New Loaner Participation Expectations

Discussion in 'Rules, Payments, and Other' started by Vansen, Nov 4, 2018.

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  1. AllanMarcus

    AllanMarcus Friend

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    Rules are so bureaucratic. I look at this as "mandatory guidelines for participation" :)
     
  2. mscott58

    mscott58 Friend

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    Sorry, but the talk about minimum word counts flashed me back to high school and college when I would purposefully make my word count the exact number of words required, just to make a point. It probably ended up costing me time, as it's hard to make a document hit an exact number, but it somehow made me feel better.

    However, if there was a word count here, I might come in purposefully one word short just to be a jerk...
     
  3. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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    Mandatory word count would just lead to a lot of vacillation, unless it's something obscenely low, in which case impressions could just be as useless. Let people write to the best of their ability, some can say in 50 words what others need 1000 to (ahem). What matters is that they convey their experience.

    I agree that requiring impressions, even sketchy ones, seems only fitting— the loaner tour is supposed to broaden people's experiences with gear so they can become better listeners; it's fair to ask them to "give back" so the group can better capture the character of components; this'll keep us all from losing our collective minds whenever a senior member poops on something after a 2 second listen because we all have different preferences.
     
  4. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

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    Word count seems silly. Have faith an SBAFer has the common sense on what an impression post should look like.
     
  5. Jinxy245

    Jinxy245 Vegan Puss

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    While I agree a word count seems a bit too much (although I think the number 200 was thrown around which is nothing) I'd keep in mind that this is where the problem started to an extent. If SBAFers had the common sense, they'd be posting impressions of loaners more frequently.

    It seems a foot does need to be put down on the issue, but this shouldn't create any extra work for any of the admins. They have more than enough on their collective plates. A word count just doesn't sit right with me.
     
  6. zerodeefex

    zerodeefex SBAF's Imelda Marcos

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    You guys are idiots. We're not looking for suggestions.

    If you don't write impressions for a loaner I'll ban you.
     
  7. DrForBin

    DrForBin Friend

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    hello,

    @zerodeefex, did you really need to go there?

    i am 66 years old with damaged hearing, a limited budget and limited experience in expressing any sort of viable review/impressions of audio hardware.

    i have also been extremely fortunate to have been in a lot of loaner programs.which have provided me the opportunity for gear lust (STAX, Focal Clears) and the occasional purchase to please MrsForBin (CF Orions.) and the rare chance to hate something without censure (those godz awful Orcas,)

    i have nothing to offer in the form of impressions except YUM or YUCK.

    considering that i am nearly into my dotage. will that be enough?

    (@Vansen, you have seen the bald pate. @atomicbob, you have seen the head tilt of compensating for hearing loss.)
     
  8. zerodeefex

    zerodeefex SBAF's Imelda Marcos

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    Just write about comfort and the things you notice. You don’t have to be eloquent or even know wtf you’re talking about, your perspective is useful. You can say “for those of you with hearing loss, you can be happy to know blah blah blah.”

    Writing impressions is part of the social obligation that comes with participating in loaners. We don’t buy and source gear so people can listen to it and walk away: the information and context you provide is valuable.

    I find it useful for SBAF to be the nexus of discussion about particular gear on the Internet. If you clowns write impressions it will definitely help drive more eyes here.
     
  9. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    ^ impressions. Your style is succinct. It's fine.
     
  10. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    On one hand I find some of these requirements heavy handed.

    But then I realized that this is an audio forum and if this place has any sort of mission, it's for discussion of audio gear. The ban makes sense. If you aren't talking about gear getting loaned to you then what is the point of being here to begin with?

    Still, have fun. It's only audio
     
  11. Mystic

    Mystic Mystique's Spiritual Advisor

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    Not even a whole paragraph, just some easy to understand, straight to the point bullet points about what you did and didn’t like about a piece of gear is really helpful.

    Having said that, the only impressions I have about the recent Lyr 3 loaner is that it doesn’t suck. Only had less than 30 mins with it one night due to life (both work and home) getting in the way. No hard feelings if you decide to ban me for not posting impressions though, I’m usually pretty good about that.
     
  12. Magnetostatic_Tubephile

    Magnetostatic_Tubephile Friend

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    A small counterpoint: A lot of impressions (coming from a lot of people, with absolutely no currating or rules) might sometimes lead to overall confusion. Like on Head-Fi.

    Recently, I remember the EC ZDTjr case here on SBAF. Reading through what people posted, I got really confused about how the amp might actually sound to my ears as documented in this post. A lot of contradicting opinions basically. Hands then heard both units floating around and stated both sounded pretty much the same to his ears. Needless to say I remain confused about the amp. :)
     
    Last edited: Nov 6, 2018
  13. Hands

    Hands Overzealous Auto Flusher - Measurbator

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    Holy shit, guys, did we really need a multi-page discussion on this? How is this not painfully obvious?

    You get a loaner unit, you post impressions. They can be brief, and it's OK if you have shit hearing, don't know how to put it into words, etc. Just do your best for the community, and don't kill yourself doing it.

    Sometimes you'll face extraordinary situations where you can't post impressions. Shit happens. Be open. We're understanding.

    Don't over think this.
     
  14. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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    This, I'll chalk up to people having different standards and not everyone having as much experience with source gear (or even headphones/speakers) as others.

    The ZDT Jr. for one is the first non-hybrid tube amp I've been able to get a real feel for after I started taking audio seriously because, poor high school/college kid tropes aside, I used to be an idiot Hardcore Objectivist^TM and believed tube amps = sonic degradation. To my ears the imaging, layering, and presentation of subtle nuances on the ZDT Jr. was ridiculously good compared to the best amps that I've had the opportunity to acquaint myself with up to that point. My effusiveness was obvious in the impressions I wrote.

    I believe the "best" amp I'd had any decent amount of head time with up to then was a Lake People G109A, which several others who've heard better think artificially smooth but also with smeared resolution. It's not bad, from memory, and did well with a modded HD800, but apparently there are better pairings at the same price. Okay.

    One SBAFism that's stuck with me is that readers of the site are expected to do hard work researching individual preferences so they can make better use of data from those who write impressions. Inconvenient? Hell yeah, but it means that you have more unique data points from which to draw conclusions. Keeps the site from falling into groupthink too. The confusion you experienced I'd say might be due to your trying to draw on references as a whole without calibrating to individual preferences; not everyone has great hearing or knows what "good" sounds like

    It's a valid point though, @Magnetostatic_Tubephile. I feel loaner impressions should be prefaced (in spoilers maybe) with reviewers' experience with gear and preferences. No extra work for the people running the site, and just a few sentences' greater expense for those who participate in loaners.
     
  15. Azimuth

    Azimuth FKA rtaylor76, Friend

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    Agree with @Hands.

    This thread should just be locked. Not much more to say.
     
  16. BenjaminBore

    BenjaminBore Friend

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    Before it gets locked I want to apologise to everyone for being so quick to reckless aggression on the first page. There was a better more constructive way to communicate those points at that time, which purr1n thankfully went on to do with a much more even hand.

    Also, what Hands said.
     
  17. DrForBin

    DrForBin Friend

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