HFM stuff

it's respectable that SBAF isn't beholden to Fang as a HiFiMan conduit of hype or secret insider info, although I'm unsure what "spying" implicates on a mostly public forum?
that being said, Dr. Fang doesn't appear to be unapproachable for a logical conversation:
build quality vs. retail pricing, or sonic improvements vs. price increases

Hey, if Fang wants HF hype train to be his outlet of love (marketing $) then so be it.
but did he ever refute us/SBAF in direct conversations that might have overlap regarding the headphone community and capitalism motives?

curious is all. not trying to direct future initiatives.

 

Thanks for mentioning this.

For everyone else: I want to be super clear here, we're a CONSUMER focused website and always will be. Sure, some of us have relationships with some manufacturers, but at the end of the day, our biggest obligation will always be to the readers and friends of this site. If one manufacturer wants to control the message this hard and f**k with our members, we're not going to bend over backwards to maintain a civil relationship with them.

They got access to the pirate only shoutbox and group PMs that were private.

 

To be fair, Fang wanted to be friendly to both communities. It's just Jude who wants to be the one the rules them all. I'm not even sure if Fang was aware that one of this underlings was spying on us. It was less the chatbox than a private beta subforum we had for evaluating the HE1000. A few Changstar guys were discussing the "secret" prices they got for the HEK, and I pretty much told them to knock it off. That even if HFM didn't get them to sign a NDA, a gentlemen's agreement is a gentlemen's agreement that should be honored.

What shocked me the most is in every incident where someone at Changstar revealed their price (it really happened twice), I would get a PM at HF from a HFM rep along the lines of "We are spying on you and we are very upset that your people at Changstar are conducting yourself in such a poor manner. Jude warned us about you." I was pretty much like WTF, although I was very polite in my responses back to them. This just brings back a lot of bad memories because I felt like HFM was sticking their fingers in my butthole and telling me that my shit stunk really bad.

I have no doubt in my mind that this leak was orchestrated by Jude (Jude has already publicly mentioned on Reddit that he had access to the private areas of Changstar). I think what gets me is that two people at Changstar broke their verbal agreements, I admonished them; but yet at the same time, about a dozen people had already been doing the same thing at Head-Fi; I believe some Head-Fi'ers even publicly posted, before Currawong deleted their posts. This was just a great way for Jude to misdirect Head-Fi'ers poor behavior to Changstar. I already knew that Jude had a two hour rant with HFM management against allowing members of Changstar (who were also members of Head-Fi) early access to the HE1000.

I'm not going to go out of my way to do anything against HFM, and I will make sure that their products will always be treated fairly, but really, the kids gloves are coming off. In the sense that I wouldn't blink twice to let folks like @Wilson know about the shitty build quality behind the HEK. Normally, I'd just let people find out themselves.

 

Fang did reply to some of the criticism he received after one of his employees got let go. In a perhaps politically correct manner he diffused the situation regarding Jude's involvement in his employees layoff, and placed the blame squarely on such an employee because he did not please Jude. Here you go:

http://www.superbestaudiofriends.or...rly-stolen-items-alert.1657/page-7#post-43324

This was at the time my interpretation of his "logical" response:

http://www.superbestaudiofriends.or...rly-stolen-items-alert.1657/page-8#post-44477

As far as his products is concerned, IMO the latest offerings are overpriced and poorly constructed.

As far as his capitalist and "headphone community" motives, I feel the pricing an quality of his products along with some of his actions speak for themselves.

 

ah thanks for filling in details, was aware of general HE1K scuttlebutt and recall the triangle of Chang/HFM/Juude playing a roll.
wasn't aware of such covert aktions like chatbox and PM spying, jeezo. all to cover up pricing secrets, which happens all over this industry sadly (and expectedly).

won't argue against HE1K having an obnoxious retail price,
build quality examples do seem poor, luckily my pair hasn't failed, cracked or come unglued. nor were purchased near retail $.

SBAF continuing consumer advocacy and open information is why a majority of us are all Here. rather than over There.

 

Despite mixed reception and fair criticisms, I actually like the HE1000 and would have kept it if I didn't feel so icky everything that transpired. I don't think anyone needs to worry about reliability because it probably costs HFM $60 + shipping to get you a new one. You can factor it failing ten times, and HFM still makes a profit!

 

LOL, the $60 was figurative, not literal. It's probably more like $78.

This thread is actually not about the Monoprice headphones. I don't see anybody who has them or can tell us about how they sound. This entire thread consists of shitposts; but at least I'm trying to make it more entertaining than the HF product threads where people speculate and masturbate for 16837 posts to a new product no one has heard.