Verum: Doing The Right Thing

Wow. Well thought-formed. Mental poetry!

And... I agree entirely.

 

Who cares about his personal views? The man makes very nice sounding headphones at a very good price. By expanding the availability of musical enjoyment, he's already made a greater contribution to the world than most of us. On the other hand his personal views don't harm anyone, they just offend us. So what?

We've became a bunch of over politicized puritanical prudes. Perhaps its social media - 25 years ago we would never know his personal views and be happily enjoying his great headphones in blissful ignorance. Would the world be worse for us not punishing him for his irrelevant disagreeable views?

If we must have moral purity tests for the creators of everything we are allowed to enjoy from the past and present, our culture and society will soon become impoverished.

 

Beyond his denigration of black folk, going so far as to personally insult one of the members here and their loved ones as well was failing to jump over a bar so low my overweight cat could have cleared it with relative ease.

 

This is some straight up bullshit. Words and actions have consequences. Especially as a person who deals with the public on a regular basis, airing shitty, noxious views is going to get reactions. It's completely within reason to say "Hey, this guy f'ing sucks, don't support him by giving him money for his stuff".

Also I wholeheartedly disagree that making headphones of all things would outweigh blatant bigotry. Headphones are just a fun luxury. Bigotry actually can hurt people. Absolutely ridiculous to suggest otherwise.

Quite frankly, this post smacks of cowardice. Hiding behind the veneer of pearl clutching over "purity tests" when we reject outright racism. f**k that.

 

When it comes to great works of art, literature, music, headphones...

Well yes. Up to a point. Nobody has ever persuaded me not to listen to Wagner. I don't care that Hitler liked it, and that Wagner was not the nicest guy. Or that Beethoven was, apparently, very far from being a nice guy.

Stuff being in the past, of course, makes it easier, but I am aware of the Grateful Dead's sexism (When called out about it, they sang 'we can share the women, we can share the wine,' just to annoy) and still love their music.

But there is a point. Define it where you will, it's going to differ for all of us. But past that point, we do care.

Casting my inaccurate memory back, I seem to remember that this guy was not only revolting, but dishonest about it too. It was the mythical intern. Or someone. Not him.

If I was buying headphones right now, I guess I'd pass and buy someone else's. Even though I completely agree with @purr1n

Cross-posted...

Yep. This was not just about personal opinions that stink, it was about terrible customer service.
Bottom line is that people think about that when deciding whether to be a customer or not.

...This too.

 

I watched the entire video with Danny talking about how he is buying up as much Verum as he can to resell it here. The first part of the video was making the emotional argument about how things are going in Ukraine right now. Then the end portion of the video is where he directly acknowledges that he was linked to see what Garu said.

His response was basically to play the feign ignorance card. He said he didn't look at exactly was said/written, that there was an apology issued, and that he considers this matter over as people all deserve forgiveness.

Garu said some awful shit a few years back and from what I have seen since, has not repeated it and seemingly learned doubling down in the beginning was the dumbest move he could make. Then the tactic changed over time and then he the imgur albums with the screenshots taken down off Imgur so he can claim he didn't say it.

If Danny wants to gloss over what was said and not look into things deeper, then that is fine. It was big enough to get Garu canceled from audio and if doesn't want to do any form of actual research why, then that is his prerogative. He was warned so if this does bite him in the butt down the line than

 

This dude got banned from HF, SBAF, ASR, Discord, Reddit.

He didn't make a one time politically incorrect statement. He repeatedly spat vile shit at anyone and everyone. This is not a "mistake". This is who he is.

If Danny (or anyone else) wants to support Ukraine businesses, there are a ton of them run by decent people. Since we're in the headphone world, Meze's planar drivers are made by Renaro in Ukraine. Go buy some Elites.

 

Ultimately this is someone deciding that between their own personal beliefs, sympathy for the current situation, and the fact that it was a few years ago, a business relationship with Garu is a risk he can take. I can't quite believe he didn't look into it, though. And I mean... they're not going up directly on the website, I don't think. At least not yet.

It's probably one of the luckiest things that could happen to Garu from an audio business perspective, too. I mean, this is a headphone I've wanted to hear, but would've had a hard time talking myself into buying given the, uh, everything. Being able to go through a reputable dealer for it at least alleviates the concerns about the shockingly bad customer service.

 

I was considering appending a voice recording cuz I feel text is really limiting when it comes to communicating nuanced topics like this (because as tempting as it is to simplify, there are times when the nuances ARE the whole conversation), but yeah the recording quality was ass so I'll use bullet points.

@Stuff Jones I think there are a few reasons for the less than welcoming reception you're getting:

• The way you use talking points like "purity test", "cultural and societal impoverishment", and "puritanism" make you come across as one of those kids who swallow the textbook but lack the ability to repackage those same ideas into simpler, more effective vessels of thought. It makes you sound like you're not the progenitor of your own thoughts.

• EDIT: that's inasmuch as generating your own ideas based solely on personal experience is possible; no one grows up in a vacuum and no ideas are ever truly "original" nowadays, but it's as if you're steadfastly refusing to really live in the world around you to truly confront ideas that may well be in conflict with extant ones.
  
  
• The way you phrased your post was immediately combative which implies that it was not, as you insinuate, written for some sort of greater good, but is instead more a matter of self-aggrandizement. "Look at how woke I am for not agreeing with this guy's cancellation!", "I'm a free thinker because I can use all these complicated-sounding concepts, but you're dumb!".
  
  
• Rather than seek to have a conversation, you dump your ideas on the ground and expect people to lap them up and thank you for bequeathing them; this is, ironically, a near-perfect parallel for the same mindless, blind adherence to cultural waves that you seem so offended by. The values touted and the ideas glorified may be different, but the dogmatic idolatry is not.

• While music is a big part of my life and the enjoyment thereof is what empowers me to spend more money than I probably should on new toys (because, addiction TO new toys aside, it IS remarkably gratifying to be able to sink deeper into music that I love), that you lauded Garu's making good headphones at an aggressive price as something that adds to the world was somehow hilarious to me.

• f**k off with thinking words can do no harm; words are vehicles for ideas, and there are many ideas that do not brook entertaining, even in an academic sense.

P.S.
@purr1n Did you just say someone nearly tossed someone else off a building?!

 

I'm wondering about that too. And that this is less bad than what our Ukranian ex-friend* did and said?

*ex-friend. When people join forums to specifically or incidentally sell their stuff, I tend to think, f**k off spammer, or at least pay for the advertising. But when this guy first posted, it seemed genuine and like something we should welcome here. Even though he was selling. And there was a lot of support, even from those of us who were unlikely to buy.

So, finding out someone is a shit is bad enough, but when it is also being let down by a friend it is far worse, and more emotional.

 

Flux amps are also a Ukrainian company. I reviewed the excellent FA-10 PRO here.

 

Even tho I think he is a truly POS of human being I wouldn't protest to boycott the guy or harass the people who buy his stuff but at the same time I think it's unethical to give this vile POS a platform because I don't think those kind of people will ever change.

 

Abbas audio is also from Ukraine, but judging from his wait list it does not look like he's hurting for business.

 

This is the crux of the matter for me. I am not naive about the folks who share this hobby, especially given the demographics. But if you have a business, that's means professionalism. Wanna be a raging a-hole drop N-bombs using your private account, fine. But don't mix it with your business. Don't promote your products while throwing slurs around. It ain't hard. I had this same issue with Tubecad/Glassware dude some years ago. I don't wanna see posts about your politics while I'm trying to decide between an octal or a noval build on your site. C'mon. Put a separate tab that says Personal with a warning or something. It. ain't. hard.

That's all I got. Back to lurking.

 

I would give him a second chance, he has been cancelled for 3 years already. More than enough time to learn manners and improve his ethics. If he does it again, then yes a permacancellation would be appropiate IMO.

 

More than enough time to realise he has to shut up and not get caught.

Maybe that's enough for some. Maybe, for others, it isn't.

 

The thing is, we don't know how to read minds, and can't be 100% sure if any bubbly, kind person in front of us is being sincere or an hypocrite that is mumbling multiple insults in his mind. We can only be sure about what is being presented to us, the rest is conjecture until evidence is given.
3 years is a lot of time, and IMO he deserves a second chance. If he slips up again, then yes a permacancellation would be 500% appropiate.