My interest for head-fi is slowing dying. I'm a fairly new head-fier, but I remember head-fi was bit more logical and factual. I see spammers and users that just bashes on products, rather then writing anything useful or productive.
Nasty remark to the first post would be, did someone posted negative comment on the equipment you were trying to sell?
However I feel that we are fortunate about head-fi (maybe because of it mass, number of users)
In other forums which I partcipated (local from my country) there were:
- super gurus, which have rather controvential opinions (I think they were bashed and banned here on hifi), does seem to hear drastic changes which cables (or cable stands!) but don't seem to here 1/4 of FR removed, or +15db on treble is what they consider 'normal'
- People (mainly those above) who favor just one (few) pair of headphones which generally are considered, saying it politely not that good elsewhere, i.e. ultrasone E?, Qualia, PS10000; and in every post you have a reference to them and everything else bashed out
- Few people (often with no real electric experiance) who produce mainly amplifiers based on cheap chinese schemas (often those are just repackaged cheap chinese producs), and in every post you see how everything is a least 2 classes better with there stuff (and just 5000$ stuff is not necesairly better but depending on preference it might be comparable); and you have 300$ amps suggested to 60$ headphones (making unlistenable HP just too good for listen)
- Similar guys with cables (mainly [or just] those who make the upgrades) (yeah you should do this 50$ cable upgrade for our 40$ HP)
- Few friends of those (or fake accounts); there is a guy who or repeats the mantras of gurus or, in his own opinions, has very F*up notion of music quality (he is kind of hidden [and just] bas lower)
- Not to mention massive post removal (yeah. so you said that the DAC which we sell is just as good as other similarly priced DAC)
- A guy who heard HE90 for 2 hours (and few of his followers who did not hear them) where in every second post you hear his saying 'AKG 518 (or Superlux or HD600 or HD800) SQ-wise is total crap, and with HE90 you can have just good sound
- Some "not some so good products" which were bought on ebay promotions (lets say 5 units), and then you have massive praing posts during one month (were 4 of those 5 are resold immediatly,and those resold units are resold few more times)
While this may be my first post, I assure you I am not new to the world of headphones or this forum. I started to really get into this hobby around 2000, but had some interest in the late '90's. At the time Headwize was the authoritative forum. Then Head-fi appeared and grew. It was a great place where people formed their own opinions and shared with the community. I lurked for a few years. I was getting a lot out of it, but not contributing. Maybe I was selfish, maybe I thought I had nothing to offer, maybe I thought people were more knowledgeable than myself? I do not have a good reason for being a member for almost 10 years and making this my first post.
I am not trying to go off on a rant, but I think it is important for people coming to this great hobby to understand that there are many great opinions here, but there is equally a lot of misinformation. How can someone recommend something - a headphone, a DAP, a DAC, an amp or even a cable without even trying it? How can they dismiss it? This forum is filled with people with thousands of posts posturing and declaring an opinion that is not even their own as a fact. The headphone market has grown over the last two decades (thanks mostly to Apple and Beats) which has brought about pseudo-experts. For the people who have enjoyed this community for years, they have learned who they can trust, but often a very vocal or prolific user does not have the knowledge or experience to make a thoughtful recommendation. Music is personal, sound reproduction is personal, our ears are all different. There is too much regurgitated circle jerking information here.
I don't know if this post will be deleted, but my whole point is that sometimes it is best not to talk, but to listen. Please don't make a headphone recommendation to someone if you have not owned the headphone in question. Listening to something in a store or at a meet does not qualify you as experienced with that item. I have owned or own most TOTL headphones HD800, LCD-2, TH900, T1, ED8 and many others, yet I have not felt the need to pass my opinion off as fact. Please be considerate of others and don't just copypasta other people's thoughts or give praise to your latest purchase when you have nothing to compare it to.
This rant is over. I will continue to lurk, but I want to thank all of the experts on here for the great advice and recommendations over the years and let you know how difficult it is to sort through all of the BS to find you...
Dammmm....tot u have found enlightenment,
u should hv kept on meditating..
This rant has set u back ten years,
Now get back to your sofa, n enjoy the music
I have a blog here, but I don't use it a lot. If I can think out a chapter-by-chapter structure like Jason has with enough material I might consider it.
It would be great to see an informed discussion of the sound supply/value chain. What I mean by this is the following. Let's take portable rigs as an example. Sounding produced through a combination of: music files; dac, player; amplification; and transducers (iem or headphones). Alol of these (music files, player, and transducers) contribute to the end sound quality to differing degrees. Differing degrees of quality can be found in every aspect of the sound supply chain. You can buy various types of sound files, players, and iem/headphones. The sonic return on investment (SROI) will vary on all of these. So the question becomes where does one investing the Sonic Supply Chain (SSC)?
Where is the greatest relative SROI? Is it music files at higher resolutions? If so how high, where does one enter the land of diminishing returns? Is it IEM? The player...? What percentage of funds should be allocated between players and transducers to achieve the best SROI? Where doex the point of diminishing SROI start to occur in music files, players and headphones?
When you start putting real monetary values to each component of the SSC you can come up with huge ranges of expense. A current state top of the line portable system might cost at retail as much as $3500 plus music files and micro SD card. Let's say in current state portable terms that gives you 10 out of 10 sound quality. Well how much of that 10 out of 10 sound quality can you get for a fraction of the same price? How do you do it? How do you best allocate your funds to achieve maximum SROI?
It's complex and difficult to say I realize. Many moving pieces exist. That said, it's still very worthwhile analyzing. My experience has been that huge sound qualitygains can be had by increasing the quality of your music files up to a point for very little additional cost (cd purchased used and ripped flac). I feel that investment in better iem
returns more than the player beyond a certain point. I struggle with assessing how much more to spend on new players. I know that value exists in better dacs, amps etc..
So anyway, as I mentioned, it's complex and perhaps controversial. It's easy enougo to say what the candidates for Totl rigs are. It's much more challenging to say which rigs get you 90% of the way there sonically for 50% (pick your own percentage) of the cost.
Every forum is going to have noise, trolls, bad information, newbs asking repeat questions, etc. etc. etc. The larger a forum is, the harder it will be to police. As with everything, people need to consider the source, and take initiative to do their own research. If someone is dumb enough to buy or not buy a product because of ONE subjective recommendation, then they deserve whatever they get. The internet (and this site) is an amazing resource, but YOU have to put the work in to get the most out of it. Not only that, but this is a COMMUNITY, with the ability for interaction and self-policing, whether that be questioning someone publicly about their experience w/ something, calling them out on something that you know to be objectively wrong or to the contrary, giving a good post reputation or other positive feedback, OR reporting something to a mod for editing or correction. Not to call out the OP specifically - you're certainly allowed to be a lurker if you want - but you seem like a senior member with a good amount of experience in this field / hobby, and if people like you participated in the community more it would be a better place overall. Your insights and experiences would be greatly valued, and your desire for less bad info / parroting, and more first-hand experience recommendations would help weed out some of the BS.
Nothing against the OP personally, I guess I'm just not a fan of posts like this. I think the responsibility is on EVERYONE, all of us to do what we can to make the community (and therefore the information & recommendations) better. Instead of looking outwards at all the people who might be doing something you disagree with, I suggest looking INWARDS to see what you can do to help change it. Maybe for you the answer to that was making a thread like this or bringing attention to the problem, but I think you could probably do more, if you wanted to. Everyone here has the ability and power to do something about this directly, if it is a real concern for them.
Good post, unfortunately once any online community gets to a certain size, it is very hard to keep up with the chorus of bad information without taking drastic measures, such as private registration and restricted posting rules, which would require a huge investment in moderation from headfi itself.
A little known secret here, there are some sub forums at head fi better than others, but for "Full Size Headphones" in particular, it seems the signal to noise ratio is so far gone that I don't see anyone spending the time to get things back on track. If anything it is a good magnet for noise that lets other sub forums continue with some semblance of high quality commentary. My only warning to people in this forum is to take every single word written here with a giant grain of salt.
Applies to the advice on Head-Fi as well as the gear referenced.
I have found much useful information on the forums as well as much bunk; as with everything, it is the consumer's responsibility to vet the facts, opinion and advice...
I don't see much difference between 20 years ago, 10 years ago and the internet of just now. It's always been a soapbox for annoying kids, psychopathic liars and trolls. So if one is not filtering anything out, one gets it coming to him/her.
There's a good chance that you can blame the recent mass produced proliferation of personal audio for the spike in idiots self-professing an interest in head-fi and audiophilia, so you must be onto something there.
My own pet peeve is with people who are clearly under the influence of price placebo and are unwilling to admit or reveal that they actually didn't hear the difference in SQ and are only trying to justify their poorly considered purchases.
But that is how it is. You can only shrug, get on with it and see if the day's forum trawl was worth the effort for the entertainment. And make your own mind up on what sounds nice to you.
Just like the guy who made a business by making 1000 bottles of fake pricy vintage wine in his kitchen, Head-Fi and Audio is partly constructed of chaos. The duality of the world states that much of the information is confused. That's the romance, in that these sparkling jewels of wisdom are not laying on the sidewalk but only for the true seekers. This will never change.
I've only ever posted once on here, in 2012. I only signed up to get the auto mailer.
Finally something I feel I need to reply to, and echo the words of.
I'm slightly guilty of this because I recommend people equipment that I've listened to briefly (under five minutes). But I wouldn't recommend it if I wasn't at least sure that they would like the general sound signature. Some people ask for a recommendation and nobody helps, so I feel obligated to suggest something.
I think people should hear a piece of equipment before buying. I refuse to blindly buy headphones or speakers anymore (DACs and amps are different, since there isn't as much deviation as in transducers). I gave up portable audio because I can't listen to many portable headphones where I live and I've blindly bought many... all unsatisfying. People hype things up far too much here.
I don't see much difference between 20 years ago, 10 years ago and the internet of just now. It's always been a soapbox for annoying kids, psychopathic liars and trolls. So if one is not filtering anything out, one gets it coming to him/her.
There's a good chance that you can blame the recent mass produced proliferation of personal audio for the spike in idiots self-professing an interest in head-fi and audiophilia, so you must be onto something there.
My own pet peeve is with people who are clearly under the influence of price placebo and are unwilling to admit or reveal that they actually didn't hear the difference in SQ and are only trying to justify their poorly considered purchases.
But that is how it is. You can only shrug, get on with it and see if the day's forum trawl was worth the effort for the entertainment. And make your own mind up on what sounds nice to you.
Actually I see a massive difference of current & past internet forums, & (the former) newsgroups & BBS days. A lot of it IMHO stems from how the internet itself was a service used by the selected technically inclined few, to now where it's so easily accessible that any Tom, Dick & Harry does even though they may not be familiar with netiquette (does anyone even use this term anymore?).
Let's not go as far back as the newsgroups & BBS days, despite my love for them. Even with web forums, take back as far as when livedavid joined 10 years ago, forums attracted those who had a little more than just a passing passion for a hobby but those who were more serious about their interests, and those who were more technically inclined to use web forums (note, not just "enough" skills to Google or Alta Vista for web browsing). The forum members then were a smaller community of which had probably more in common in terms of knowledge, and mutual respect for each other.
Bring forward now to the current days, where a lot more people are "online" thanks to smart phones, tablets, and overall internet accessibility and use has become easier. This also has encouraged a culture who are less traditionally socially inclined but more "online" on the internet whilst physically hiding in their bedrooms. Forum membership exploded with members of all walks of life - even with a slightest passing passion for the same hobby has encouraged those who practically "live" in the forums. This membership explosion of an even wider variety passion for the hobby has created the camps and sub-camps of experts, psuedo-experts, elitists, purists, generalists, casual passionists, beginners (but we all had to start from somewhere), trollers, etc.
So personally, I do agree with livedavid's sentiments but at the same time, I'm wondering if it was unavoidable. Forums are run and contributed by people and trend. It evolves along with them.
i think that everything about the sound sig of a headphone should be an opinion and when reading about it, should be read as an opinion whether or not stated as a fact.
eg the fact of skullcandy bass something is a really bassy headphone is an opinion because everyone has different standards based on what they already own
just like if you see a tree and you say damn that is one petite looking tree that doesnt make it a petite looking tree sure its fine if you think so but if you ask me thats the roughest toughest tree ive seen in the mid west
i think that everything about the sound sig ... should be an opinion and when reading about it, should be read as an opinion whether or not stated as a fact..
While this may be my first post, I assure you I am not new to the world of headphones or this forum. I started to really get into this hobby around 2000,
but had some interest in the late '90's. At the time Headwize was the authoritative forum. Then Head-fi appeared and grew. It was a great place where people formed their own opinions and shared with the community. I lurked for a few years. I was getting a lot out of it, but not contributing. Maybe I was selfish, maybe I thought I had nothing to offer, maybe I thought people were more knowledgeable than myself? I do not have a good reason for being a member for almost 10 years and making this my first post.
I am not trying to go off on a rant, but I think it is important for people coming to this great hobby to understand that there are many great opinions here, but there is equally a lot of misinformation. How can someone recommend something - a headphone, a DAP, a DAC, an amp or even a cable without even trying it? How can they dismiss it? This forum is filled with people with thousands of posts posturing and declaring an opinion that is not even their own as a fact. The headphone market has grown over the last two decades (thanks mostly to Apple and Beats) which has brought about pseudo-experts. For the people who have enjoyed this community for years, they have learned who they can trust, but often a very vocal or prolific user does not have the knowledge or experience to make a thoughtful recommendation. Music is personal, sound reproduction is personal, our ears are all different. There is too much regurgitated circle jerking information here.
I don't know if this post will be deleted, but my whole point is that sometimes it is best not to talk, but to listen. Please don't make a headphone recommendation to someone if you have not owned the headphone in question. Listening to something in a store or at a meet does not qualify you as experienced with that item. I have owned or own most TOTL headphones HD800, LCD-2, TH900, T1, ED8 and many others, yet I have not felt the need to pass my opinion off as fact. Please be considerate of others and don't just copypasta other people's thoughts or give praise to your latest purchase when you have nothing to compare it to.
This rant is over. I will continue to lurk, but I want to thank all of the experts on here for the great advice and recommendations over the years and let you know how difficult it is to sort through all of the BS to find you...
I've heard of slow starters, but this is ridiculous!
Well - better late than never - congrats!
Bit of a party pooper opening post which is a shame, despite making some very valid points
I do feel your message is lost a little though, largely by your complete absence until this point, during which perhaps you could have contributed in the manner you recommend and in some small way helped stem the BS that has finally prompted you to make your first stand (I just hope you haven't been slowly but surely getting wound up over 10 year period now finally blowing your top - you'd be like a walking time bomb only with a very delayed fuse )
But of course there is no onus on OP or any member to contribute.
Anyway, I hope you don't wait until 2024 to make your second post
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
)
