SBAF don’t know shit about iems and why bigger penis mindset is happier

Discussion in 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' started by purr1n, Dec 29, 2020.

  1. animus

    animus Almost "Made"

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    That's probably in reference to this thing that happened over a year ago (does time fly that fast? christ).
    [​IMG]
    A lot of people took serious offense to this one, some even going so far to call him racist. I don't think it's that extreme, but it seriously soured relations between CFA and a lot of the people here in SG.

    I mean, I don't blame you. It makes reasonable sense for one to sample a flagship to get an idea of what a company's products are all about. Unfortunately with 64, they have this weird lineup where their flagships are all kind of botched experiments and their second tier IEMs are the ones that have some level of refinement to them plus tech that trickled down from the flagship. Feel free to ask me anything, I'm more than happy to answer questions on IEMs and the like.
     
  2. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I'm sure he sells a ton of CFA in SG. Internet drama amplifies things x100. For every one person who felt insulted, ninety nine don't give a shit.

    Personally I don't even see why that would make people mad unless they were thin-skinned. I could have read it as "I keep seeing from the USA" or "I keep seeing someone from SBAF". If it's not true, then it's not true.
     
  3. Friday

    Friday Friend

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    Meh. It reads to me as though Ken Ball was insinuating that it might be the same person on all the platforms. I have no comments on the quality of the review itself.

    Add on to my usual gripes of Singaporeans: we have poor reading comprehension (sometimes myself included).
     
  4. Cellist88

    Cellist88 Friend

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    I think everyone eventually graduates from iems, then headphones to speakers because you simply cannot defy physics. New tech and be coated etc, all added different timbre, but nothing truly better. Its like ricing up a 2L, 4cyl engine expecting miracles. I really blame hifiman and the asian community for pricing with the idea of more $$$ is better, and gives status. Started with the 3k he1000s, then focal had to one up them, then iem companies being like.... We made a iem that deserves equal pricing/status, then 3k sony daps to some dmr-z1 semi portable amp bs costing more than an ec amp + Yggdrasil lol. Yeah as an asian, have to say people have to get over this money image shit. Nothing to do with iems but cultural mentality
     
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  5. animus

    animus Almost "Made"

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    I think the bit that made people really mad about it was that it was a manufacturer themselves going out of their way to explicitly dismiss reviews from an entire country on the basis that it may or may not have been the same person/people review bombing CFA stuff for whatever reason. That and endorsing "formal reviews" which often means really shilly reviews on ORFAS type sites but for IEM people. Not just that, but a lot of people also interpreted it as a jab at Crin, who obviously is Singaporean and has a level of bad blood with Campfire thanks to the Solaris unit variance shenanigans. The whole think just came off as wrong to a lot of people, and combined with the IO in question essentially being universally panned, led to CFA kind of becoming the butt of a lot of jokes. And I'm not even talking about Singapore in particular, this stuff was essentially the consensus on reddit and discord, which, like it or not, have a decent bit of influence on the younger sect of the community.
     
  6. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    that’s not even a little bit racist. He’s just saying it’s one person. You could replace Singapore with any other country. Jesus are people that sensitive? You just use the word Singapore snd suddenly all Asians don’t want to buy his stuff? Christ some people are f'ing stupid (here and in Singapore).

    I didn’t buy the U18t because it was their flagship I dint think that way. It was recommended to me. I knew nothing about 64 Audiio.

    but sure maybe I’ll see what you think next time I want to pretend I’m a rich Asian (that was racist) ;) but not directed towards you of course.
     
  7. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Yes. Think of it more as a city-state. Imagine invoking the name of Florence of the Medici era, even if there was no ill intent, stuff can easily be taken the wrong way: "I keep seeing someone from Florence consistently knocking the Campfire stuff..." translating as "What the f**k is wrong with you Florentines..."

    American vernacular English can be very precise and limited in scope in certain contexts - sometimes the meaning is not fully translated. Forums don't help. Reddit less. And Discord... ugh, we know what happens there.

    Not much else to do or spend money on, can't buy a bigger place, only rich can get beemers or benzs, and even then, why bother really - hence from an IEM manufacturers POV, why not jack up the price since people are not poor and keep buying our shit. Even Taipei (more space, less restrictive, less controlled) isn't that much different. People live in tiny apartments. Even well-to-do people live in tiny apartments relative to USA, often with siblings sharing rooms, Great food, fantastic food can be found for cheap.

    I mean, you could save and save and save enough for 10000 TOTL IEMs and you still won't be able to get a bigger place, with big speakers, with a yard, with a garage, with two cars.
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2021
  8. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    P.S. Also harder to get girls. The girls are bitches over there and prefer foreigners (doesn't mean they will marry one)* and hate boys who spend too much time on forums, thus perpetuating the cycle of bitchy girls.

    *I sort of take that back. Of my three female cousins, two are perma-single. One married an Australian and got the heck outta TW.
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2021
  9. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    Asians and Australians have to pay ridiculous import markups to get most good stuff. The majority of great audio gear is still made in the USA and Europe. The mediocre and not great stuff was sold off to China. Chinese companies that don’t want to cheap out the product lines they bought kept manufacturing in Europe, ie not Tymphany. Most mass produced gear made in China pretty much is sucks ass to middling.
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2021
  10. Tachikoma

    Tachikoma Almost "Made"

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    Imagine what the reaction on SBAF would be like if the U18t was made by an Asian company and their CEO came by to tell you to f**k off. That's roughly what it looked like to the Singaporean community when Ken Ball decided to reply to some random on head-fi.

    *just providing perspective, I don't particularly care one way or another about what Ken Ball said.
     
  11. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I'm pretty sure the people of the USA, that is Americans, could care less or even feel slighted if that happened.

    --

    P.S. Actually, something similar did happen. It was actually worse. A well known company based in China gained unauthorized access to a privileged user account on Changstar and spied on our internal off-the-cuff conversations, while at the same time having PMs with me, which left me scratching my head because it seemed that they knew something.

    When I figured it out after reviewing the security logs, I felt shocked. TBH, I didn't feel slighted. I felt pity for them. I have a big penis though - probably from the indigenous people side of the family.
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2021
  12. Tachikoma

    Tachikoma Almost "Made"

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    Lol, that is almost flattering in a backhanded kind of way, with them caring enough about what SBAF thinks to hack into an admin account... which is also rather sad.
     
  13. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    WTF. He didn’t say to f**k off or even close to that. In fact his mentioning the Singapore location was an afterthought and not his point which was that there was ONE person all over the internet talking shit about his work. And that person happened to be in Singapore. So the f**k what. Grow up man.

    Sounds to me like some crazed cultural Nationalism is at play here. I don’t know if that exists in Singapore i in fact know very little about Singapore but it’s the only way I can make sense of such delusional reactions. Replace Singapore with Nazi Germany and it all makes a lot of sense.
     
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  14. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Well, what can you do? I took pity because it's sad. Chinese outside of the mainland, those in HK and Taiwan, they have always had a bias against mainlanders, thinking they were morally corrupt and ethically bankrupt. I like to think of people as individuals, but stuff like this just reinforces these negative stereotypes and perceptions. This company sought to gain advantage with insider information, and even bully me in an way that made it seem that I was the bad guy because we dared criticize their product (in private). In the end, all such an action did was diminish them as "so typical unscrupulous bullying Chinese (mainlander)". Not only did they hurt themselves, they also hurt their compatriots, and their country. While I will always maintain cordial relations with them, I will continue to be fair with respect to their products and not pull off Amir BS, but I will never fully trust them. However, in the back of my mind, there's always this suspicion of other Chinese companies operating the same way. I hate that because I want to be fair to everyone.

    Small penis mindset does one no good.
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2021
  15. Tachikoma

    Tachikoma Almost "Made"

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    Singapore is a relatively small and insular place, so an attack on one person (regardless of the specific details of the attack) can be perceived as an attack on the community as a whole (much like SBAF). Singapore is also ruled by a sort of benevolent military dictatorship, so maybe you're right on the nationalism.

    FYI, I'm not Singaporean, and I'm not trying to insult you. Just trying to explain why that was a foot-in-mouth moment for CFA - it is rather pointless to debate the incident at this point, given that the consequences have already panned out.
     
  16. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    The other thing is that its citizens need to be careful about criticizing anything about the country, the government, etc. The people in power are a bunch of control freaks. Think Xi, but on a smaller scale, and delivering on the promises (security, peace, stability, prosperity). They kind of had to do this in order to survive.

    I'm pretty sure a Singaporean or three may be pissed at me already for comparing LKY and his son (current ruler - isn't nepotism a splendid thing) to Xi. Other Singaporeans may agree with me.
     
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  17. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    It's not that they cared. Chinese people can be very thin-skinned and take things too personally. I have learned much from the white man: not to be afraid of losing face; not to take things so personally that you won't let an enemy become a friend.

    One the things I really love about this country is seeing the ex-Presidents of different political parties sit together and laugh, or unite for good causes, despite bitter election contests. (No, I don't expect Trump to ever be one of them, but you never know).
     
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  18. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    I know, no offense taken. I thought you were Singaporean defending the reactions.

    I don’t consider it a foot in the mouth moment though. I consider it a delusional reaction about absolutely nothing. KB doesn’t need to avoid using the word Singapore in any way because of fear of people getting offended.

    Singapore!! Now I’m racist too I guess?

    Audio product designers are just people.
     
  19. k4rstar

    k4rstar Britney fan club president

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    lol, for all the elitism of the Asian crowd and their in-ear monitors, they are still incredibly cliquey, operating on the basis of hype trains and the opinions of key reviewers, who are no more or less qualified than the average joe to speak about what sounds good or bad.

    so basically, no different from most of the rest of audio. a microcosm, which is a fitting term given how even the best in-ear headphones will give you a micrometer of sound quality compared to larger transducers.

    like Merv said, when you have heard enough actual gear, the facade of portable gear manufacturers and their repeatedly unsuccessful designs (i.e. expecting any semblance of coherent or natural sound from shoving as many transducers as possible into a teeny tiny acoustic enclosure) becomes painfully obvious. so you do not have to hear all this overpriced garbage to know what is what.

    i liked the OPs review. the 64 audio stuff seems shitty and im glad he was not afraid to say so. a lot of these IEMs are just audio jewelry, like earrings for introverted men that happen to also make sound. at least what has been hyped on this forum for IEMs has been consistently decent to good
     
  20. Jonah

    Jonah Acquaintance

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    Man, I thought I had settled this matter, why do you have to bring it up again?

    I am aware my statement may have come across as a form of elitism. I did not intend it to be as such. I have clarified my intentions earlier in the thread. Let's move on, please?
     

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