[Bonddam]

I'm having a hard time parsing this but i'll try my best:

To start... it's not about price. There's tons of overpriced stuff out there, sure, but some expensive headphones are genuinely very nice sounding, if flawed.

Utopia, despite its easily discernible faults (metallic timbre, oversharpened transients/unevenness of dynamic envelope) isn't nearly as much of a head-scratcher as 1266 is to me. Is it worth the money? IMO no, but I can very clearly understand why it would be to someone else. Susvara, which I'm really not a fan of regardless of price, at least gets tonality within the bounds of what I'd call acceptable, and I can understand why people like it.

Far be it from me to say what someone can and can't like, but do me a solid and don't assume that I'm some bitter poor person who resents expensive things for the sake of their price. I just don't like when headphones sound like a raw metal sheet in the process of being turned into a washboard... and I can't really fathom why someone would buy and ostensibly build a system around something with so many clear flaws.

My Russian mob guy in the story was the rich guy not me. Bitter you could say if I was the rich guy. I don't make 6 figures but I do invest.

By chance are you a Sharur follower. That's the kid who think that Eytomotic iem is the only thing you should buy because the frequency graph.

You do come across bitter.

 

[galacticsoap]

It was not my intent to offend anyone. I criticized a product. Despite my wording being acerbic, I wish nobody ill. Audio is a passion, and with that passion other emotions are bound to enter the ring... but your use of emotionless, analytical, "adult" language doesn't make your armchair diagnosis, erroneous reading of the content of my posts, and minimization of very real criticisms in any way better. It's arguably worse, actually.

I didn't decide to flippantly call anyone cognitively impaired, naive, or immature. I didn't even call anyone deaf, and this is Head-Fi!

All I said is that in my view most of what seems to be fueling the 1266 love is:

-A lack of standards rooted in lack of ear training, comparative tests, references, and experience: You may say this is an assumption, but I've yet to encounter a situation where someone's fulfillment of the rubric for what is ultimately my trust and belief in them isn't almost immediately apparent in reading/hearing their impressions. (Note: Admittedly, only after having spent a good amount of time myself in the hobby do I know how to parse the signal from the noise.)

-Sunk cost/purchase validation: There is literally no way to deny this in good faith. People are bound to defend their purchases from a place of emotional denial instead of brutal honesty. It happens all the time. I'm certainly guilty of it at times. Hell... Even the owner of the exact 1266TC unit reviewed in Ish's (and Resolve's, for that matter) review admits that they did, in fact, defend 1266 in an effort to do this... or as we call it in certain circles, in an effort to "cope."

-Needing to keep a positive relationship with Abyss: Their history with reviewers in particular speaks for itself, but there is other information out there (even spoken about in this thread) that would illustrate why one would want to shy away from criticizing Abyss products too much. If you want hard info/sources, feel free to DM me.

You say I insulted people, and I don't know if you mean a person in particular, because I don't think I did. I did angrily and perhaps impertinently state a discontent in the abstract about people in the hobby not being understandable or believable based on the reasons above, but just because my experience differs so wildly in a way that's hard to even reconcile re: 1266TC.

If you read again you'll notice, the common thread through all of this is not me insulting anyone, or even just saying my thoughts on what fuels the 1266 love... but also that I truly do not and cannot understand how someone can love 1266 so deeply when it sounds the way it does and it costs as much as it costs...

...other than the 3 reasons I've mentioned, of course.

I've not attacked anyone, all i've done is criticized a product as well as the hobby as a whole and stated my absolute confusion at how 1266 could be so passionately defended.

If you want to criticize my tone, fine. I could be better at trying to get things across neatly and effectively in text, I admit that. Passions run high in this hobby for me, I care about it a lot. I could and should do better. I do try.

But you are the one that decided to escalate this from talking about (admittedly) strong opinions and confusion about audio peripherals and the surrounding hobby... to diagnosing someone through a screen as cognitively deficient and in need of psychological intervention.

I might call people out on not backing up their hard-to-grasp takes in a way that meets my, frankly, high standards of believability, but I'd never do that, dude. That's like... very serious. Nowhere near as innocuous or free of consequence as headphones. And fwiw man, I don't seem to be having trouble managing cognitive dissonance or anything, I've been pretty consistent. You are the one grasping at what is actually a gravely serious straw in an effort to minimize or rug-sweep my very real criticisms of the product and the hobby (criticisms that neither of which are held by me alone).

But hey... Your escalating into condescension, thinly veiled under the guise of false compassion or care for my well-being, is noted, dude.

I'm not talking about this anymore. Read Ish's review if you want a salient take I agree with, because you won't find it most other places.

Mate, I wasn't diagnosing you as cognitively deficient.

You're clearly articulate and intelligent.

I do though, see a disconcerting level of frustration and discontent in your posts.

You can read my intent as you will, but I stand by my posts. If anything, your response only reinforces my original point.

Compassion is not something I convey, under any guise, in some juvenile arbitrary game of one-upmanship. Internet posts don't elicit that sort of Machiavellian behaviour in me.

You don't seem happy. I genuinely hope you're okay.

 

[listenerwww]

Mate, I wasn't diagnosing you as cognitively deficient.

You're clearly articulate and intelligent.

I do though, see a disconcerting level of frustration and discontent in your posts.

You can read my intent as you will, but I stand by my posts. If anything, your response only reinforces my original point.

Compassion is not something I convey, under any guise, in some juvenile arbitrary game of one-upmanship. Internet posts don't elicit that sort of Machiavellian behaviour in me.

You don't seem happy. I genuinely hope you're okay.

I’ll take you at your word, then.

&I’m fine, mate, truly. Just remembering why I never post here even though I’ve had an account for more than 10 years.

 

[ra990]

If you don't like a headphone, fine. But to go on and claim that those that do are either stupid and don't know what good sound is, or are stuck to their purchase bc of the price, or are shills for the company...

Reevaluate who is being condescending and bitter, because it ain't us, we're happy with the Abyss. Many of us also have other headphones that we love as much and you probably think are great.

 

[ken6217]

It seems to me like you have a very narrow mind about what can be enjoyable in audio.

I've auditioned these headphone for so many who have come into my house and it's always a guaranteed ear-to-ear grin. It's not that hard to understand why so many people love these headphones. They're a lot of fun!

It seems you have a very narrow mind about what someone finds enjoyable or not. I guess it follows suit that you would think if someone goes in the Baskin-Robbins that he should like what, 20 or 30 flavors out of a 32. Or all 32? Is it OK if he just likes chocolate or just vanilla?

I would say most people have a specific sound signature that they like.

 

[sloomingbla]

I mean, if someone called an 8k screen blurry it would be confusing, right?

I’ve heard many reports of the tc being amp-picky. I don’t know anything about the amps used but if I had to guess there’s something that went wrong somewhere in the chain. Then again, I’m using an 800$ amp so ymmv. If there wasn’t anything wrong with the chain, it’s easy to see that whatever you were hearing was not in the majority.

And that’s fine - but if you are going to say that we only enjoy our headphones because we have untrained ears and buyer’s bias, I would like to return the idea that a reviewer would also be heavily biased towards defending their position.

Confirmation bias, combined with strange initial impressions (which most of us experienced, until we got the fit right) could easily have snowballed this effect.

 

[ra990]

It seems you have a very narrow mind about what someone finds enjoyable or not. I guess it follows suit that you would think if someone goes in the Baskin-Robbins that he should like what, 20 or 30 flavors out of a 32. Or all 32? Is it OK if he just likes chocolate or just vanilla?

I would say most people have a specific sound signature that they like.

No you are not good with analogies. This is like you liking what you like at baskin robins and insulting others for liking the flavors you don't.

 

[ken6217]

No you are not good with analogies. This is like you liking what you like at baskin robins and insulting others for liking the flavors you don't.

On the contrary, you insulted him for: “It seems to me like you have a very narrow mind about what can be enjoyable in audio “

Who are you to tell him what he should like???

 

[ken6217]

No you are not good with analogies. This is like you liking what you like at baskin robins and insulting others for liking the flavors you don't.

No. You’re bad at comprehending and understanding. Well, at least you have an expansive mind of what is enjoyable in audio.

 

[ra990]

On the contrary, you insulted him for: “It seems to me like you have a very narrow mind about what can be enjoyable in audio “

Who are you to tell him what he should like???

I'm telling him he has a narrow mind because he "can't understand how anyone could like this headphone".

I don't care what he likes. I don't go around insulting people who like something that I don't.

Please read the thread before getting all worked up.

 

[ken6217]

I'm telling him he has a narrow mind because he "can't understand how anyone could like this headphone".

I don't care what he likes. I don't go around insulting people who like something that I don't.

Please read the thread before getting all worked up.

I’ll give you that one. I did miss the earlier post.

 

[ra990]

I’ll give you that one. I did miss the earlier post.

Rare for someone to own up to a mistake instead of digging in further. Thank you.

 

[ken6217]

Rare for someone to own up to a mistake instead of digging in further. Thank you.

Thats only because I’ve had practice.

 

[ra990]

Thats only because I’ve had practice.

You must be married.

 

[leftside]

The price of these headphones alone make them an easy target for the trolls, or some Internet reviewer looking for a click-bait article. Me - I'm just happy I get to listen to the Abyss.