Quote from: anetode on August 10, 2012, 02:52:43 AM

Cool, it's a good DAC marked with a Scarlett Letter.

Sad isn't it?  Being your own worst enemy.  Even sadder is that most of its supporters won't hear it at its best because it's attached to an O2.

Attacking NwAvGuy for being rage-filled is kinda missing the point. As far as NwAvGuy is concerned with what he expresses, the end justifies the means (TBH, I kinda agree). He was never going to convince those already engaged in hi-fi they were all wrong, so he didn't even try, instead focusing on those entering the hobby or those peripheral to it (interested in upgrading their audio equipment to hi-fi quality, but not really that interested in audio.)

On that front, NwAvGuy has succeeded. Outside specialist audio communities, the O2/ODAC have gained a very impressive foothold, and frequently get recommended to amplify virtually any headphone that needs amping. Even in specialist audio communities the number of self-professed objectivists is rising dramatically, albeit with a large proportion of them nigh blindly accepting anything NwAvGuy tells them.

You can look at what he's done from two angles. From one perspective, NwAvGuy can be about blind faith in his designs/ideas (although the details for those who want to go deeper/acknowledgements of precisely what he's done are there for those interested in thinking his position through.) How he justifies himself is important, but only to an extent: he wants to give people the right idea, but in the end if the emphatic nature of their conclusions is not necessarily proportionate to their understanding that's not necessarily the end of the world.

Consider a naive subjectivist and a naive objectivist, neither particularly aware of the nuances of their own system of beliefs. The naive subjectivist might end up with a recabled HD700, an amplifier from Burson and a FOTM DAC off ebay. I'm not an idiot (honest!) and I almost bought the most outrageously crappy stuff on the recommendation of Head-Fi cheerleaders, before I...erm...found the light . The naive objectivist might conceivably underestimate the importance of equipment other than their headphones (albeit a problem NwAvGuy seeks to minimise by providing his "one-size-fits-all" box'o'audio amping and DACing), but in all likelihood they're not going to end up with a bad setup.

From the other angle, much of NwAvGuy's rhetoric and attitude can be explained by a comparison with Changstar. This website was set up away from Head-Fi to cut through the crap of a thousand differing and often misinformed/bizarre opinions and start making some value judgements which, whilst not universal, can be taken much more seriously. You've also adopted an irreverent tone and a tendency to not hold back on the statements as to whether a headphone is good or not when you've got multiple experienced ears and a CSD implying something is wrong. I don't think it would be too presumptuous to say that you want to "shake things up a bit".

For NwAvGuy, the amount of irreverence/strength with which he asserts his views increases in proportion with the view he is trying to challenge. The idea of amplifier measurements and the associated science being wholly inadequate to characterise what you real ly hear is ubiquitious in hi-fi, so he needed to make a bigger splash. That involves some mud-slinging.

Two groups basically end up fans of NwAvGuy. There are those who were arguing and thinking about points similar to his, albeit sometimes more precisely expressed (more discussion of logic, less car analogies), who are glad to see such solid engineering that revels in the devil-bearing details and benefits considerably for it. The other group is a large percentage of those new to hi-fi, especially those already inclined towards specs from other areas of technology, who leave his blog with, what is in my view, roughly the right ideas, albeit without the skills/knowledge to justify them. They get derided as ignorant zealots, but they do end up buying snake-oil free audio equipment. Even if you're a "subjectivist", would you rather all the newbs bought O2s or a incredibly wide range of equipment, a lot of which is complete crap?

As their numbers increase, you'll end up with more curious ones who'll start to fill in the gaps in their knowledge...the end result is a considerable raised profile for audio "objectivism", which is a good thing, possibly even for "subjectivists", in terms of increasing emphasis on basic measurable competencies and thus making audio better for everyone.

TL;DR (and this really needs one!): NwAvGuy wanted to make the audio hobby better. To do so, he needed to stir shit up. Nuances of belief can be fine-tuned later: first priority is to divert those entering hi-fi to a different belief system, which will, on the balance of probabilities, vastly improve their audio experience. He could have eloquently written about the importance of measurements and the burden of proof, but then very few people would read it or care. NwAvGuy's rather less measured approach has paid dividends: he knows exactly what he's doing.

TL;DR (and this really needs one!): NwAvGuy wanted to make the audio hobby better. To do so, he needed to stir shit up. Nuances of belief can be fine-tuned later: first priority is to divert those entering hi-fi to a different belief system, which will, on the balance of probabilities, vastly improve their audio experience. He could have eloquently written about the importance of measurements and the burden of proof, but then very few people would read it or care. NwAvGuy's rather less measured approach has paid dividends: he knows exactly what he's doing.

I kind of agree.  I don't really think he had anything planned out like that but he was still pretty successful.  The O2 and ODAC are pretty popular outside the "head-fi" circle among people who consider 'audiophile' to be a pejorative.

OTOH I think he might have been a little naive expecting to win an argument just because he was right

I can only speak for myself (and it's entirely possible I'm misinterpreting you) but at the risk of going OT, the idea that we're about using blind tests to logically disprove things is possibly the most annoying misconception held about "objectivists" that I know.

As you've probably thought yourself, the idea of using a blind test to formally disprove something is patently absurd.

Also, at the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, measuring speakers, let alone headphones, is somewhat different from amplifiers/DACs. It's not too hard to work out what's going on in a wire in comparison to measuring the performance of a transducer.

EDIT: Also, wonderful emoticon selection 

TL;DR (and this really needs one!): NwAvGuy wanted to make the audio hobby better. To do so, he needed to stir shit up. Nuances of belief can be fine-tuned later: first priority is to divert those entering hi-fi to a different belief system, which will, on the balance of probabilities, vastly improve their audio experience. He could have eloquently written about the importance of measurements and the burden of proof, but then very few people would read it or care. NwAvGuy's rather less measured approach has paid dividends: he knows exactly what he's doing.

It didn't need to be done, because those who are poorly educated are poorly educated for a reason: they have no incentive to learn. Shouting about things won't change it, and they haven't. Instead, what we've witnessed is a shift from people new to the hobby asking "what amp and dac can i get for less than $100" and getting responses like "Littledot MKIII!111" to asking "what amp and dac can I get for less than $100" and getting this like ODAC and MAGNI. Instead of actual research taking place, we've moved from one parrot to another and both are equally as dangerous as eachother. But now instead of products and music being the idea, we've now got a figurehead. It's like that terrible shift rock and trance music took, where they started being about the musicians/act/spectacle as much as or more than the music.