[3602]

At first I didn't like it. I even started a petition to bring the old version back. But that didn't work and now I (almost) got used to the new version.

 

[Arlekiin]

I was merely pointing out that it seems to me that the traffic was higher in the old version...but I think that the new version is generally more composed though needs work as mentioned before.

 

[Welly Wu]

I don't like this new system. It gives sponsors and the Head-Fi administrators and moderators too much power and control compared to the old vBulletin system. This place has always been infested with too much advertising, but we still have to rely upon strangers within our community to tell us the straight talk about whether a product is good or bad. So, someone has to take the fall for the team and the company or sponsor still gets to peddle their wares. The same is true for fellow members and the reputation based system that we have through user feedbacks is imperfect. It takes too much lost time and money and anger when a member defrauds another member before it is resolved by the administrators, moderators, and the community. I have seen members with sterling reputations get banned for changing their tune and selling broken Head-Fi related components at ridiculously low prices only to have a buyer feel remorse afterwards on one too many instances. This new Huddler system has no way of remedying these problems. Until the basics are covered, I have decided to refrain from buying and selling components on Head-Fi for the indefinite future to protect myself. I go to my local authorized dealers and I pay top dollar for their customer service and my peace of mind only because I truly can afford to sustain this passion and hobby.
 
I still remember when the change was made to this new system and I thought, "Oh dear, this is going to go quite badly." I was proven right. It is unfortunate that we have to be patient with the ongoing repairs and modifications to improve the new Huddler system, but there you have it. I doubt that I will become a Head-Fi contributing member anymore. I see little to no value in taking that action step with the current Head-Fi system and community.
 
Sorry to be harsh, but a lot of other veteran members have the same viewpoints except they left for good and took their knowledge, experience, and frienships with them.

 

[Arlekiin]

@Welly Wu
 
Now you highlighted something I was intending to type yesterday but didnt...
I feel that the "Gear" section alltough seems nice has very commercial feel yes I know that every item has genuine feedback/reviews attached but it doesnt feel like advice and experience but more like a shop instead of helpful community. 
The old system had genuine feel alltough even there there might have been agents in there pushing their own agenda blahblahblah....

 

[JoetheArachnid]

This thread makes me feel incredibly depressed. It makes me feel like I'm too late, that I've missed the old Head-Fi and that it's now permanently gone and I'll never get a chance to see it. Moreover, it makes me feel like it's my fault simply for coming on here and posting, that I am a part of the cancer killing this community and that there's nothing I can do about it except leave and never come back. I feel like despite having made my first post about a month after having bought my first set of cans, despite never having started a 'I want X in Y-Z price range' thread, despite having read through entire 40-page threads before even thinking about posting a reply and having always tried to provide helpful input, that I'm still doing it entirely wrong. I feel wretched and miserable, and it's not at all a nice feeling.
 
Way to go, guys.

 

[Arlekiin]

Im not a 6k post veteran but I have never felt that "I want X in Y-Z price range" threads are wrong. Yes it is a good idea to read alot of threads but thats not why these threads are started. People can read all they want and surf around in other peoples threads but they want someone to assure "Them" that the purchase they want to make is a good idea, they want to hear ins and outs it might have been discussed 10.000 times by someone else but they want to hear it personally its an emotional thing I guess.

 

[Kees]

Quote:

This thread makes me feel incredibly depressed. It makes me feel like I'm too late, that I've missed the old Head-Fi and that it's now permanently gone and I'll never get a chance to see it. Moreover, it makes me feel like it's my fault simply for coming on here and posting, that I am a part of the cancer killing this community and that there's nothing I can do about it except leave and never come back. I feel like despite having made my first post about a month after having bought my first set of cans, despite never having started a 'I want X in Y-Z price range' thread, despite having read through entire 40-page threads before even thinking about posting a reply and having always tried to provide helpful input, that I'm still doing it entirely wrong. I feel wretched and miserable, and it's not at all a nice feeling.
 
Way to go, guys.

It's not your fault.
It's just that this used to be a site for people with rather high-end gear and more than average knowledge of audio equipment and now it is a site for youngsters that are only interested in sub $100 phones and with no knowledge at all. At the moment the loudest members are mostly blabbering pure nonsens, misinforming a lot of the newcomers and generally disturbing the very friendly, relaxed atmosphere that was on this site.
Jude is the owner, and he turned the site from hobby into business. This meant some major changes to the way the site is organised. I guess it's better for Jude this way, more people is more money.
It's just a big letdown and disappointment for a lot of the old members, they made this site a success, but they get no respect. 

 

[digitalmind]

Quote:

That's exactly what we were talking about...
It's in some archive and cannot be transfered to the new system. Great change.
 

That's incredibly dumb. The large amount of reliable feedback was the strongest point of this whole community.

 

[midoo1990]

Quote:

It's not your fault.
It's just that this used to be a site for people with rather high-end gear and more than average knowledge of audio equipment and now it is a site for youngsters that are only interested in sub $100 phones and with no knowledge at all. At the moment the loudest members are mostly blabbering pure nonsens, misinforming a lot of the newcomers and generally disturbing the very friendly, relaxed atmosphere that was on this site.
Jude is the owner, and he turned the site from hobby into business. This meant some major changes to the way the site is organised. I guess it's better for Jude this way, more people is more money.
It's just a big letdown and disappointment for a lot of the old members, they made this site a success, but they get no respect. 

 you are spot on along with Welly Wu.i also feel that the activity is low now.not to mention because of huddler and the big advertisment that headfi got,lots of scams have been made in the FS forum.it seems like headfi is the favourite place for scammers now.
 
so sad for what headfi turned to...

 

[SoulSyde]

I like it.  Great job Jude!

 

[MD1032]

I haven't logged on in a while due to a disaster in our house (sewage backup...part of our house destroyed, that sort of thing), but I would say that right now it looks a lot better than it did when the new forum first went up. Seems a little easier to navigate, too. Honestly, I wouldn't say the ads are any worse than they were before. I think people just didn't realize how many ads there were with the old format because they got used to skipping over them.

 

[Welly Wu]

There are just too many sponsors peddling their products here because Head-Fi has become the one stop website for them to get current intelligence about market trends and buying patterns. To this day, I am amazed that there has not been much talk by anyone about data mining efforts to sift through all of the threads and replies to find useful information with which to sell even more stuff here. This place is a gold mine and it still is the gold standard for headphone related information.
 
I am sorry to say this, but I joined Head-Fi two years earlier than it is indicated on my profile. I got fed up with Head-Fi and I asked Jude to delete my account and he complied with my request. Then, I decided to re-join Head-Fi under my real name once again. So, I have been around the block. This is not to say that I necessarily know more than others, but I do know how to research much more effectively when it comes time for me to buy gear. Nowadays, computers have become my obsession because I am a graduate student at New Jersey Institute of Technology while pursuing a Masters of Science in IT Administration & Security degree program. This is why I post so many threads about computer related hardware and software recently.
 
Head-Fi is doing itself no help by allowing for more sponsors and products to be advertised and sold on the forums. This is the single most hindrance to effective search results. New members with no knowledge deserve our help especially from veteran members like myself. This is not happening as it used to nearly a decade ago when this was a hobbyist website for headphone fanatics because those members that started alongside the nascent days of Head-Fi were already subject matter experts. There were far fewer products available. This place used to have just one forum dedicated to each major component category to serve as a bridge for headphone knowledge and conventional high fidelity components alike. Even veteran members have a hard time making heads out of tails when it comes to sifting through the enormous database of threads and replies about specific products.
 
There is an onslaught of top of the line headphones that have been recently released for sale to the general public. Few members like myself can truly afford to own the said products. For example, I literally have the money to buy a top of the line Grado PS-1000 headphone and a Sager Notebook NP7280 with all of the upgrade options available right now. I posted two threads about those two products recently to solicit information as I am contemplating purchasing these items. I still have deep reservations about plunking down the money because my experience in both industries has clearly told me that there will always be something better down the road given enough time.
 
Yet, it was a bear of an effort for me to research almost every thread and reply regarding just these two specific products. As it stands, the search function at Head-Fi is simply not adequate enough to handle complex, nested, and sophisticated search parameters. The other problem is that people throw around terminology without understanding their meaning on these forums. It is confusing as hell and I bet that a lot of members have left because they got turned off by the complexity of doing business here.
 
So, don't blame the newbies for not searching. The search function simply is an anachronism that needs a major overhaul. I am studying Database Processing and Structured Query Language right now. My mid-term exam is tomorrow at 1:00 PM EST at NJIT. Based upon what I am learning in the course, some of the concepts would go a long way toward improving the search capabilities and make results much more meaningful. However, there are no databases or tables of information because that effort would take a monumental effort to compile that data accurately on an ongoing basis here at Head-Fi. If someone were to come up with a way to incorporate these advanced search capabilities in a manner that is accessible to all of the members, then things will start to improve quite dramatically. Unfortunately, I do not have the knowledge or experience necssary to spearhead such a major undertaking at this moment.
 
The last thing that I will say for the record is that there is no ranking system for members here based upon their level of expertise. This is another major problem. There are too many newbies that pose like they are experts and the true experts are leaving because they do not want to get sucked into fights with the newbies or the administrative team at Head-Fi. I do not consider myself an expert after staying here as a member at Head-Fi and nobody has told me otherwise either. However, I have tried to contact experts that I thought might reply through private messages only to never hear back from them again. This is problematic as well. When members do not reply to private messages, it is not only irksome, but it represents another change to the forums that has degraded the quality of the threads and replies. This place used to be a venue for fellow Head-Fi members that actually wanted to help other members. This is no longer the case in my experience anymore. Private messaging is an important feature because some people want to be a bit more careful in soliciting information or doing business or striking up friendships. I understand that Head-Fi is not a full-time paying job, but I consider it to be rude when I do choose to send a message to someone only to have it ignored for whatever reasons unbeknownst to me.
 
There are some days when I dread visiting this website for some of the stated reasons. I have plenty of more gripes that still bother me years after I initially joined almost a decade ago.
 
The biggest gripe that I have is that people recycle through gear too fast to make an informed judgment call about specific products. Then, time takes its toll and listening notes become antiquated with current trends within our not so niche hobby. Members that have kept their gear for at least one full calendar year are usually much more accurate and their posts are more helpful when other members are contemplating the purchase of the same product. There is a reason why I do not do much business through the Head-Fi system because I did not want to jump on the "who has the latest and greatest" toy bandwagon. Envy is a disease and satisfaction is underestimated on these forums. While there is no obligation to comply with what I say, it calls out suspicion when a member shills for a company or sponsor on a regular basis. I won't name their names, but it is a disturbing trend that has surfaced ever since this forum went commercial years ago.
 
I still read most of the major high fidelity blogs, magazines, websites, etc. I can say with absolute certainty that they are a much more trustworthy source of information that has helped me to obtain my current reference system that no Head-Fi member could have furnished sufficient information that would persuade me to buy another product. Sure, there are shady professional reviewers from time to time and some magazines have adopted questionable changes that calls their good judgement and ethics into question, but fellow audio writers and their readers take care of its own so to speak. Over here at Head-Fi, such an action will get you banned because civility is political correctedness are the most desireable attributes within this community. This stifles our hobby which has almost always been on shaky ground because traditional audiophiles do not listen to headphones nearly with the same levels of aural bliss as their speakers can provide for them in their homes.
 
I do not require that you agree with everything that I say now, but this has been a long time coming. At some point in time, our community has to police itself and no changeover to a new forum system can resolve these deeply entrenched problems that never got solved by the staff here at Head-Fi or through another software vendors website and product for bill board bulletin style communications system.

 

[Arlekiin]

Well it might become the commercial harbor of HI-FI NO1 but there are other forums that will fill the niche of what Head-Fi used to be or maybe there already is one that could fill its place and have enthusiast just hanging together sharing info and having a blast.
Funny though that in Open source development when a project goes commercial then the hardest part is to keep/maintain the community during the transition.

 

[n3rdling]

I haven't really noticed an influx of newbies and repeat threads...it's been like that for as long as I've been reading this forum.  That's always been the worst thing about this forum.  
 
As for the new forum, I don't like it.  When the change was initially made, people said "you'll all get used to it and then you'll like it just as much as the old forum."  I still don't like it.  I used to not only read a bunch of current threads, but also search around and read old threads all the time.  It's not very easy to do that anymore since the search engine sucks, so I mainly keep up to date with about 5-10 current threads at a time.  I don't even bother searching for old stuff anymore which is a shame.  Huddler seems to be designed by marketers instead of forum users.  I can only picture a bunch of old people sitting in a conference room saying "the kids like social networking and curved corners these days so let's incorporate those things."  Functionality takes a back seat to appearance with this new forum design.  The worst part is that Huddler doesn't seem flexible at all.  People have been complaining about the search function from the get go and it still hasn't been fixed.  I can only assume it never will.
 
The only positive I can think of is the new PM system.  I like how PM convos show up like a thread now instead of having tons of quote brackets.

 

[rds]

What is the incentive to improve a search engine that allows users read about old products and opinions from people other than vendors?  On a similar note what is the incentive to keeping member's feedback intact (that may have been built up over many years) when it could disposed of thus making all non-commercial sellers appear equally unreliable?
 
How many regular users were surveyed on changes they'd like to see happen?  Who was giving all the input as to how this site should be changed?