[oqvist]

Quote:

 
Purely out of interest - no judgement or agenda - could you (or anyone who feels the same) explain this to me?  I really don't understand.  Thanks!
 

 
Eat the same thing no matter how much you like it it gets old. Try other food and you will rediscover the old food again after a while.
If there was a headphone that did it all it would maybe be different.

 

[MrSpenkelink]

Quote:

 
 
This kind of thinking, to me, is problematic. It reads like you're dismissing some reviews as needing to be "taken with a grain of salt" because they're enthusiastic and positive, while claiming that other reviews are more honest somehow because they bash a certain headphone.
 
I agree that Skylab's reviews are really top notch and that he puts a lot of effort and thought into them. He has a lot of respect around here, and he certainly deserves it. However I think it's wrong to automatically dismiss the other reviews that have been posted here as being somehow untruthful or deceptive just because the people posting them are enthusiastic about their purchase.
 
It's probably a sound idea to approach reviews with caution when a lot of money is involved, yes. There is unfortunately truth to the assertion that people have buyer's remorse and will, on occasion, exaggerate the worthiness of a product in an attempt to feel better about said purchase or, in the worst case, maliciously trick others into making the same mistake.
 
I think some people around these parts have a tendency to overdo these accusations however. All opinions expressed in our hobby--whether they're made by someone with a post count of 3 or by Skylab--- are merely preference. All preferences should be taken with a grain of salt. That should be the first law of our hobby, a guiding principle we carry with us at all times lest we get buffeted about by the winds of passing fancy.
 
Being able to criticize a product in spite of the money invested in it is surely the sign of honesty, but not doing so isn't automatically a sign of dishonesty. In the end, the only way to know for sure is to listen for yourself. Basing your opinion off of one glowingly positive review is in no way more folly than basing it off of any other one review, in my humble opinion.

 
That's even handed of you, but if all the opinions expressed here are nothing more than personal preference and to be taken with a grain of salt, then how should we evaluate them - by first going out and buying the headphone that we've come here to learn more about? 
 

 

[Skylab]

My reviews absolutely are no more than my opinion and preferences, but I do think the one slight advantage that they may have to readers over the reviews offered by people who have not written reviews of other products is that my misguided rantings about audio here on head-fi do provide some historical context for the direction in which they are misguided

 

[ernestryles]

I had the pleasure of listening to these at the ultrasone booth at the AES expo in San Francisco.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to listen to them for very long, and the ambient noise in the room spoiled the experience a bit.  I was generally impressed, and loved the weight of the phones, but I can only wish that I heard them in a more peaceful environment.  After listening I spoke with Ultrasone CEO Michael Willberg, and he told me a lot about them, which made the visit more worthwhile. 

 

[InnerSpace]

Quote:

 
... if all the opinions expressed here are nothing more than personal preference and to be taken with a grain of salt, then how should we evaluate them - by first going out and buying the headphone that we've come here to learn more about? 
 

I think that's the only way to calibrate it - judge a reviewer's value by his or her response to a sound you're familiar with.  If he or she seems to be right about item x, assume he or she might be right about y and z, too.  Like movie or book reviewers.  The problem with Skylab is ... he's right about the Leben and wrong about the LCD-2!

 

[MacedonianHero]

Quote:

 he's right about the Leben and wrong about the LCD-2!

I'd say he's bang on correct with both.

 

[MrSpenkelink]

So bypass Head-Fi on your way to buying headphones? Once you've bought them come here and post your impressions for others to ignore?

 

[InnerSpace]

Quote:

I'd say he's bang on correct with both.

 
Yeah, probably.  Seriously, I wonder if I got a sub-par pair.  His tastes and mine seem to track quite closely otherwise.  I believe sample variability is a bigger issue than we think.
 

 

[InnerSpace]

Quote:

So bypass Head-Fi on your way to buying headphones? Once you've bought them come here and post your impressions for others to ignore?

No, I meant find a "pair" based on an item or two you're familiar with, and pay attention to that person.  In other words, if you love x, don't pay too much attention to someone who hates x.  It's not brain surgery.

 

[MrSpenkelink]

^ Quite right, it's not brain surgery.

 

[TheGhostWhoWalks]

Quote:

 
Eat the same thing no matter how much you like it it gets old. Try other food and you will rediscover the old food again after a while.
If there was a headphone that did it all it would maybe be different.

+1. I lived with the R10s for two years before I really found myself getting frustrated at their lack of bass, PRAT, and punch on rock and metal music. When I finally bought the L3000s I realized how much I'd been missing on that type of music. But after marathoning with the L3Ks, going back to my R10s made me appreciate what they did even more, and to this day I simply insist on moderating my listening between the two headphones because switching is always a pleasant surprise, as is switching back. FWIW, I think for any can-o-phile it's an absolute must to have at least two reference phones that compliment each other. Hell, have ten if you can afford them. Even all of the phones I sold made me appreciate how damn good my reference babies were.

 

[TheGhostWhoWalks]

Quote:

My reviews absolutely are no more than my opinion and preferences, but I do think the one slight advantage that they may have to readers over the reviews offered by people who have not written reviews of other products is that my misguided rantings about audio here on head-fi do provide some historical context for the direction in which they are misguided

This sounds like the modern literary criticism trope of "all readings are misreadings".

 

[MrSpenkelink]

Quote:

No, I meant find a "pair" based on an item or two you're familiar with, and pay attention to that person.  In other words, if you love x, don't pay too much attention to someone who hates x.  It's not brain surgery.

But slightly more seriously, many people come to Head-Fi looking for guidance to assist them with their first headphone purchase. So they don't have a frame of reference for comparison. And just because two people happen to share a liking for one or two headphones, that doesn't necessarily mean that they will feel the same way about the third. There are many variables that come into play when we're comparing our personal listening experiences. 
 

 

[TheGhostWhoWalks]

^ In all honesty, I think far and away the most helpful reviews are those that simply try to describe sound rather than critique it. In that context, comparisons are extremely helpful because the human brain is largely based around its ability to make comparisons. I've said it a million times (in all different contexts) that very few things are good and bad in isolation, but in comparison, and better/worse doesn't exist at all without comparisons. When I reviewed the SA5Ks (see Amazon spotlight review: "Be Careful of the Hype") I tried to describe the sound as precisely as possible without exaggeration or overly subjective criticism. I think I would be suspicious of any review that only lists positives or negatives without the other, because no headphone I've ever heard has been completely worthless or completely the best in everything. Even those "legendary" phones like R10s, Qualias, L3Ks, Orpheus, PS1s, 02s etc. all had their weaknesses.
 
As I said in the SA5K review, the level of mid-tier audiophile headphones was really getting overcrowded with a ton of options so it's nice to see the high-tier filling back up again with the T1s, HD800s, E10s, and others. I've yet to hear any of them, but I do think I have a fairly good idea of their qualities by reading and parsing through all of the reviews, especially those comparative ones.

 

[MrSpenkelink]

^ I would like to think that Head-Fi serves a useful purpose in this regard. I do think that you can attach more weight to some of the opinions expressed here than others. It seems to me that there are Head-Fiers who try very hard to be objective when conveying their listening impressions, and impartial in their comparative assessments of headphones. And then there are those who show an obvious bias.