The Head-Fi Healing Thread

Oh I want to see that... MH is one of the worse reviewers out there

 

A lot of the major...personalities, on HF seem to be a bit thin-skinned, they probably wouldn't be able to handle most other forums that don't implement Mandatory Fun policies.

 

The one thing I hate there, which isn't the forums fault, is how defensive people get over their toys. If I prefer my toys over theirs, sometimes they get offended, start attacking. It's quite funny.

I was in the asg thread. I own it, and have owned the original asg g2 for years. I love it. Anyway, I stated that I preferred my Sony EX800st over it. Someone stated that they didn't like the Sony line, which is fine. He stated it lacked bass, which I feel it doesn't. I politely asked if he tried tip rolling and had aenough power going to it. Just a normal discussion.

That turned into him saying he doesn't need to spend $100 on tips, purchase special amps, and play with eq to no end. Also stated that was why he doesn't participate in a other thread, regarding bass, which he referred to as "the Sony fan boy thread". He also claimed no reviews or posts by people would change his mind.

I wasn't trying to, I was just discussing things with him politely. I didn't understand.

The irony was that he recommended an amp, which I purchased, and when I was saying I wasn't sure if it was better than what I had, he went into suggesting things I should do to make it sound better.

Hypocrisy?

 

In one of the current circle-jerk to tube-porn threads, which I vainly visit occasionally to see if I can glean any useful impressions, one of the members gets in the habit of quitting the thread because a minority strongly promote different tubes than he does and vociferously criticize tubes he prefers in said amp. Then other members who like him plead with him to come back. This exemplifies your observations perfectly. There is a lot of bizarre passive-aggression that I think accompanies the habit of staying locked in at home all day, glued to the front of the computer, and quite literally identifying one's sense of subjectivity with one's gear/tubes, as a substitute for other things in life, such as... sex or meaningful work?

 

Headamp is one of the few vendors that doesn't go full Nazi mod on relevant threads. I had to be the one to ask Amos to clean up some of the absurd bullshit on the BHSE thread, not Justin. Of course, this is merely the exception that proves the rule. On the other hand, we had iFi taking shots at the Yggdrasil, and when atomicbob's measurements proved them wrong they went full scorched-earth. They even went back and edited their own comments to remove incriminating evidence.

 

Boy, I bought the EL-8 because of him...grrrr

 

If you bought the open version, I'm sorry for your lost money.

If you bought the closed back, may Lord cure your hurted ear drum.

If you bought Titanium version... (rolls eyes, Amen)

 

Good points Ultrabike. If they did police those types of offenses more, it would be limited. I really wish they would as I find it extremely frustrating.

 

You can go on to a forum and make the most outrageous claims you want and do it with an air of narcissistic snobbery without any issues. You can be as passive aggressive as you want and as long as you don't directly insult anyone you'll be untouched. However, if someone argues with you then moderators perceive that as a problem because now you've got an argument. Somebody in the thread might be unhappy with the product (often with good reasons) and this is upsetting the false peace of positivity.

The problem of course with Head-Fi is that the "impressions" threads are all fanboy threads and especially the ones that are many months after product launch. The only people in there are people using it as a chatroom to circlejerk over their favorite headphone.

The lifecycle of a thread seems to be this:

1. Product is announced. New thread and everyone is hyped. It's going to be the best thing ever. Jude shills it up and gives some positive impressions in a video acting as the unspoken salesman. Perhaps some other people also got access as well but it's the kind of people who are always going to say something overwhelmingly positive so they can get early access to new gear free of charge.
   
2. Get on the hype train you fool it's time to preorder!!!
   
3. Early impressions come out. It's the usual people who secure gear early because of their tendency to be positive and being forum e-celebs.
   
4. No measurements at this time. If it's innerfidelity then they might eventually get them up a year later. This forum tends to be the ones who can get them up reasonably early for stuff that is of interest.
5. The hype train is in full force. Regulars are giving "reviews" with the lack of quality you'd expect from people who don't know what they're doing regardless of how long they've been doing it and how much money they've dumped into gear. It's new toy syndrome and they've put some heavy dough down for their purchase. It has to be good.
   
6. The thread starts dying down now. Many have bought the headphone and found it isn't to their liking so if you get in early you can snap up a used one.
7. More negative or balanced reviews start to come out from people who actually know what they're doing. Turns out the headphone has problems and isn't the best thing ever. Usual non-answer is that it needs more burn in.
   
8. People are no longer posting in the thread as much. Most have moved on to the next hype train.
9. The only people left are talking about their DAC/Amp pairings and what kind of exotic cables they like.
10. Most have left and it's just the few crazy regulars constantly circlejerking. It's only really the devout lunatics left. Others are either happy with their headphone and have no interest in DAC/Amp pairings so they've got no reason to post or read the thread anymore. Or they've realized the headphone wasn't that great and moved on.
11. Hundreds of pages later all useful information has been buried in a mega thread that no new people are ever going to bother sifting through. The information is lost to the sands of noise.

 

Holy crap you just summed up 95% of HF threads perfectly...

 

@Dreyka LOL! You had me cracking up. Especially at #10 & 11

 

that's cool. i understand. just was curious and kinda wanted a bit heads-up cause i know i just vanished for couple/few years(had some living issues in the past) but, things are cool now. i just like music as usual. while i don't tend to lean towards some of older jbl's except maybe a few and fan mostly of their woofers i like lot of their suff(mostly big theater stuff and the more modern don keele designs like the everest and k2{not exactly modern but, closest to modern i been around}). i always been older altec head for audio performance and preference of sound. i never listen to mackie speakers really so can't say . just had experience with some of their mixers. always loved their mixers.

 

I think at some point he and Mercer got called out in the EL-8 thread for giving such a hyped review.... They didn't respond. Wonder if it's still there or if it got removed.

 

The most troubling thing I've read from MH was in the early part of the JH Angie&Layla announcement thread - MH appeared to be shilling for Layla to a point that I did not feel comfortable. IIRC he regarded Layla as ground-breaking and class-defining as SR009, which is pretty bullshit.

In general HF is just full of noise - irrelevancy and circle-jerking. But more importantly, most front-page-making-reviewers don't know what they're talking about. One should more or less know a recording. How it was mic'ed, mastering, mixing, all sorts of music/instrument knowledge, these are vital knowledge for a reviewer. Without these knowledge, how can one talk about fidelity - the truthful reconstruction of the original performance? Common folks should also be aware of these knowledge, and should always strive to learn more. Most HF folks usually don't know that the recordings they've been listening to demand at best a Schiit MM stack+HD6X0s, and their "upgrades" are probably just like changing from eating KFC daily to eating Burger King daily. Bottomline, a truly trustful reviewer should be as knowledgeful about the playback chain as the recording chain.