petition for marv to release his article on the headphone industry

I would like to see a new SOHI article that reflects the attitude of the new site. The hard part will be calling out the negative while still keeping an overall positive tone. Saying something sucks isn't very productive, but explaining the characteristics and letting people decide for themselves is a powerful tool (like the DAC chart).

I think explicitly stating that something is bad is important. There needs to be balance against the people who say how great everything is. I do like the idea of focusing on the great products, but it leaves questions on products that aren't reviewed. If you just choose not to comment nobody will know if it is because you tried it and didn't like it or if you never heard it in the first place.

 

How did it become a shillfest? Here is my pseudoscience theory.

The cost of the hobby is prohibitive to experiencing many products. You end up with people recommending what they have because that is all they have experienced. Also, it doesn't matter if you spend $50 or $5000, nobody wants to waste their money or be told they wasted their money. This means you have a lot of people out there defending and justifying their gear. Throw in a forum that doesn't allow disagreement and you have the foundation for a shillfest. As a user, how do you wade through an entire forum full of positive reviews?

Now imagine you are a sponsor. What isn't there to love about this situation. An environment has been created where everybody is right. It gives you free reign to feed them product with the guarantee that you will get a positive result.

The shill review sites are just a spin off of this concept from enterprising individuals who have been able to get free product for review. If I was on that gravy train there is no way I would risk upsetting companies by giving a bad review.

Most of this is not unique to the headphone hobby.

 

I wonder how many members of SBAF have zero access to headphones and/or equipment for auditions? It would be epic to pay maybe $50, return shipping, and an obligation to write some honest impressions (200 word minimum?) just to be able to listen to gear that now one has to trust the voices of other, or buy blindly.

Oh what a world that would be. I live in the middle of New York State, and one would think that I could drive a couple of hours to find such a place. But sadly no. Using one's ears is the best way to confirm or ignore what "professional" reviewers are saying. Take back the power people!!!! .......lol

 

It seems clear to me how things in the headphone world became a shill fest: Beats

Beats created a huge demand for headphones. When I bought my first pair of headphones, reading reviews online, there weren't a ton of options for really expensive headphones. I ended up getting the Sony MDR-7506, which I still have but rarely use anymore, and that was considered by consensus to be a solid, reliable headphone that does what you expect a headphone to do. It was under $100.

Anyone who wanted more than that level of quality was an audiophile, and those audiophiles wanted actual good quality. But even then, the TOTL headphones (other than electrostats) were mostly under $1,000, some not even approaching $1K.

Anyone who had less interest than I did was using whatever earbuds came with their MP3 player and eventually their phone. I still remember articles about whether such and such Android phone had better earbuds than the Apple earbuds.

Then Beats came along, and sold headphones to the earbud crowd. But these weren't $50, $100 headphones. They were $300! They were $300 and sounded awful. Some people bought them as a status symbol and didn't care how they sounded. Others bought them, thinking $300 was going to get them sonic bliss, and realized they weren't very good. So they went looking for something better. Now, my 7506 is better than those Beats by a country mile, but these people just spent $300 on a crappy headphone, good luck convincing them the way to improve the sound was to drop their price target by a third. What did these people want? More expensive headphones! Clearly $300 wasn't spending enough to get them good sound, so they needed to spend $500, $1,000, $1,500! And the headphone companies welcomed them with open arms.

Now, you've got a boatload of people who have no audiophile experience looking for audiophile sound, and they're willing to pay gobs of money for it. Suddenly business is booming for headphones, the manufacturers can take models they would have sold for $800 and sell them for $1,200, $2,300, $4,000! Oh, and even some of the old timers fell for it. "If my $800 cans sound really good, then these $3,000 ones must sound SO much better!"

With those sorts of profit margins, headphone makers now have enough money to make sure they keep making that kind of money. This is where the shilling comes in. It affects many similar industries, video games, movies, etc. It's cheaper for many of these companies to pay for fake good press than it is to take the time to release genuinely good products.

 

Go pro-audio, skip the consumer B.S. because you will have to encounter a disciple of Kotler who is super effective unless you are mega effective...

 

While I know at times it can be pretty misleading, I think ranking, to an extent, products is helpful. People flock to read lists on consumer reports where products are tested through various methods and good products are recommended and bad products are discouraged. I bet one of the first thing people look at on this site is the Dac chart, and even though there are many disclaimers, it is a fairly reliable chart for consumers in our hobby.

The best of SBAF and the golden scholngies were a great start, and I know purrin cringed at putting his personal opinion on so many items (even though he is always right, even when he is wrong). CNET, PC mag, consumer reports and other review organizations are sent products to review from manufacturers and are expected to give honest reviews. This partially holds companies responsible for creating a sub par product. That is certainly not what happens on HF. The other obvious repercussions are slow sales, but with insane prices on items such as LCD 4, Chord Hugo, and Astell Kern upper end products the company likely doesnt need to sell many to turn a profit and justify the research on a minor improvement with a huge price tag. Senn probably sells 10x as many HD6x0's as the 800, a standby product for over a decade with only 1 minor change over the years. The headphone market could use more "schitty" type of companies that are driven by consumers looking for good value products, more HD6x0's, less HE1k's and LCD4's.

All the information needed is here or on Chang, that is why most of us are here. Long time or avid readers can quickly discern quality and good value products, just look at the th-x00. We are all nuts for choosing a hobby where there is so much misinformation out there and mistakes can cost thousands. People are out there spending their hard earned money on Audeze EL-8's, Beyerdynamics T-1's and Burson amps thinking if they spend a lot they will have a top of the line system. We need good resources such as SBAF, Chang and Innerfidelity to forward the hobby. Objectively listen, measure, share impressions, mod, review and debate - that is our purpose.

Long live SBAF! Arrrrrrrr

 

I may be wrong, but I think Consumer Reports buys the products it reviews. And they don't accept advertising revenue, making their money from memberships so they don't have a conflict of interest. They are a rarity in that regard.

Most sites that get review products don't disclose the extent of their relationships with the companies whose products they're reviewing. I'm not saying they're all dishonest, I'm saying that it can be hard to tell who is genuine and who is getting something back for their efforts. And many times companies send out products for review and do NOT want an honest critique.