New Loaner Participation Expectations

I thought the original idea from the loaners was to get impressions out on here from having the loaner. It explains why I have been very scarce from them since I usually suck at reviews. A man's got to know his limitations.

 

Loaners are a privilege. If one can spend the time and money to ship it to the next person, in most cases one can at least spend the time to tell the rest of us if you liked it or not at a minimum.

 

As a newish individual here on site, and one that hasn't yet participated in a loaner, I would have thought that discussing your impressions of a piece of equipment you got to try in the comfort of your own home for the cost of shipping was a given. Just my 2 cents.

 

Wouldn't it be reasonable to simply require a minimum word count? I think 250 words should be doable for most of us. There are several individual posts in this thread alone that are longer than that. For more expensive (or rare or whatever) gear, increase the word count. Likewise if it took extra finagling to send the gear to that person, such as cross border shenanigans.

 

First off, thank you @Vansen. It's a thankless job, but I appreciate what you do.

I've expressed my opinion before, and I think writing something from your experience with a loaner is the least one can do. When I put the Dragon Inspire on loan, I did so stating I wanted reviews. I got what... one review?

Whatever is decided on, I'll support, wether that's 50% of the time or every time. I see valid points for both. All I know is we need more contributions from people who borrow gear, and less leaching and mooching. If Marv has to go Asshole-Mode and start cracking skulls to drive the point home, so be it.

 

I completely agree with loaner impression being posted. I believe I have always posted my impressions, even when negative. Once I almost forgot, but then I remembered weeks later.

I would point out that requiring impressions means someone has police it. Requiring a word count is even more work. I would hate to add more work to Vansen. I suppose there are ways to lessen his load, like a "hall monitor" for each loaner. maybe a volunteer that rides herd over the participants and reports any ne'er-do-wells to Vansen at the end of the loaner.

More work. More policing. Imagine a world where we all did what we were supposed to do.

 

Welcome to my world, the Oil and Gas industry. Working in the field, if you decide you feel like skipping a step when operating equipment or machinery, not informing the next operator on shift that some equipment is acting up, or something new has been introduced in the scheduled work for that day/night. People quite often get maimed or killed. If I felt like only doing the proper procedures 50% of the time, there would be a trail of dead bodies from here to the Arctic circle, probably mine included. Lack of communication is one of the leading factors in injuries and fatalities in my line of work.

If someone that participates in the loaner program decides like they've had a bad day and don't want to spend 5 minutes with a quick blurb on their thoughts, that is so f'ing weaksauce you make me want to puke... f**k EM !!! You're out, no more soup for your lazy ass. Buy the gear yourself and flip it if you don't like it.

Heaven forbid you have to type on a keyboard and consider that work while listening to an almost free audition in your own home. "More work" LMFAO

Why do so many people think they are entitled to a free ride?

 

There is an element to this that was kind of alluded to a bit earlier. I think that for some members there might be assumption that once an "authoritative" opinion has been offered from a senior member that there is less room for additional data points. I think that at the very least we should affirm the value of a detailed catalogue of experience with a piece of gear as long as decent effort was made. Even if the member is a bit less experienced or knowledgeable.

 

While I am very close to your thought and position in this issue, I highly suspect your memory regarding iha-1 loaner tour is damaged somewhat..

Just double-checked that AllanMarcus, cskippy, Hands, and I (in alphabetical order) posted loaner impressions. I couldn't remember the number of participants.. but response rate was higher than other loaner tours. At least more than "one" post!

 

Thanks Vansen, I appreciate your effort to make these explicit. Also impressed that you put so many thoughts into developing these rules, instead of just stating "Loaner participants must write a set of impressions, otherwise you will be automatically disqualified in the future loaners" (I tend to shape rules like this.. haha).

I also second this process. Very straightforward, measurable, and doable action to directly encourage higher participation rates. Of course Vansen's concern about fostering quality over quantity is still valid though.

 

I also suggest/request that the thread for impressions be linked in the first post of the loaner thread. Not rule, per se, but a good idea.

 

My bad. You're correct. Sorry.

 

I don't mind writing about my impressions if I get to listen to a loaner item. I can't promise a jizz swallowing glowing review or a lengthy essay filled with words like sublime or magical as I don't work for apple's PR team. I can say how I thought they sounds on my equipment which I'll list and the types of music used to test.

 

I think writing up a quick impression is reasonable.

I haven't participated in a loaner tour for probably close to 2 years. The two things I got on loan had been covered in great detail by others. I didn't feel like I had anything new to contribute to the conversation so I didn't post anything, in keeping with the general rule of not contributing to excess noise.

I'm glad Vansen started this thread to clarify what is expected.

 

@crazychile if we only accept that the "usual suspects" give their impressions then the community loses as a whole. Yes there are people here more capable of reviewing, then others, but the fact is that a lot of data and, specially in my opinion, comparisons are lost in this way of thinking.

I can regard A or B as great reviewers but i can also not like the same sound as A and B. If a C member, that can't put into, in the same structured way, but it's someone that usual enjoys the same type of setup/sound as me, even if he just gives a simple comparison it may be something i can relate to. Of course i would not expect only "this has better mids than this" but overall impressions, even without going very deep into it.

The hobby is for all of us, not just for the elite, not just for the ones with tons of money to invest, not just for the ones with golden ears, but for all of us.

This said we should at least try to give some sort of impressions, and if we can't put what we hear into precise words, we can always give impressions and ask for help into translating what we ear into the right words. This will allow for self grow (which, for example, i need review-wise) but also avoids hyping or paraphrasing reviews like we see, more often than not, in head-fi or similar forums.

 

As a complete outsider to the loaner programe (European and rando) I have to admit I felt the lack of impressions regarding the loaner gear (e.g. Soerkis dac1421 lately). Thus I greatly appreciate the shift here towards more (even amateurish) impressions as those are in most cases the only possibilities to evaluate gear for me. As @Walderstorn pointed out, (at least for me) any impressions (not including HF hype) are better than no impressions.

To add to the discussion - In order to make the rules' enforcement easier and more efficient, I would suggest that every loaner participant has to add a link to his/her impressions or to at least one of the post where he/she is "actively engaged in talking about the product" to the loaner thread (preferably as a part of his/her "item dispatched" post). It would be possible to add the link later, e.g. until 1 month after the loaner's end. Then either (i) the thread will be policed automatically by other members or (ii) the "enforcement guy" (either Vansen or any other appointed member) would only need to scroll through the loaner thread and check whether everyone has posted a link.

 

Appreciate the clarification of what is expected.

Though I never really considered these loaners 'free' + shipping. I know that SBAF funds are used to purchase some of these and I did contribute some money as soon as I was able to do a loaner. Likely not enough though.

I have also been aware about contributing noise to certain threads which is way I've stayed away from a lot of loaners. I mean I think someone like Mshenay could have reliably contributed reviews of every single loaner and I would have preferred not to have read anything he posted. It's also why I did a library loaner of the Noble X, I'd rather pay a checkout fee instead of writing out something I didn't feel qualified to write. Perhaps expanding the library would be a good option.

So moving forward if I don't have detailed listening notes prepared, I will at least have something short but honest before shipping them off again. Then update with something longer whenever I finish it.

 

I haven't had a loaner yet but honestly I thought giving your impressions to the community was a given pending unfortunate circumstances (Warrior for example).

100% support this new rule and @HitmanFluffy 's comments. Hopefully more impressions = more traffic to the site = more money for loaners etc.