How is everyone biased by definition.

That's certainly more than he gave to anyone else he wanted to crucify.


Btw, I accept the possibility of Willakan being 100% right.  However, I see zero evidence of it.  Someone who violates their own standards and disappears at a product launch they make nothing from reeks to high heaven especially coupled with all the history preceding it.  The inductive logic of it all is too much for my sensibilities.

Quote from: Willakan on February 21, 2013, 12:23:19 PM

The idea that decent amps/DACs are essentially transparent (without getting into the merits of that idea) is hardly one that contradicts with designing the stuff - look at John Siau, the designer of the DAC1 and DAC2 (I know there aren't that many fans around here, but the mainstream hi-fi press gets quite excited over them). According to his posts on HydrogenAudio, transparency in the digital domain has been possible for a decade, and transparency in the analog domain for two - yet he keeps designing his gear, and it keeps selling! Admittedly, his opinions on how his gear sounds are markedly absent from the page trying to sell you it for some reason...

Again, you see that as the 'noble' primary motive but his tone and behavior is indicative of something else.  Set the internets ablaze, build a cult following and cash in.  Many have made the same point before just as you said and done it with a far less expansive and concerted effort with such a layout of time and resources.  Oh, he releases a commercial product and disappears at the same time because he's a genius and needs a break from it all.  Hah.  All that effort just because he's a nice and generous dood.  Haha.  Spouting about transparency while masking his identity and VPN through a network security firm in Zurich.  Hahaha!

This is a mix of fact and assertion, and as such has no answer to it. 
 
The apparently enormous logical holes in the JDS Labs post aren't really proof of anything - there was probably more to the EE's application than simply having heard of the O2, but that could quite easily be one of the "driving factor" sort of things you might mention at a job interview.

So a hypothetical 'probably more' to what JDS posted is what you consider better evidence.  Got it.  Yeah, when I apply for a job, I always mention how much better someone else is at it than I am.  Dude, what? 

My point was that it probably came up as a potential factor for encouraging his interest in the field, as so far we've been assuming this EE doesn't specialise in audio design or anything. The more significant point is that we're arguing over *close readings of a blog post that supposedly reveal subterfuge*, which clearly isn't evidence of anything. This isn't intended to be a bait and switch, but you really can't draw anything from those comments unless you've already made up your mind.

I don't see anything more than coincidence linking the two, to be honest. More significantly, if nwavdeuche was planning this for personal gain all along, he's done a pretty shit job. Let's see how this EVILAVGUY has missed opportunities:

1) If he wanted to unleash the e-crazy at Schiit, why didn't he just measure their amplifier? The page for the Asgard makes the fatal mistake of saying it's happy with 16 ohm loads, which allow nwavdeuche to test it with said loads then excoriate it when it doesn't perform so well, regardless of whether anyone is actually driving said loads with it. It would just involve stretching the plausible logic of the AMB case a little *implausi bly*, but hell, he has measurements.

Nope, Shike saved him the trouble of having to buy an amp and go through the trouble.  I don't get why you guys can't figure out that you don't expend effort and resources when others give it to you for free.  Actually I do, but nvm.  Operation slander Schiit was accomplished for free and done publicly in a large forum.

It's not a very effective piece of slander, and it wasn't even properly capitalised on. It fits better with nwavdeuche's expressed personality than it does with your conspiracy theory. There's obviously going to be an element of subjectivity here, but this 'attack' lacks fore- and after-thought. There was no attempt on his blog to take advantage of the attention now paid to Schiit...he used them as an example of a perceived 'bad' manufacturer, but he always tended to use those criticised companies that were freshest in his mind for hypothetical examples anyway.


2) Why the restrictive licensing on the O2/weird 'transportable' design? As the documentation sets it down, the ODA (Objective Desktop Amp) can now never be realised - which seems strange from a profit perspective, as an ODA 'developed by JDS Labs using nwavdeuche's techniques in his absence' would be a license to print money. Surely nwavdeuche would have accounted for this?

He did.  He's releasing a C5 and likely a better ODA, perhaps w/ a digital pot after the C5 takes off.

As you constantly highlight how nwavdeuche has constructed a personality cult, it's quite an impressive set of double standards to then act willfully ignorant to the effect of his brand. Well measuring gear <<< Well measuring gear designed by nwavdeuche, as far as sales are concerned.


What gets me, is those on the other side want a double blind test set up specifically by Nick Charles with a video camera rammed up my ass for public viewing on youtube but this mutherfucker gets to spout all this crap and manipulate you guys like a bunch of Scientologists without ever releasing his public personal information or any financials clearing him from any monetary gain from production of the O2 or ODAC.  I can't believe the amount of faith that extreme objectivists operate on.

Heh. Funny. Nobody's demanding you blind test anything - you have a grossly inflated sense of your own importance  . The amount of diligence that would have to go into a test for the likelihood of the test being broken (see Clark Johnsen and his single-blind, unconventional test protocol apparently rewriting the rules on the audibility of polarity) to become smaller than the likelihood of miraculous new audio insights being discovered makes such a test incredibly difficult to conduct, to the point that its extremely unlikely anyone will conduct it. The blind test, as you have so astutely pointed out, is largely symbolic, but then again "we're" not the ones that feel we need it.

To be honest, your logic is so incredibly broken here I'm not sure if you're trying to be funny. You're seriously suggesting that we're all gullible for not demanding that nwavdeuche prove a negative? The only reason we have to think he might be profiting off one of the vendors is your increasingly bizarre conspiracy theory. I'm not even going to take you up on the whole "BLIND ADHERENCE TO nwavdeuche" thing, except to repeat the tired reminder that nwavdeuche did not invent audio skepticism, and it is not his assertions which have the burden of proof upon them...but anyway...



Similarly, the O2 is pretty nonsensical as a commercial product - it significantly increase s size and cost in order to accommodate batteries so a not-really-portable amp can be carried around by the very small numbers of people that actually want to do so. It makes perfect sense as a DIY point-prover, but a lot less as something you'd want to sell.

Really?  That's why people buy it?  That's why they extole it's virtures as audibly 'perfect' in oevery other thread?  That's why JDS is linking it to his products for marketing purposes?  Because it's a nonsensical product?  Makes perfect sense to me.  This whole thing always has from the beginning.  JDS even stated their sales increased 400% since the O2 because of this ground breaking, product of the year.  Do you really not see the obvious?

You're mistaking issues of audio quality with those of usability, again in a willfully silly way. The O2 is still a good product, but if it was designed in the knowledge that it was part of this enormous conspiracy, it is a puzzling one, as it uncomfortably straddles two form factors and suffers in both the cost and ergonomics department for it.

Linking your product to nwavdeuche is good marketing sense. It doesn't mean you *are* nwavdeuche. The enormous increase in sales and publicity has also occurred for other O2 vendors - citing it as 'proof' of anything is silly.



There are lots of smaller inconsistencies - why the incomplete measurements on the new JDS Labs product? For some reason, they haven't set up their low-impedance test loads yet, which I suppose you could attribute to pretending not to be nwavdeuche, but it would hardly look dubious if they had got some set up by now, and it would drastically increase the strength of their measurements. As it stands, even a nwavdeuche acolyte is likely to question them. nwavdeuche knows what numbers people expect (the numbers he's told them to expect), so why does he suddenly not produce  them?

Asked and answered by yourself.

It was? Why exactly would JDS Labs/nwavdeuche, knowing the measurements they need to produce to get the acolytes riled up, fail to produce those measurements?

My issue is that there isn't really anything in the way of a smoking gun here, or even a slightly fizzling gun. Everything on this thread can be explained quite easily by coincidence, so I'm inclined to go for the obvious solution, especially with my emails with nwavdeuche/his blog, which suggest that he's just a pissed-off engineer ripping apart anything which doesn't meet his (perceived - don't want to start an argument here, everyone knows where I stand on the matter ) standards, who finally decided to design some gear to fill the void. Take his stuff on the Mini3 - regardless of appearances, from my exchanges with him I think he genuinely tried to be constructive. In private his opinions about the amplifier were expressed rather more strongly!

The chronology of his design work, on both the DAC and O2 front, fits - he started work on the ODA, by all accounts, before he started on the ODAC, hoping to find a cheap DAC to endorse. And the incidents people highlight make better sense from this perspective - the sudden attack on Schiit on the basis of a low amount of evidence by his own standards makes no sense from a commercial perspective (as discussed above, he could have measured it in a plausible way that makes it look abominably awful + the Asgard's a single-ended minimal feedback job that's hardly about measurements to start with, so it's like shooting fish in a barrel), but it makes perfect sense from pissed off engineer on crusade perspective.

He was particularly disparaging towards Schiit after the incident, but even then it only usually appeare d in a long list of popular amplifier manufacturers he deemed to be peddling snake oil.

All this above has already been asked and answered or is armchair psychology.  My motive is money.  He obviously had the time to do all this so work wasn't exactly keeping him up burning the midnight oil.  All the coincidences are timely and make sense for the amount of resources a single individual has.  Your motive is that he was just angry and noble.  We can let others decide which is more feasible based on the events and their own personal experiences in the world.   

My point isn't to play at psychology. My point is to illustrate that one can explain nwavdeuche's actions without resorting to some extravagant conspiracy theory.

Anax: What are the key pieces of evidence that make this identity for nwavdeuche seem plausible for you?

Really?  Apart from everything already mentioned in the thread?  No wonder they say love is blind.

Heh. Again with the funnies. I was hoping that you would give up your valuable time to provide a coherent summary of the actual evidence for your argument, beyond a clearly fervent desire to see nwavdeuche not merely as someone you strongly disagree with, but as someone you can dismiss as corrupt.

Hell, let's be objective about all this.  Give us a verifiable pic and name for the sake of 'perfect transparency'.


Erm, no.


Seriously though, would you mind collating your evidence (bullet points would be fine) into a coherent case? Hell, you can even leave amusing hints that I'm a crazed zealot! Everyone will love it! I can't help but be perplexed by your later comment that there's "no evidence" that your conspiracy theory is wrong. You also have a fascinating definition of logic. I am absolutely sure you will respond to this post in a completely civil manner despite it managing to be marginally more polite than yours...

Also, automatic modification of Nw.Av.Guy into nwavdeuche? Really?

Once you have eliminated the logical, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.


Willakan, we know we're right because we perceive it to be true and as such need no proof.  The burden of proof is upon you to demonstrate that Harold and Anon EE are not synonymous.  Good Luck.


nwavdudes name is Harold.  Unfortunately I can't reveal my source on this one, at least not before you liquor me up.

Willikan, you're just having having a circular argument with yourself now in the face of facts you asked for.  For some reason, you are the only person who doesn't get the gist, so just refer to Max's post after yours to help you out.  This isn't the sound science thread on Head-fi so I recommend taking whatever 4th grade standard of logic you seem to be applying here elsewhere.  Better yet, prove to us using your rudimentary 'silly' sense of logic that the sun will come up tomorrow.  Or for an easier task, prove that NWAVguy is a verifiable and distinct human being.  Or just try rereading and finding the answers to your own questions that in front of you.  (It always puzzles me that those that ignore the answer the first time keep asking you to repeat it).  You and I obviously would look at an autostereogram in two different ways (especially when knowing who made it), so there's no point in arguing about it.  I do recommend not following the path of Shike.


And yes, the Voldemort 'Challenge' was not addressed to me personally as you would like to misconstrue.  But it was targeted at those like me of which I am part.  Or does your absolute sense of logic not use Venn diagrams?