CHANGSTAR: Audiophile Headphone Reviews and Early 90s Style BBS

  • December 31, 2015, 09:45:31 AM
  • Welcome, Guest
Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 6

Author Topic: RIP HF DAC thread.  (Read 2040 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

BournePerfect

  • Able Bodied Sailor
  • Powder Monkey
  • ***
  • Brownie Points: +4/-8
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 89
Re: RIP HF DAC thread.
« Reply #20 on: September 03, 2014, 10:48:57 PM »

We're all entertained.
Logged

Claritas

  • strong in his convictions
  • Able Bodied Sailor
  • Pirate
  • ***
  • Brownie Points: +4200/-3162
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 495
  • Bachhead
Re: RIP HF DAC thread.
« Reply #21 on: September 04, 2014, 01:21:54 AM »

One of my favorite ex-members had a fairly insightful conjecture about the way they run their business:

"I think the closest parallel would be The Party in Orwell's 1984, minus the competance of course. You have the proles represented by the countless clueless newbies & twits, the Outer Party made up of the suck-ups, shills, and some of the manufacturers & mods [...], and the Inner Party which is Jude & his trusted cronies, who can be counted on to delete & edit threads and ban people to keep the illusion alive.

Putting on my cynical conspiracy hat, it totally makes sense. The more noobs there are and the less information there is, the easier it becomes for Head-fi and its favored sponsors to make s---loads of money by pressuring & lying to the clueless. By removing the veterans, it helps preserve the information vacuum which makes it work.

Let's look at it again from the money perspective with a few generalizations. The guys who have been around for a while usually have more experience and know the general direction in which they're going. They're not too easily influenced by hype, they tend to trust what their friends say as opposed to what the Head-fi shillers say, which makes them a not so great market for the hype machine. In short, Head-fi and its favored sponsors ain't gonna make much money off them. Sure someone [...] might buy a $10,000 amp, but you can likely count the number of people [...] on one hand. Clueless noobs, well, there's a practically unlimited supply of them, as an absolute lower limit there's at least 1000, sell each of them [sponsored product X] and that's more money than I care to count. That's where the money is, who cares if you lose a few experienced members if it means you can get thousands of clueless twits to part with their money.

And that is really f------ sad, as much as they claim "it's all about the music & community", well, we know it's a goddamn lie, it's about the money and that's a shame. [...] Head-fi was a great forum in the earlier days, it really was a place with good genuine advice and sense of community and I enjoyed and learned a lot in my first years. Honest opinions were welcomed and we'd debate and trash out our disagreements. Now? It's a shadow of its former self living off its past glories."
Logged

n3rdling

  • Statastic
  • Able Bodied Sailor
  • Pirate
  • ***
  • Brownie Points: +86/-0
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 480
Re: RIP HF DAC thread.
« Reply #22 on: September 04, 2014, 02:42:21 AM »

That's pretty bang on the money Claritas. 

I think even the sorta-noobs are catching on though since it seems like there's less activity on HF these days.  Once HF's rep starts to spread as an interactive online catalog rather than discussion boards, it's gonna be real hard to shed that image.  I think they have to be careful with how far they're taking some of this stuff. 

It's a little depressing to occasionally read an old (pre Huddler) thread and see the difference in discourse from what we see today.  So many of the best posters either stopped visiting or got banned (really a shockingly sizeable portion got banned...if you've been on HC less than 3 days you have a good chance of being banned; if you've been on HF more than 3 years you have a good chance of being banned).  Posters used to be able to basically post what they wanted and everybody was thick-skinned enough to understand posts are just opinions.  I think the descent started around the time the LCD-2 came out when kwkarth basically deleted any posts and banned members who dared to say anything negative about them, and it kinda spiraled out of control since then.
Logged

fishski13

  • Mate
  • Pirate
  • ****
  • Brownie Points: +79/-1
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 424
Re: RIP HF DAC thread.
« Reply #23 on: September 04, 2014, 04:47:38 AM »

I think the descent started around the time the LCD-2 came out when kwkarth basically deleted any posts and banned members who dared to say anything negative about them, and it kinda spiraled out of control since then.

this is the turning point in HF history that has stuck in my mind as well.  i think it was around 3yrs ago or so, shortly after the Huddler platform changes.   

 
Logged

M3NTAL

  • Hooter Luver
  • Able Bodied Sailor
  • Powder Monkey
  • ***
  • Brownie Points: +4/-0
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 98
Re: RIP HF DAC thread.
« Reply #24 on: September 04, 2014, 05:08:10 AM »

The forum change was a big deterrent for me. It looked like a used car sales lot took a shit on the front page.
Logged

Sorrodje

  • excusez-moi, je suis français
  • Able Bodied Sailor
  • Pirate
  • ***
  • Brownie Points: +68/-8
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 617
  • Olivier Le Vasseur - "La Buse" - French Pirate.
    • Tips & tricks for Ubuntu or Debian administration (French)
Re: RIP HF DAC thread.
« Reply #25 on: September 04, 2014, 06:13:40 AM »



No doubt why the thumbs up button for my HF posts have been removed.

I think that the most upped posts appear on the H-F Home page and guess which post is the most appreciated right now ? (08:12 am GMT) :

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wivhaeppdiq6fg0/HF_HOME_PAGE.png?dl=0

Too irritating for H-F maybe ?  :)p8

Thad E Ginathom

  • Politically Incorrect Ex-Hippie
  • Able Bodied Sailor
  • Pirate
  • ***
  • Brownie Points: +25/-5
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 648
  • In the end... cats.
Re: RIP HF DAC thread.
« Reply #26 on: September 04, 2014, 08:48:22 AM »

I think even the sorta-noobs are catching on though since it seems like there's less activity on HF these days.  Once HF's rep starts to spread as an interactive online catalog rather than discussion boards, it's gonna be real hard to shed that image.  ...

It's not long since I signed up on Headfi. It's even less long since I discovered this place, and not many years since I became a serious headphone user.

I think there is a place for  "interactive online catalogs" but sometimes, to a newb, it isn't that obvious that that's what one is looking at. I suppose I'll always look at headfi for finding stuff about almost every imaginable 'phone-related product, but in the same way as I look at a glossy magazine, which I know is absolutely directly dependent on its advertising, and is really just a part of the industry, rather than anything that represents the consumer.

Thanks, Changstar, for the eye opening!  :)p7 :)p7
Logged
Cats are nice

aufmerksam

  • Able Bodied Sailor
  • Pirate
  • ***
  • Brownie Points: +33/-1
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 277
  • the very worst
Re: RIP HF DAC thread.
« Reply #27 on: September 04, 2014, 01:46:29 PM »

geez, every time I take a break from constant forum lurking, sections of the multiverse collapse.

I was recently googling for info that I knew was in the headwize archives, and I stumbled on this thread on head-fi http://www.head-fi.org/t/12138/the-end-of-headwize which is a startling forecast for the hobby's current circumstances. Even Tyll is in there explaining his thoughts / position (circa 2002).

My favorite is this quote from Jeff Guidry at post 14 on page 1:

"I think you may be off the mark if you believe that head-fi is a business. To me, that implies that Jude is attempting to make money from selling company sponsorships. He has already gone on record saying that hosting this site costs him several hundred dollars a month despite the ad revenue, hardly a successfull [sic] business model. None of his posts about the subject lead me to believe that this site is intended to be anything other than a hobby for him and a pasttime [sic] for us."

whoops!
Logged

jGray91

  • Able Bodied Sailor
  • Pirate
  • ***
  • Brownie Points: +8/-0
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 158
  • Does more good lurking than not
Re: RIP HF DAC thread.
« Reply #28 on: September 04, 2014, 04:21:38 PM »

/sigh

Reading this thread just reminds me of why HF is becoming irrelevant more and more for me. Hell, even the "because I've made friends there" factor is diminishing rapidly, as the Diary Thread is shuttered at MF's request, and most of the pioneers of the anime thread there has left for FB starting on the day kwkarth (that bastard) banned me for a while from the thread. Also there's an annoying loud mouthed baby-brained weaboo there, and there's nothing more infuriating to me when it's the character I some times use jokingly in a very serious, straight-faced manner.

Oh yeah and all the mods being crazy protecting the manufacturers' revenue.
Logged
Thank you based MuppetFace.

LFF

  • Mastering Wizard & Restoration Guru
  • Mate
  • Pirate
  • ****
  • Brownie Points: +761/-0
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1425
Re: RIP HF DAC thread.
« Reply #29 on: September 04, 2014, 07:28:18 PM »


My favorite is this quote from Jeff Guidry at post 14 on page 1:

"I think you may be off the mark if you believe that head-fi is a business. To me, that implies that Jude is attempting to make money from selling company sponsorships. He has already gone on record saying that hosting this site costs him several hundred dollars a month despite the ad revenue, hardly a successfull [sic] business model. None of his posts about the subject lead me to believe that this site is intended to be anything other than a hobby for him and a pasttime [sic] for us."

WHAT?!
Logged
These statements are false.
I rule with an iron fist and ears of gold!
The preceding statements were true.

The way to a man's heart is through her stomach.
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 6