Z Reviews Bitching Thread

Discussion in 'Headphones' started by Bigferret, May 1, 2016.

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  1. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    I agree. Z reviews are shit in part because of ill-clad underage girl displays. For his reviews to be taken seriously at all Z needs to feature 18 < x < 50 age women that are strictly hot and fit, and with way less clothing.

    Live women btw, not drawings, and pictures, and crap.
     
  2. Outerspace Wasabi

    Outerspace Wasabi Friend

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    eew, sarcasm... and sarcasm that misses the point.
     
  3. Mithrandir41

    Mithrandir41 Friend

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    Try not to be easily offended, @Outerspace Wasabi, sarcasm is the nature of the beast here. The point is that creepy zeos sucks
     
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2017
  4. SSL

    SSL Friend

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    Yes, pictures of nearly naked women potentially as young as 18 would be way less weird and unprofessional.
     
  5. spwath

    spwath Hijinks master cum laudle

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    Even I, a horny teen, would have to agree.

    Naked women, animated, real, 12, 30, have no place in professional reviews.
     
  6. TwoEars

    TwoEars Friend

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    In his defense the whole Anime/Manga thing is Japanese and it's nearly impossible to find Animes/Mangas where the girls aren't young and scantily clad. It's just a Japanese thing and a cultural difference. So... if he's genuinely an Anime/Manga fan and like the characters/series I can sympathize to some extent.

    But if it's just pictures of scantily clad young women to him then.. yeah. In any case it would probably be good of him to have the self-awareness to realize that not everyone will look at those pictures and know what Anime/Manga is.
     
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2017
  7. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    I disagree. My point is that the anime pseudo-porn content in Z reviews is not the number one issue for me. It is an issue, but for me the actual poor content (this is #1), the first person take, the constant head movement that makes me dizzy, the dude's breathing/munching and the table mess weight heavier. To the point that I completely dismiss Z reviews existence.

    Possible that my relative indifference to what seems to be a the #1 issue for you, is due to the fact that I don't give a crap about pseudo-porn anime.

    On a more serious note, if we are talking about nearly naked women > 18 (pseudo-porn anime is actually a bit sick if taken seriously), I agree it's unprofessional in some contexts. But I'm not sure it is weird or uncommon. Sex sells. There are plenty of examples of this in the media and advertisement both geared towards men and women.

    We could argue about this all day, including ramifications on self-image and social psychology (a very professional branch that in my view can be used to manipulate consumers).
     
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2017
  8. nithhoggr

    nithhoggr Author of the best selling novel Digital Jesus

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    I'm not so sure that's really in his defense. Sure, liking problematic media is OK and normal...just about everyone agrees on that. But it shows a certain degree of tone-deafness and unprofessionalism to showcase that in a supposedly professional review for an entirely different hobby. Don't get me wrong...I'm an anime fan. I get that it's wholly possible to like a series that has questionable elements for reasons completely unrelated to said questionable elements. But even if you're such a superfan of a series that you must make it your wallpaper, it's not like it's impossible to find something in it that's SFW. Hell, TVTropes managed to find a SFW image for To Love-Ru.
     
  9. Outerspace Wasabi

    Outerspace Wasabi Friend

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    People entrust him with their equipment, give him money, and he has 10s of thousands of followers...
    I am merely trying to figure out what his appeal is,... especially when there are so many red flags with this guy.

    That's my point.
     
  10. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    I believe it's his access to equipment and his Head-Fi-esque everything is awesome review approach.

    The one or two times I saw Z reviews it basically told me: "Look at all this awesome equipment that you have been curious about. Well it's here and all over. I got so much of it I dunno what to do with it. I can tell you I know everything there is to know about it. I got experience. And I can tell you live how it all sounds relative to the piece crap equipment you got. It's awesome. You need to get it now. Sucks to be me".

    Of course, IMO, it's all bullshit.
     
  11. TwoEars

    TwoEars Friend

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    @nithhoggr

    Yupp, I only sympathize to some extent and I do think it's pretty unprofessional. But like Ultrabike said sex does sell and on youtube the #1 rule is "don't be boring".
    Z is the guy that does audio reviews with a friendly improvised feel and has scantily clad anime wallpapers, that's become his signum now and so far it seems to be working out for him. You can like him or not be the man has views.

    It's like that idiot PewDiePie, I absolutely hate his stuff and see zero appeal in it but damn.. the guy has a fanbase. Well, he may not be an idiot himself but I think the stuff he produces is garbage. It's aimed and teenage boys and the like but if you get the views you get the views..
     
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2017
  12. SSL

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    It's possible for non-perverts.

    We're straying into other areas of discussion, but it is certainly common. Can't debate that.

    Seems the common theme is that people like his "no bullshit" attitude and budget-minded approach. In my view his videos are a slurry of barely connected rambling, but I guess I'm not his target audience.
     
  13. JustAnotherRando

    JustAnotherRando My other bike is a Ferrari

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    This is extremely hard to do for a noob who has minimal experience for BS detector calibration. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many sites I've found where reviews are a decent chance at being reliable. Hell, it's just two sites so far- here and InnerFidelity.

    I am sure there is some good stuff to be found on Head Fi, but that involves wading through a two dozen vacuously short opinion posts to find one one more detailed opinion, and even then it's still hard to judge whether the reviewer knows what he's talking about or whether he's recycling buzzwords as there is little correlation between status/postcount and coherence of thought. I simply can't stick around on Head Fi long enough to build up an opinion on who's a good reviwer- the amount of brain-hurting stupidity is just too painful for it to be worthwhile.

    I've come across the occasional blog site that has a review on a specific product that I'd like to know more about, but it'll only be for the one product, and there'll be no reason to visit that site again.

    On the topic of the Z Youtube reviews, I couldn't watch more than the first ten seconds of it. Experience has told me that videos shot from a bobblehead camera point of view are almost never worth watching.
     
  14. Mshenay

    Mshenay Barred from loaner program. DON'T SEND ME GEAR.

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    Your absolutely right, about the bobble head video and how difficult it is to learn to read through the BS. What will help with the latter, is starting to review products for your self. You'll never fully learn or understand how to translate BS into useful info, new buzz words are popping up every day. Thankfully, back in 2012 when I got started things were just a little bit simpler, I've spent the last 5 years getting to know what I like and who I like to read. Learning to navigate the fluffly and some times over technical or out right make believe lingo of audio is a never ending quest, but in time you'll get better. Heck, @Marvey, @atomicbob and @Torq write a little differently today than in times past, and they are by far the best posters I've come across. My point being give it time, it'll get a little easier... before it get's hard again!

    What does help though is writing reviews for your self, and learning from others. For better or worse, I'm a more positive poster on HF. An I've had to learn how to... express things I don't like in a positive manner. I enjoying posting both here and there because on SBAF I have the freedom to be more frank, but what your write is also reflected by what you think. So even today I'm still trying to find the balance between... speaking frankly, but also truthfully and tactfully as well as writing for both audiences.

    For better or worse, Z has found an audience that enjoys his... style and delivery. An while I feel that maybe he takes advantage of the influence he has to promote him self over the satisfaction of his viewer base I can't fault him for that, no one forces his viewers to watch his videos and he's managed to find a way to make a hobby that he enjoy's not only self sustainable but apparently profitable. So good on him, an while it may irritate me that He has more pull in this hobby than I do and whether he deserves it or not is moot. He's out more work in than I have, and at this point I would personally rather work at increasing my influence rather than try to be little his.

    I'm only commenting here to hopefully try an encourage some of you to do the same, focus on how you can contribute positively to the community in the hopes in response to a surge of quality contributors he'll either become irrelevant and fade away or, and I hope this is the case, adapt and change to serve not only him self but his viewers
     
  15. Mystic

    Mystic Mystique's Spiritual Advisor

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    This thread has been going on awhile. I can't stand the guy. He can't explain sound or even form coherent sentences when he tries too and his wallpapers are creepy.

    A target of the worst parts of gaming culture. Because how dare a woman have an opinion on a "male dominated" hobby without her and her family receiving mass amounts of nonstop verbal and sexual harassment.

    In reality, her feminist views are pretty normal (mostly) despite what the underbelly of 4chan says.
     
  16. TheIceman93

    TheIceman93 El pato-zorro

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    How / why is this thread still active?
     
  17. Hammy

    Hammy Friend

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    Unfortunately Z-reviews doesn't use the good sounding or well produced anime or soundtrack recordings for his reviews. I took the effort to find and listen to the song he used when reviewing the Bifrost Multibit. He was listening for soundstage differences between the Bifrost Multibit and and another DAC. He used a soundtrack song that had zero soundstage and depth. Of course he heard no difference in soundstage and depth between the Bifrost Multibit and the other DAC. The song he was listening to had none to begin with. You can't hear soundstage from a recording that has none. Only an ignorant idiot would use a recording like that to review DACs while listening specifically for soundstage.

    There are sountrack recordings that have good soundstage depth with headphones. I sometimes use the soundtrack recording for Glory by James Horner to audition amps, DACs, and headphones. I listen for the style of depth and soundstage that the recording has. With good amps and headphones the soundstage has a special sense of depth. I know how that recording sounds with amps and headphones that can do that depth and how that recording sounds on amps and headphones that don't do that depth. So it has become a useful demo recording for me despite it being a soundtrack recording. If Z-reviews has manage to find anime soundtrack recordings with similar sound qualities for him for reviewing then more power to him. But it's obvious he hasn't, and it's obvious that he wouldn't recognize the difference.
     
  18. Delayeed

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    Same thing happened to me. I bought the Alpha Dogs based on his gushing review:
    Living in Europe i paid through the ass for them too. They were super uncomfortable for me and sounded dead with insane levels of sub bass which required a lot of bass port tuning to "fix" yet the highs had this weird artificial sharpness to it (Zeos doesn't really notice problems in highs in headphones, so confirmed deaf.)

    A big part of me wants to unsub him but on the other hand I'm interested what crazy nonsense flat out wrong review will he do next.
     
  19. ButtUglyJeff

    ButtUglyJeff Stunningly beautiful IRL

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    I hope you understand that you are not his targeted audience...

    This audio crap is a gigantic sausage party, and he's targeting the majority of the youthful sausage owners. I get that he comes across as a psudo big brother, which makes all the college boys go "Well I know he's weird, but I love him still. He's my brother after all..."

    I get it, I just don't like it...
     
  20. Camper1995

    Camper1995 New

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    100% deaf, he definitely "loves" bright headphones with that sharpness to them, as you said. I noticed this too when he called the high spectrum of various Fostex model "PERFECT, THEY STOP JUST PERFECT!".

    His hearing is for sure damaged and he should put a giant disclaimer before any of his videos start that he has hearing issues and can't hear well past like 10k. Funny thing is, he hated the M50x, but that's an older video and his hearing could have still been relatively okay back then.
     
    Last edited: Sep 28, 2017
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