Reviewer complaints and IEM hate/confusion

Don't worry about it.

I got flak for preferring the $799 Aegir to the $4900 Pass Labs X25. The X25 did some things better but did one particular thing worse which really got on my my nerves. In this respect, I can totally understand how you preferred the 3+ over the BHA-1. A few weenies got peeved at me for preferring the Aegir, to the point where people who generously look advantage of SBAF loaner programs were talking behind my back and then proceeded to conspire to create a ghey junior-high school'esque anti-Marv club on special Discord channel. They even went so far to recruit people they thought I may have pissed off with my opinions, seeking "Associates". (I'm sure they had higher ranks like Grand Wizard and Apprentice too).

You may think this is so dumb that it's unlikely; but no, this seriously happened. I tried to root out these people and then some members even accused me of trying to apply a purity / loyalty test on SBAF. I could care less about what people say behind my back as my policy is always to take things at face value. However it's different when people actively conspire against the site, try to seed disenchantment, and then recruit "Associates" for this cause - all while taking advantage of SBAF perks such as the loaner program and being nice to my face. Yeah, why I do you think why I tell people to not buy any this shit and get a life. Most obsessive audiophiles choose a path of bitterness and wrap their egos around the gear that they own, especially if they are lonely.

Anyway, it comes with the territory. You can still crap on gear by wrapping shit in brocade. People are familiar enough with my writing style that they know when I do this. Read John Atkinson and Robert Harley to learn from the masters. Then put your own spin or codewords on stuff to make it an inside joke - this the benefit of a small community.

Finally consider what a wise man once said to me with respect to significantly less expensive gear sounding better than way more expensive gear: "No one will believe you." Do not despair at this. Instead take solace and be joyful, because those few people who do believe you will have enormously benefited.

 

They out-grew SBAF and stayed around for way too long. $10k amps, $20k TTs, $10k DACs, $20k speakers. By that time one's graduated and really shouldn't care about my opinion and instead get a sub to Stereophile and TAS.

P.S. I don't know if you are serious, but ghey <> gay. Leaves out homosexual meaning but leaves in the lame. Lame is offensive too. Talking to my high-school and junior high-school kids, evidently ghey is still in style. Lame less so.

P.S.S. The shit never ends. I was telling my son why back in the old days when I was an avid gamer how kids in Quake 3 would use their machine guns to spell out dumb stuff like "Joo" on the walls. I thought things would be different today, but evidently, kids still do the same shit in Roblox games. Nazi shit in trench warfare games, etc..Anyway, is a video of my old clan from 20 some years ago in competitive Q3 WFA play. I'm ]$[Marvin! No, we didn't do racist shit, this was competitive.

 

Yes, ghey = lame = uncool

Ghey is meant to be non-offensive is homosexuals. At least that is my intent. However, some feel ghey is still a pejorative. TBH, I'm not sure if the term homosexual is acceptable today either, because from what I understand, it's shades of grey, not binary. Basically, there's no way for me to win if someone wants to take offense or skull-f**k me with their illiberal progressive aggression.

My only defense is the urban dictionary, first two entries:

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ghey

The other day, I spoke to a Latina friend of mine. She found the use of Latinx annoying and incongruous with the Spanish language and was shit made up by a small group of people who did not represent them. Also, many folks from south of Mexico I know make it a point to tell white people they first meet that they are not Mexico. They get offended when people think they are they Mexican.

We live in the world of microaggressions. There is no way out.

BTW, I am offended by Trader Ming. It's supposed to be Chinese products, but there is also a Trader Ming Pad Thai. Pad Thai is not Chinese, but Thai. Maybe I was mistaken because Trader Mind was not supposed to be Chinese products, but oriental products. Because all orientals look the same. At least my wife has finally figured it out after all these years. She used to think that before, but now she can actually tell the difference between Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese, Southern Chinese, Northern Chinese, etc. My grandmother used to refer to he as a heathen / barbarian, which hurt her feelings. My kids still don't get why she's so butthurt. The truth of the matter is that she's a messy eater like a barbarian while the rest of the family eats cleanly and does not leave even a single rice grain on the table.

Getting back to Thai, did you know that once upon a time when I told white people that my family, my heritage was Taiwanese, they thought that I came from Thailand? Thanks to the Donald (funny how things happen), white people actually know about Taiwan today. It's been heartwarming to hear fellow Texans speak about Taiwan, the Republic of China as Real Original China, or my son's junior high-school friends referring to the Chinese mainland as "West China" and Taiwan as "East (real) China". However these terms are highly offensive to the Chinese Communists or mainlanders who have been brainwashed (I bet that Topping guy on ASR is one of them because he went off about "Chinese attacking other Chinese products" - LOL that's a sure sign of Communist party membership there! His fragility too is another sign).

Did you know that Northern Mandarin accents are secretly considered inferior to many Southern Chinese? The Northerners roll their tongues to create unique sounds that Southern Chinese cannot. Well, actually that's not totally true. Southerns can fake the northern accent when they need to act in an official capacity in Beijing. For the most part, southern Chinese are proud of their accent and consider it to be the truer form of Chinese pronunciation, evening claiming that the northern accent was actually Manchurian or a low-class variant from a part of Beijing.

Did you catch that live-action Mulan? It's was horrible. I'm still scratching my head to grasp how the heck they managed to get all of those Chinese actors from different parts of China to speak English with a Mandarin accent. I know at least one of those dudes was from Hong Kong, and English with a Hong Kong accent is actually different than English with a southern Mandarin accent (my parents), etc. Anyway, I am offended that Disney just didn't have the characters speak in Mandarin. I mean, even Doctor Yueh spoke to Paul Atreides in Mandarin in the recent Dune movie (didn't know if you guys caught that). I'm really disliking how Disney makes movies about Chinese people but forces them to speak in some oddball halting form of slightly-accented Chinese-Engrish. Maybe this is something like Transatlantic English, e.g. Hugh Grant.

I'll end this on a good note. To get my fill of Game of Thrones's swords tits and ass, I watched The Warrior. It's show based in the USA around the time of Chinese immigration from Canton China. Actually it's Guang Dong. Canton is an offensive corruption by the British. The one really super cool thing that the show runners did was this: When the Chinese characters are among themselves, they speak in PERFECT English. It was only when they spoke to the white characters that they spoke in broken Engrish.

Wow, what a concept! Normalizing the speech of the main characters so that they do not seem like "other" or my mom (who has terrible Engrish that only other Chinese or Taiwanese can understand). The audience gets a Star Trek Universal translator! In addition, the Chinese characters get to kick ass and f**k the babes including the white chicks. It's a long cry from Long Duk Dong and Mr. Yunioshi. Disney's woke is lip service. Kudos to Cinemax.

 

About about cis white people not correcting anyone?

 

I proud to say that we are bunch of *tards here. Heck, I could have been one of those Trumptards. My parents certainly were because they were single issue voters (Taiwan). People are too worried about what they see on the cover or appearances.

Do you think I really give a shit? Or that these reactions to SBAF on Discord here or there may actually be intentionally cultivated? Lots of things have a purpose on SBAF, and often they are not what they seem. @sphinxvc got it right then he said I'm the Ed Harris guy in Snowpiercer. I think maybe one or two people really understand what I'm trying to do. Maybe six others have a good idea.

As I mentioned in other thread, there are some underlying principles with SBAF. There's a moral and spiritual compass, but with very unconventional methods. Most any other person in the world in my position would leverage SBAF into another HF and enrichened themselves like Jude. I could be making $350K a year off SBAF if I wanted to. However, I have plenty of wealth in my life already. I'd also be seriously depressed if I did go corporate.

When I was a HF member before 2011, I so desperately wanted something like SBAF to exist. I always understood such a thing would not be for all people. The thing I didn't count on is me actually creating it and leading it.

 

Well Happy Holidays. Unfortunately I've been stuck at the computer.

Log4shell vulnerability has been keeping me busy past several days. Fun stuff. Shit happens, at bad times.