maxvla what are you looking to get out of a forum? You have to ask yourself that before you register on any one of them as they are all different. You also need to have a sense for what a forum is about before just jumping in and throwing in your 2c worth everywhere.

Some examples: Audio Asylum - vast sweeping forum covering many topics. Forums very laid back. Some smaller subforums have distinct community feel where regulars know each other and often discuss off topic things in the specific gear forum. Not much moderating unless things get really out of hand. IME hard to find good info there in many of the forums.

AudioAfficianado - I registered there a while ago and made 3 posts before I realized it is one of those "pat yourself on the back forums" where there is little scrutiny and criticism. This should have become really obvious even just reading a handful of topics, even skimming them should have clued you into this.

Audiogon - you should run for the hills the second you see the "your post is currently awaiting moderation" every single time you post. This obviously clues you in that the mods/admins are selecting to choose what gets approved and one should be able to deduce that they're trying to protect their sponsors.

From the sounds of it in your first post you like giving advice. Why not just stick to Headfi then? The forums there move at a break neck pace and there is always someone there looking for advice in something or another.

I also don't understand why you don't want to get into other hobbies (ie DIY). I work 60-80 hours a week, many of them spend over night at my work. I also have a girlfriend, who I fortunately do get to see at work but still want to spend time with outside. And I still DIY. IMO DIY is not just about building shit. It's about learning how things work  (it will also divert time away from forums, which IMO is a good thing, too much time spent on any forum = wasting time). To me it is the next logical progression of hifi...

WRT to your banning on Headfi- you made a complaint thread bitching about Head-Case. Unspoken rule #1 at Headfi- do not mention Head-Case anywhere in a post, thread, PM, etc. Jude has come around and isn't as abrasive on Head-Case any more (given 3 or 4 are mods on both sites).

If I personally did anything to wrong any one of you at Head-Case send me a message and I'll try to make it right (the only names I recognize here are LFF, purin, and RD). I am not responsible for the actions of other mods or admins over there; the forum is not a democracy.

These guys take their money, status, forums, and protectionism very seriously. If you think Head-Fi is full of attitude with rampant fanboism, "real" Hi-Fi is fifteen times worse. I'd get creamed over there if I ever posted something so straightforward as "the Leben sucks."

That is unless of course I gave them $500 to be part of the club.

Pretty much sums up high end audio wrt to speaker systems perfectly. I'm very sorry to sound age-ist here, but most of these elderly men are set in their ways and not willing to see outside views; be it DIY, explaining circuit design to them, or objective facts regarding gear. They are also very defensive about their particular brand and are seldom open to criticism. Again they will refuse to acknowledge that sound does not come from a certain manufacturer's "house sound" out of magic, but instead from circuit design and parts selection. They will often scoff at what a DIY'er has to say (aka the equivalent of a guy that likes to "wrench on his Chevy" in his garage whereas an audio designer working for a company is the same as a Ferrari engineer in their mind).

Great post omegakitty, whoever the hell you are :p

Mostly I'm just looking for a place I can hang out and chat about gear and stuff without staff breathing down my neck. I tried discussing Omega 2s, Fidelio L1s, movies, etc over there, but the staff wouldn't have it. Head-fi has it's share of back-patting, for sure, but it's nowhere near the level of that AudioAficionado place, so I can participate in a chatty thread about random stuff, then talk about gear in other threads, and everything is fine.

I'm actually not looking to give out tons of advice, generally. If I see something that has been misrepresented or is flat out wrong (or my opinion strongly disagrees) I'll mention it with proper caveats, as with the headphone post on AudioAficionado regarding HD580s and SR325s supposedly sounding similar when they could hardly be further apart. At the time, I had tons of free time so Head-fi itself wasn't keeping me busy so I was branching out.

Regarding the DIY, I am interested, but the combination of my lack of faith in my own abilities, despite having a mother who has taught countless people how to solder and assemble boards, etc, and my lack of interest in most DIY projects (because I'm interested in certain commercial ones) has me putting it on the furthest back burner. I have a nice Weller solder station already but we'll see if I use it or sell it on.

Other hobbies are hard to break into for other reasons. I'm a creature of routine. I eat the same meal 4-5 times a day every day, I take the same streets to work and back, and so on, thus something entirely new is hard to do. My mind comes up with all sorts of excuses why not to do it. Yes I'm a rather boring person. Also a good portion of the other hobbies I would be interested in are even more expensive than Head-fi and I couldn't afford them. DIY itself is expensive when you are a meticulous perfectionist like myself. Most DIY projects I would think the casework would take many times longer and be more expensive than any parts on the inside, just because I want it to be how I want it to be. This is part of why I'm not interested in the Objective 2 as it currently exists because JDS and Ephiphany make them only in the transportable size and cables enter on the same side and the size of the unit and knob is just goofy for desktop use. It's also pretty ugly. It was made to be on a budget, though so I can totally understand that, it's just not what I want.

I might have to do that if the commercial ODA/ODAC combined unit is ugly (which it is likely to be). Will force me into DIY which is probably a good thing anyway.