because of the poor finishing it's still far from good and definitely a lot less than I'd expect for the price. There's also something wrong with the MMCX connections (as was it on my first pair as the cables came loose really easy and there's scratching noises from them occasionally.

When it comes to sound they're similar but different. They're both fairly well balanced and brings the midrange to focus. This makes them both very good options for vocal based music (Chris Jones, Mark Knopfler, Sarah K etc). The P4 is actually even more vocal forward and also more intimate in their presentation while the B400 sounds more even and a touch smoother and more coherent. They're both lacking some bass extension and impact as well. The B400 even more so, especially in the midbass. Even if the P4 has slightly more bass drive and sounds quite engaging with Malias Convergence album (which the B400 fails to do) none of them is able to pick up the drive from the bass on the Yello album Touch Yello and it sounds flat and unengaging on both. Subbass does not offer much impact at all in either so I would not recommend either of them for bass driven music in general and definitely not for bassheads in particular. The treble has clearly better extension on the P4 to my ears while both are quite thick and very well articulated in the higher frequencies.

I'd say that they're both great IEM's for acoustic music with vocals but despite the B400 being slightly more refined (probably because of a bit better overall balance and being more coherent) I wouldn't recommend them to anyone due to the extremely poor built quality (especially for the price). The P4 on the other hand is a solid offering for below $100 if one is looking for a vocal centered pair of IEM's.

I hope this helps.

Edit: Btw, I paid for both these IEM's so in some universe taking the time to write this is probably just a way to justify my purchases.