Head-fi, a place where audio enthusiasts get to talk with each other and compare what our ears hear (or as a matter of fact don’t hear)
I used to once think that Head-fi was a great place to be, to talk, to express ones true opinions, and a place where I could feel at “home” in a community I once loved. That all changed very quickly, in 2012, where my account got permanently banned, as I was “out of line” too many times. For the record here’s my Head-fi account – Totally Dubbed – On this account, I had over 450 pictures, over 20,000 (probably more) words of reviews, several friends I had met and kept contact with on there (via PM’s), and more so had posted close to 4,500 times on that site. I thus wasn’t exactly a noob, and by that I don’t mean a self proclaimed “audiophile” (I’m far from being one, I’m just one that loves to listen to music), I mean a person who just joined, and rage quit – I was quite the opposite. Unlike most of the community over there (and by this I don’t mean to offend any of you), I actually contributed BACK to the community. All the reviews I have on my site, were all on Head-fi, I in fact had 32 separate product reviews, and more so, several threads (which I myself found useful -> even one of them getting re-tweeted by Jude, the maker/creator of Head-fi) – Thus what I’m saying is, I wasn’t posting useless lines (unlike some admins might think – see below comments ;)) and gaining post count.
Link to Twitter post
I was actually contributing back to the community, constantly; This however quickly changed, once I started getting a little “hot-headed” about certain topics (like Apple fanboys and people treating the Sennheiser IE7/8’s like they were something out of bloody heaven), I was getting into trouble with the admins. Now some might say, that the head-fi admins were protecting their sponsors, and in all honesty, I did see it happening quite a few times. I do understand the principle of forums, freedom of speech, and businesses. The thing which strikes me is that Head-fi, unlike some other websites seems to be increasingly money driven. The admins will only really care about people, who sponsors them. I can’t remember the last time I saw head-fi admins really pushing and raving about any unknown brands/products. This responsibility, seems to be tied mainly by the user, and by jolly, is that right – but I personally feel it would be nice to praise, advertise, and promote brands that weren’t sponsored. A very simple example, which doesn’t even relate to products or manufacturers themselves, is reviews. Why aren’t admins looking at their own forums, and promoting threads that provide useful information about certain things? Sure that feature started getting implemented later on, but still, the updates on the homepage come every month, 2 months, 3 months? I don’t know the precise day count, but it simply isn’t frequent enough. XDA developers for example has a portal, where news gets published, extremely quick (at times I can’t even find an article I read 2 days ago!). If Head-fi, as an admin said, has “over 1 million visitors per day” (more on that later), then why wouldn’t you care to update the homepage more than once every 1-3months?
Anyway, I’m digressing from the point here, but I’m trying to make a point, and to make a point, you provide some evidence and some examples – here, I’m trying to explain to you, that head-fi is just “too stuck up” in their old ways, and doesn’t seem to listen or encourage users to write more.
Now, back to getting banned every now and then. I in fact got banned several times, and out of the 3 times (I think it was, could have been possibly 4?) in reasonably quick succession, I felt only one was truly justified. Funny word that, “justified” – now let me take you through getting banned on Head-fi:
-You get no warning
-Oh no sorry, yes you do get a PM…
-Oh wait, there’s the catch (always is one, in this world!) -> You can’t access PM’s whilst banned!
-But wait for it, here will come an admin saying “you will receive an email”
-Well unfortunately, I feel that I know head-fi more than the makers (now I’m not being arrogant, just truthful) -> You have the option to switch off PM email notifications on Head-fi (well when I was there, that was an option)
-So here’s the thing: I switched off email notifications: Why Totally Dubbed? Why would you switch off notifications? What if you get banned…(I’m kidding, who gets banned from head-fi?) – if you didn’t catch on already, that’s my English sarcasm at its very worst there. So – if you, like me, switch off email notifications (and that’s because I was getting flooded in my email box of PMs), then you might get the nasty surprise of being completely locked out of head-fi.
-Thus I didn’t get any email notifications of being banned
-Which resulted in, me having no clue why I was banned, and with no time frame (was it for a day or forever?)
Now that you’re banned – what happens?
Well you’re stuck from any type of contact with the admins. Your best bet is to actually fill out the feedback form – Now you’de think that at least you’ll get a reply from here?
Wrong! You don’t, and if you do, that’s just good fortune! I only got one reply, from Jude himself, but that was left at a loose end.
Long story short, you’de think a place with “over 1 million visitors per day” would have at least their feedback form, for starters easy to find (yes it’s impossible to find; I’ll give a virtual cookies to the people that can actually find it), and secondly, response on the other end, by the admins – like a ping-back on a PC, that you never receive…check the network connection is usually the key to this, but in Head-fi’s case it’s – check if the admins care at all.
So, you feel shut off, uncared about and pretty much ignored. Thus their system is not able to cope, or the emails are being ignored (most probably the latter). In reality it should be a right for anyone to know their mistakes and why they were put out. For example being put to jail for no reason, and no explanation. Of course, I’m not saying I’m completely innocent, but I’m saying why wasn’t it proven to me?
Now two other things to draw upon here:
1. The amount of visitors
2. Reasons for being banned
The amount of visitors, really surprised me, I never knew that there were that many visitors per day on the site, but I accept that it is one of the, or even the biggest audio forum in the world. What got me here, is getting told off for having: “World number 1 video maker for ROM’s of the Samsung Galaxy S” and a link to my website and YouTube in my signature.
Jude told me off for being too “salesman-esk” of course I removed it immediately (in fear), and replaced it by my notable threads I had on Head-fi (which now are either deleted by Jude or contain no info in them, because I edited it out, before being banned). Now this really seemed to me really childish of Jude to say such a thing. Of course as Jude put it: “Would you think it would be appropriate for everyone to have it in their signatures?” and the answer, even from me is: “Of course not!” however, when you have a person, that is clearly making a contribution to YOUR OWN community, and has been part of it for a few years, what’s the problem? it’s not like my non-profit, completely independent, non-sponsored website, or even YouTube make any sort of money, or advertise ANYTHING. I’de understand if I was working for a company and advertising it in my signature….but what wrong was I doing here? Dragging some people to see what they can already see on Head-fi? (as all my reviews I had for earphones and headphones were on Head-fi, well before they were ported by myself to my website, here), seeing some ROM flashing videos or a review on a Sony HX9 camera? Seriously? So what was it? Still to this day, I’m not totally sure, but from what I understand, I can take a stab at it – he wanted people to stay on HIS FORUMS, (I stress his, rather than the “community’s” forums), rather to go on a website, to see the review. Understandable to some extent, but I’ve since become quite a senior member of a highly respected android forum, DarkyROM, and become a Recognised Contributor on the BIGGEST phone forum in the world, XDA Developers, and thus can related and compare Head-fi to these sites. Did the creators, senior admins, or users have problems with me linking my website, YouTube or even my “salesman-like” pitch? No, none of them did – And here comes the reasoning that comes behind it. These two forums, that I’m part of, neither of them have sponsors. XDA runs off donations, and adverts. DarkyROM runs off adverts, but started off more as a “project” anyway. What is Head-fi running off? Sponsors is pretty much their only and/or their biggest form of money income.
So the ONLY logical explanation behind the telling off, comes down to money. Protecting sponsors interests, and keeping the “stay on time” on the website high, rather than being re-directed to another website. If Jude reads this, he will just start raging at the screen and telling me that this isn’t the case – but like with any business, money is a driving factor, and can be even without you knowing or intending to say it.
Finally, on this point, I should note that there were quite a few others, that had their website linked in their signatures, but they didn’t get any telling off, did they…;)
Just admins being anal and wanting to suppress whatever I could do on THEIR site. I should also point out, in the final few weeks of me being there, i did link my website a lot on the forums themselves, which was only fair, considering I wasn’t allowed yo put it in my signature. Of course I got told off for that too, but my nature of “I want to help people” was frowned upon by the admins, so instead I PM’ed people giving them instructions. I know this might seem a little odd, but when there’s a damsel in distress, I help out, and don’t turn a blind eye, unlike again the Head-fi admin Currawong, who didn’t help me at all, nor replied to any of the questions I asked about modding my Denon AH-D2000’s. He actually had one of the Denon’s and modded them himself with new cups (from what I understood), but never chose to help me.
Well you know what, Amos? I learnt great things on my own, and from the USERS themselves (correctly referenced & credited in my guides), and created a guide myself that was deemed “very good” by the actual professionals – and by that I mean, Lawton Audio and so on. In short, would it have been so hard to have just posted a one line reply on what to do? I help people on a daily basis, replying to comments, questions, even if they have been covered already by my guides, it doesn’t trouble me, but obviously for some it really does. So how much do the admins really care about their users? Well from what I experienced, and mind my French here, but fuck all. They only care about their income, revenue, and their sponsors, nothing more. If there was a greater care for Head-fi users, then at least you’de get admins at least understanding why you have a link to your site for SGS1 guides…
Now unto my other point, of being (temporarily) banned. The reasons were again, a little fickle/poor.
Here’s an example:
A user was asking for recommendations for earphones to wear, on the bike, whilst cycling, and that had a good bas impact.
Another user, was recommending earphones that I couldn’t agree on: TF10’s, which is possibly the WORST earphones to ever wear whilst cycling (I cycle quite a bit myself), due to the lovely draft that you will catch, if anything it might slow you down from all the drag LOL – and then the CKS77’s because the user believed in the “hype” around Head-fi (which in itself, should be another article), however had never tried them on, ever (ironic that no? Typical Head-fi, people recommending earphones they DO NOT own, and funnily enough when people recommend earphones they do own, they then get a PM by admins asking them if they own the company – I’ll expand that in just a bit hahaha – almost forgot that story!), and let me point out the CKS77’s are brilliant earphones, but they have such a bad microphonics (cable noise) that it’s unbearable to walk with them, let alone CYCLE…anyway – I decided not to reply there any more, as I was getting frustrated (and didn’t want to get banned again), and confused as to why I my suggestion of the MG7’s was going unnoticed.
Regardless, I Pm’ed the person that was searching for earphones, and maintained a conversation via PM, and then later via emails after I got banned. I even offered the gent the CKS77’s and MG7’s to loan off me, as I had both in my procession (yes I’m that type of guy, as I found it increasingly hard to choose between earphones, and realised the best way was to try them all, and make my own mind about them).
Few weeks later the user bought a set of earphones, and was happy with them, although they weren’t basshead earphones, nor had a large impact. But they corresponded with his needs; fair enough as the English say
The user that was suggesting the TF10’s and CKS77’s quoted me, if I’m not mistaken, and made a remark towards the situation. Now there’s nothing wrong with that, but what frame of mind do you have to be in, to not only be wrong in recommending earphones you don’t own, and then thinking you’re on top by making a remark? I mean seriously? Anyway, that’s just personal beef-steak.
So, in my reply, congratulated the user who was searching for earphones on his purchase, but was confused on his choice, as they didn’t seem to fit the bill from his OP…anyway, I also said to the user that was recommending the wrong earphones “huss up boy” – And yes, you guessed it, I got banned for that too. Seems all petty and stupid doesn’t it?
I know that might not be the best move on my behalf, but seriously, getting banned for saying huss up boy? Is a little over-the-top. A warning, or possibly a deleted post would have been enough, but a 1 week ban is just too much, for such a silly “offence” more over…in that whole conversation, I was the only one HELPING the user, instead of suggesting MG6 PRO’s for example. Hopefully by now you get where I’m coming from.
Just expanding on that story of being warned of recommending earphones you own, came from the famous Currawong again! It was in fact me recommending TFTA 1XB’s to people in threads, where people wanted a good bass or mid-bass response. I do understand that sometimes I wasn’t really giving an explanation behind my recommendation, but at least it would bring it to the opening poster’s mind to look into them. After owning many more earphones, and having a set of earphones that cost 4x more than the TFTA 1XB’s I still stand behind what I said before – they are the mid-bass gods, nothing rumbles your head like the TFTA 1XB’s do. Too much for some, but at the time, when I had them, they were simply epic. As Denzel Washington once said: “Blue Magic, that’s a brand name, like Pepsi, that’s a brand name. I stand behind it, I guarantee it. They know that, even though they don’t know me, any more than the Chairman at General Mills” my man.
Now as for the permanent ban – this one was quite interesting, as this was by far the one without any justice or any explanation (as explained before about the explanation of the ban coming via PM – Yup I didn’t get that email either!)
The permanent ban came from, what I think, was by me removing my posts, and editing each one out with just “removed”; that said, the reason might also be that I edited “removed as I had enough of these forums” on 2 of my biggest threads I created over there. Which again, I’de have preferred if they removed the thread, rather ban me, permanently. I guess they had other ideas.
Anyway, the ban came from Jude PM’ing me – the contents of the PM can be found here: Click here – This is a download link to the word doc.
Where he told me: “I’m tired of the PM exchanges with you. I’m tired of the whining. I’m tired of you complaining about having been banned in the forums.” The thing he never saw, is that the reason I was being banned, was me getting frustrated or admins not really looking at the situation (Got banned once for replying to a poster, who slandered 5 head-fi members -> which I later found out was his way of replying sarcastically, but regardless, instead of him being warned, or me being told this; Yes, you’re getting it by now, I got banned! haha) – so I got banned permanently by Jude (I presume), after he just had enough of me. He didn’t give an explanation, but I presume the catalyst was, me removing all my reviews, and the threads by editing them – and I did this AFTER he sent me the PM, but BEFORE I replied anything back to him. Simply because I didn’t want my content to be “gained” by a forum that would be banning me for no reason, now, or in the not too distant future. Ironically, it came within 1 hour after I edited them. Again no warning, no explanation, only me guessing why I got banned, thus this article.
All-in-all, the main thing I miss on head-fi is certain people I had contact with, and the sales forums. I would say I like helping people and chatting about certain aspects of audio, but in fact, in the last few months, before I got banned, I grew and even got it plugged into my head that, that was the wrong thing to do, as that was the reason I was getting into trouble. So there you have it, me getting banned, for helping users, getting frustrated at offensive, or useless posters on Head-fi (and I really stand behind that) – if there was other reasons I missed, I’m sure an admin or someone will come-along and post it here, but I’m quite honest with everything I say, and never hide things, be it in a relationship, or a silly ban.
I in fact, even remember getting “hot headed” about people recommending IE8’s and raving about it back 2yrs ago! I even got warned for it, back then haha!
For those that said I didn’t help, and for those that said I was offensive – as they say, and drill into you, on Head-fi, that’s quite subjective, problem though, I have evidence showing the objective, and not being subjective. (Oh what’s that? You didn’t see that coming? haha – I’m honestly having too much fun writing this article, it does bring me joy in thinking how stupid and childish the ban was, in the end)
I won’t need to explain what I do, or how I do it. If people don’t like me that’s fine, but I’m not a troll, nor someone who has nothing better to do in life than sit around replying to people asking if burn-in exists or not. Heck, if there’s something wrong with what I do, I actually encourage people to tell me – what did I do right, what did I do wrong? Life’s like a (box of chocolates? Got you again, didn’t I? :D!) frequency curve, that’s very treble centric. You start off with no bass, and move up constantly, learning life lessons, and learning new things, which end up with ear piercing highs (Now I come to think of it, is that what Sony had in mind with their EX700? haha). I can definitely say I learnt a few things, especially in the way I improved reviewing, but that’s mainly due to users, rather than the forums itself.
What I took away from head-fi is this & here’s my advice to you, as a user:
-Don’t screw with any admins, just suck up to them, and act like a pet dog; you never know you might get a title for it later…
-When you post, try remembering that others have opinions, no matter how wrong they are, try accepting it deep down and NOT replying. I feel counter-arguments leads you into trouble – ie. if burn-in exists or not
-The reviews you put on Head-fi, are meaningless, and that if anything happens to you, or your reviews as a matter of fact; you just won’t be appreciated, unless you sucked up to admins beforehand. At least that’s how I felt 😉
-Posting reviews under the product reviews, is close to useless as no one reads them. I think whilst I was there I created several categories and added a heck load of pictures for each of the products I owned.
-Finally, asking for a member, like myself to get un-banned, will lead you, into getting a warning via a PM, and having your thread deleted:
Big thanks to delladood for creating a “Unban TotallydubbedHD petition” thread on Head-fi.
Many thanks to all that supported me, before it got locked, and deleted, by the admins. This actually brought a smile to my face and gave me a nice fuzzy feeling in my heart, as I knew some cared, and actually went to the trouble in trying to get me back. I really appreciate these small things.
Thus, that thread and the action behind it, just went to show, admins have total control on what you say, it’s not freedom of speech, and if you devalue them, in their decisions, or even their sponsors (lol) they will quickly take action against you. Just goes to show, if I was that “useless”, a thread wouldn’t be posted with several posters, asking for me to be un-banned. Sorry Head-fi admins, but you really shot yourself in the foot, by banning me. Here’s an article of it, there’s the evidence behind it, and people who knew me, by at least what I wrote on there, knew that the banning was unfair, unlawful, and unjustified. More so that the person you banned actually cared about the community and contributed towards it.
I should also mention before I leave you from this article, that I created an account “1337 Gamer” via my mobile phone, on HSDPA, but still got banned. No idea how, nor do I really know how IP tracking works, but regardless I got banned. This is me stating it, before someone comes and says: “it says in the rules that you shouldn’t create a second account” I know that, I read the rules several times. That said, after I got banned, I knew I wasn’t getting un-banned any time soon, so I thought why not – I should also say that having: Totally Dubbed aka: 1337 Gamer is utterly epic haha! I know I’m a gamer, but no need to call me 1337 Jude! You’ll make me blush 😛
Might I also add, no rule has been said for discussing bans – but clearly that is against the rules, and even gets you re-banned/warned for it. So, as Jude once said to me, about me wanting to remove my reviews from the site: “that’s your provocative” to decide what to think of it.
A picture I took, when I reached 1,337 posts a while ago, when I was not-banned on Head-fi – Ironic right :D?
I hope you enjoyed this article, it sure gave me pleasure writing it.
I also don’t regret saying any of it – this is my honest opinion, and the truth. Friends that know me in real life, know that I’m too honest sometimes for my own good – unfortunately, that’s me. Believe what you want, and read what you want. This is my story, 4,300 words later, Totally Dubbed on Head-fi/Ban-fi/Admin-fi, wishing you a good day and hoping you got a better understanding behind my ban, and more so, how Head-fi is actually operated! 🙂
I should finally add, that my login has been since revoked, and thus I’m unable to login and furthermore my profile, was edited and all links to my website, and what not have been removed.
FYI: Most of the comments down below, till the 17th of July, where posted before this article was fully constructed, and written. But I’ll leave the comments down below, so you can laugh at some of the admin replies -> There’s no north Korean censorship here! (something I joked about when I first wrote the draft of this mini, now huge article) haha!
–TotallydubbedHD
So he just banned you for discussing about banning rules which are rather indirect? Wow…
yup…sad
Check this out too, rather interesting read 😉 http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/07/banned-at-head-fi.html
I have done already – quite embarrassing right ;)?
True, seems like they are banning people at their own benefit… it’s too restricted.
Well it’s moderated…but to the point that it makes themselves look like idiots unfortunately.
When someone is posting off-topic stuff, the other 10 head-fiers are off-topic, they don’t get warned, I do.
In other words, they are selective, and you have to suck up to them. I really couldn’t careless who they are, admin or not – as a human being, they shouldn’t act like that – plain and simple.
True, they can be quite biased to sponsors and like you said, people who suck up to them. It’s also sometimes a pain to watch what you’re saying on that website, and then everywhere else seem to have so much freedom of speech. Anyway, lizardking1 send his regards 😉
I know I saw – thumbs up all-round! 😀
And yes…it’s not really free to say what you want on there – you have to word it so softly that you feel you are talking to a 5yr old chil.
True. And it seems like Jude is pretty mad… I posted your website link and my post got deleted followed by a PM…
Lol, yes because i make money on my site that’s why you shouldn’t post links to….oh no wait lol.
What did he pm you? A warning no doubt?
Well, he said they do not allow posts to make on your behalf and if I thought you were banned without reasoning, I was being naive etc. And also said he don’t ban anyone without reason. Hmmm…
Sounds all to familiar mate…as you know, but I’ll say it – one word needs to describe the situation: “nwavguy”
1. You weren’t posting on my behalf, only your opinion
2. If there was reason, then at least he would have replied to my PM on facebook, or sent me an email
3. If he cared about you guys, or the community around it he would have unbanned me
He doesn’t really care about the community, nor what I was inputting into it. He cares more about his money, his site, and what he wants or doesn’t want on it. Fair enough in some respects, but not nice to feel his wrath regardless.
Well, true…
Er, is 1337 gamer you? It seems like you’re tagged with the AKA 1337 gamer on your banned account and AKA Totally Dubbed on the 1337 gamer account.
haha!
Yeah created that for the heck of it – how they traced that to me is beyond me.
Maybe they managed to track your IP address ?_?. And looks like that account is banned as well… seems like one simply does not go against head-fi…
No idea, but what I do know is that I’m done with head-fi. unless Jude has other ideas to reinstate my account. Although I highly doubt that would become reality 😉
Well, hope he does change his mind however!
You crack me up. You are obviously a troublemaker, and you have absolutely no grounds to compare yourself to someone like nwavguy. He was actually banned for standing up to the ban sponsor relationship, and his contributions were objective and helpful. You were warned several times to stop posting about the ban rules, yet you continued to do so. You tried to act as a martyr, persecuted by the system. Yet, 3/4 of your posts are “lol” and “yeah, bro.” Several head-fi members warned you to stop it, yet you continued. You were rude, and often tried to assert yourself over other members. You’ve been banned several times, and it was to noone’s surprise when you got the permanent ban. On one occasion, you told another member to “hush up boy.” How do you not expect to be reprimanded. Head-Fi is a better place without you.
PS. If you’re really against the “North Korean Censorship,” you’ll leave this post and won’t delete it.
First of all, “hi admin at Head-fi!” – aka: kwkarth – I know it’s you because the info you provided no one else would know + “you are obviously a troublemaker” is your token. 😉
2. Who said I’m like nwavguy? I was referring to him as he got unfairly banned – at least in my eyes.
3. No I didn’t – last time I got banned, was for saying “hush up boy” to a comment that a poster had no idea what they were talking about and were being indirectly rude towards me, previously – before you issued that ban or future bans as a matter of fact, at least take the decency to READ the comments ABOVE. To really see who’s being helpful, who’s not – FYI: In that thread, to the OP – I actually offered not 1 but 2 earphones to LOAN, free, on me. Great member you banned there!
5. Since when did I only post things like “yeah, bro” – Did you not even notice, I posted a HUGE thread, and more so posted more reviews of IEM’s there than 10yr old members, like yourself? So please, at least when you make stuff up, try to make it plausible. If I wasn’t contributing to the community, I wouldn’t have had members sad, and upset that I was banned.
6. Of course, my posting manner isn’t perfect, but it isn’t permanently ban worthy – heck I’m an admin on a big android forum now, I know how things work, and how people treat each other – it’s not always fairytales, but it surely isn’t something I would punish to THIS extent.
7. “You’ve been banned several times, and it was to noone’s surprise when you got the permanent ban.” Actually it is – I could easily prove it to you, and more so there was even a thread asking for me to be unbanned, which obviously got deleted, as contradicting an admin also gets you a warning, as I’ve now heard – almost all the people in that thread got a warning – I thanked most of them, anyway I could, apart from being on the forums, and told them to stay out of trouble – I don;t want them getting banned because of me.
Here, is someone that got in contact with me just today – I’ll keep their identity secret for their own, accounts benefit:
“Hey Chris,
I’ll make sure to keep up with your blog and youtube channel. It’s unfortunate that you were banned. Sometimes Jude and the mods common sense lacks. They need to realize who’s beneficial to the threads and overlook certain things. Head-Fi is becoming the Wal-Mart of Forums. Anyway, at least I can keep in touch with my favorite former Head-Fier still. ”
That’s not me saying it – unfortunately, I agree with what he said. You really need to change your policy – even another admin, on another huge audio forum told me almost the same thing. Again, their identity will be hidden.
8. Of course I’ll leave this post – I want people to see how head-fi admins, like yourself, are. Without comments like this, it would make my life a lot harder. All you have done, is just prove my case, and makes it even easier for me to explain.
9. I don’t beg for forgiveness, I never do – but you have to be considerate with your bans – I don’t really mind not being on head-fi, seeing as ” is a better place without you” however, you should understand my position and what I have to say.
Thus, I don’t really ask for forgiveness, but instead, to realise what you have done, and act upon it – that’s it. As I said to Jude, I unlike you guys, gave him a chance to explain himself, and more so unban me, seeing as I had all that support. His chosen to ignore my messages, and thus, he will understand that this blog gets a lot of attention – typing in head-fi ban will come up with this thread for example – and more so, this page will be on the first page of my blog. Your choice at the end of the day – but I don’t want to argue. You have two choices:
-Unban and explain
-Leave me banned and understand that I will write and finish this article, explicitly explaining every minor detail for the world to see.
-Chris
S A L T Y B O Y S
GR8 B8 M8, do you R8 8/8 on Head-fi M8?
I believe you’re a bit of a narcissist.
I’m not an admin. I doubt any admin would waste time coming to this dark corner of the internet.
Look at the message you just posted. The guy said that the admins need to “overlook certain things.” You have been temp banned/warned SEVERAL times before the permanent ban. I think that’s a fair bit of warning.
Your posts on the thread criticizing IEMs that you so obviously didn’t get a good fit with, including the IE8, are FAR from constructive. Also, your views tend to be greatly inconsistent.
Well, back I go to posting on Head-Fi.
Obviously, here come the cavalry – well, my views on certain IEMs might not be constructive in all aspects, but I thought head-fi is a place where you can discuss freely and openly, your thought on IEMs, be it at the crazy price of the beats, or your dislike for silver jacks. I guess having an opinion on head-fi is prohibited then too? Or that my wording has to suit you – so that you don’t feel too easily offended about the earphones in your ears, that I’m reviewing? Common please…what “community” is that? That on it’s own, banning aside raises eyebrows.
By several you mean 3 or possibly 4 was it? 2 of those reasons where such minor offences, that one would think that we are promoting SOPA on head-fi.
Anyway, enjoy posting admin-fi!
And yes, it’s an admin – no other person, let alone other admins would know what I said, or why I got banned like that 😉
I know my own account better than you do, trust me.
Oh and a final word – you are the first person (admin aside) to actually have a negative opinion against me.
I have certain suspicions of who you are – but I’ll keep those thoughts to myself 😉
I’m not specifying who I am because I actually believe this post could be used to ban me on Head-Fi.
You know how you can tell when a ban is unfair? When the best argument for having that member banned is “you were not a productive member” or “your opinions were stupid”. Not only is this complete BS (Dubbed had a big IEM comparison thread, one I checked every now and then, along with several good contributions in other threads), it’s by no means a reason to permanently ban someone. He could be the greatest imbecile on Head-Fi, you don’t ban people because you think they should be more active or because you don’t agree with them – well, you shouldn’t… because it happens anyway apparently.
Now that we cleared how desperate of an argument that was, the main ban reason: him discussing his previous ban. How dare he! To actually have an opinion of a matter that concerned him first-hand! And to express it on the forums! Let’s be honest with something: the “no discussing bans” rule on Head-Fi does not exist. The actual rule is “no disagreeing with bans” because I am 100% sure that if Dubbed had posted saying “no, they were right to ban me, I deserved it”, even though he was discussing a ban, none of this would have happened. It’s fine to endorse censorship, but be honest about it. Don’t say you want to avoid unnecessary discussions when in reality what you want is to have no one actually questioning your judgement.
Some time ago I was pretty straightforwardly insulted on Head-Fi. It was in a thread where I had posted a comment without the least intention of ever having it interpreted that way, but it happened. That was the first time I ever reported someone. 2 days later the thread got closed, but all the comments of me getting insulted where left untouched, the other member was not banned and probably not even warned, it was like they didn’t even care. I find it funny that when something actually offensive happened, the mods took 2 days to do almost nothing, but when someone dares mention how they got banned all hell breaks lose and they get banned within a few minutes. Head-Fi has a strange sense of priority.
I have to agree – thanks for the support 🙂
And yes, best keeping ones identity protected.
It is quite sad though (keeping your identity protected) – and by that I don’t mean a bad act of doing so – I mean the fear of you actually getting banned on admin-fi, depicts how badly ran that place is.
They supposedly have over 1million visitors per DAY – yet they had trouble of me posting my website in my profile info, let alone my signature. When I asked Martin, over at anythingbutipod – he warm heartedly said: “Sure Chris, as long as it’s no blatant commercial advertisement, links are ok.” Now that’s the way to promote a forum – not censorship against every living being on your forums.
What makes forums, is the community – without the community, there would be no forums.
Long story short:
They can have their forums, I think I’ve actually been revoked logging in even – which I find even more sad, but hey that’s life, some people are just like that!
WOW, unbelviable, just unbelivable
head-fi is a great community but is run by curropts scumbags that just want money… (jude)
I am a huge follower of nwavguy, he makes the o2 amp witch is ment to be amzing, when i heard of him being banned i was shocked i thought jude was a good admin but i guss now i am really sure he is just an greedy asshole
sorry bro, hope jude changes his mind but i dought it
I know – what can you say or do…:/
🙂
You don’t know the backstory, other guest.
TD had been rude to several members. His comments are often not constructive, and he tries repeatedly to assert himself over others. I remember on one occasion when his package was taking longer than usual, he said “the french are utterly useless.” Do you think comments like that belong in a public, international forum? If you look at the PM interaction b/w Jude and TD, you’ll see where Jude says he is tired of dealing with him. Every other member I’ve PM’ed about him has said that they’re tired of seeing his posts.
Nothing is wrong with having an opinion. The problem arises when you assert yours over others, especially when there is already a widely accepted paradigm. If you have a deviation, then it must be due to some anomaly on your part or the manufacturer’s.
It’s sad because TD seems like he’d be a good guy under that shell. Maybe in another life, another user name, or another IP address…
The shell idea could be directly reflected on you too, so please stop this nonsense 😉
I’ll give you some pointers, in case you weren’t smart enough to realise this already:
-I live in france, and I’m on a placement at the moment – saying the French are utterly useless is almost like a self reflection on our postage system here in france – so if that’s all you’ve got then please, stop wasting my time.
-“every other member” seems like you must have contacted 1 or 2? As I know at least 10 who commented on that thread made for me, in becoming un-banned.
-I don’t really care, but I suggest you change your policies – didn’t you once mention discussing bans and PM’s is strictly against the rules? If so, then shouldn’t you ban yourself whilst you can?
Long story short:
Stop trying to fight a losing argument, I’m banned already, and have nothing to lose, you already have taken away my right of login.
FYI:
Again, for you genius, in case you hadn’t realised – I login at work, at home, and on my mobile on HSDPA – obviously there would be 3 different IP addresses, if not more. So please, Wikipedia it for all I care, come back with a little knowledge of IP addresses and then construct a non-“I’m an admin look at me” reply.
I really feel I’m wasting time replying to you…Like talking to a brick wall, expect a wall that has a mouth and no ears.
I also suggest, for the integrity of your precious forums, not to post here, simply because all you are doing is proving to me, and other posters, what non-sense admins over at head-fi talk and chat about. Simply outstanding.
That doesn’t seem like a big offense. Especially if you consider he lives in France, if that’s true, and I have no reason to believe otherwise. Maybe something you’d PM someone about saying “don’t make that kind of remark”, but definitely not close to ban-worthy.
And you didn’t mention my theory about the “no discussing bans” rule being actually “no expressing discontent with bans” . We all know it’s true. I’ve seen at least one post where a user mentioned how he got temp. banned and they where right to ban him, the post was never removed.
bang on – exactly.
More so, about discussing bans – I actually never did.
I said something along the lines of: “I rather not discuss it, as if I did, the petty reasons of which the admins banned me for would shock you ;)”
And I got that post removed for saying that, despite 3 users asking about my ban…In other words, censorship, as I have previously said, to its fullest and “best”.
Lol, the admins really prove to be childish and driving their own good. What else could it be?
Oh well, censorship at its best.
Indeed Niko, it’s quite sad that I end up on forums with admins like this. Best solution I’ve found is to become an admin, or create my own forums. Then those other admins can do what they want, whilst i moderate them lol
TD
why did you get banned anyways??
its proablly becuse of some stupid reson?
For nothing – that’s the point lol.
Admins “had enough” of me – harsh reality really.
How you can equate being banned from an audio enthusiasts website to peoples suffering under a barbaric Stalinist regime in North Korea is deplorable.
Lol – it’s quite simple really: leadership.
I didn’t mention the suffering, although the censorship is what I was referring to.
Now THAT is what I find “deplorable” 😉
Atty101 had a classified asking if he could borrow someones Sennheiser HD650 for free. I posted saying no one would ever borrow for free. Anyhow My account “basketball” got banned and it is impossible to get in contact with the admins. I have created a few accounts in the past few days and they all got banned within a few hours.
typical head-fi – always thinking with their bans rather than their heads…
I saw that – I had no idea why you got banned, I was considering contacting you over one of your products for sale, you had a big feedback…
I just don’t know what to make of Head-Fi. I get censored for nothing. I have had a thread get deleted with no warning, I’ve seen people get perma-banned over pretty much nothing. It’s just not a place where I feel safe. It’s great if you’re a newcomer and you just want some recommendations, but if you beyond that it gets riskier.
Agreed.
When you actually start putting the effort in, getting involved, instead of being congratulated, helped, you get banned for “expressing yourself too much”.
Well, anyway, I have, and will always have 100% feedback 🙂
When someone buys something from me, I tend to update people every moment I can, even asking if the item has arrived, as soon as I get confirmation via online.
That’s why I’ve always been a good seller – especially on forums, where trust plays a huge factor :)!
I don’t know what you were looking at though, as I have nothing for sale, at the moment.
Was there anything in particular that interested you?
I meant the user that commented up there, basketball, who also said he got banned. I honestly can’t remember what he had for sale, but I remember when I went to see the ad again, the dreaded BANNED sign was there.
Ah I see! That’s unfortunate!
Seems that for some reason you exasperated the admin at head-fi.
I just want to know why both of your reviews for senn IE7/ IE8 (that looked very similar by the way) , were removed. I don’t know if they removed other of your reviews. There’s also a review from i2ehan (account disabled by request ) for the ie80 that was removed. Fishy ?
I removed mine, and I think ie2ehan removed his too. I can’t comment for him, but for me, I decided to leave the community, with all my reviews deleted (I did it manually, as the admins refused to remove them)
I didn’t feel the need to have threads, nor reviews still there for the admins to boast about their lovely “community”. You’ll now find that my D5K wood cup, and D2K wire installation guide (for example) and other threads I have are quite unique. In other words, I didn’t want head-fi to end up by having MY threads, when in fact they unlawfully banned me – in other words, having the admins benefit from MY HARD work, on their website/forum.
Man, you’re such an idiot. I swear your ego is the stretches across the himalayans.
As for i2ehan, don’t ever mention his name and yours in the same sentence. He took a break because he is starting medical school, and would rather not have the distraction of hi-fi audio. Hence, he sold off his gear and deactivated his account.
As for your review “not being appreciated,” that’s because you wrote about stuff no-one is interested in.
Head-fi is a much better place without you. Stay in this dark (literally) corner of the internet.
Thanks for the feedback – another reason I’m away from Head-fi – I can add that to the list :)!
Rude behaviour towards members! haha
For i2ehan – that’s great news for him, although why did he remove all his reviews too then? I’m curious 😉
As for my reviews bring “no-one is interested in” – Hmm, in under 2 months I’ve hit 70k page loads on my website, and over 200,000 upload views (almost as many as the head-fi channel combined) – in under 2 months.
Now if no one was interested, I wonder why they are now. Please enlighten me, Mr. Troll – as for your comment, thank you for being so negative, so rude, and so “well informed” – It just helps me, yet again in proving what Head-fi, the so called “community” is like 🙂
That’s funny. Then why does the stat counter put you at 6,000 visits for the month of June? People loading different pages on a single visit doesn’t exactly count. Just another example of you manipulating the truth. Plus, I’m sure that your incessant linking to your blog on your videos have NOTHING to do with it. Youtube is youtube. People go there all the time looking for things, and yours just happens to be ONE OF the videos they look at.
Lol – I do love your hatred ;)!
My stats are publicly available for everyone to see (website) – so are my YouTube insights on each video.
The page visit time is 3hrs before a page load counts as a new one.
So please, stop making an idiot of yourself.
basketball got banned for trying to flip a JVC FXT90 that he bought he bought during the 2-for-1 sale in Canada. Each set cost $55 after tax. He bought them from a store, so there was no shipping charge.
He went to the FS forum to sell them for $85 BEFORE SHIPPING. Then, he had the gall to want to charge $30 to ship to the US. I bought mine from another member for a total of $60 shipped with decent speed.
Oh – fair enough, I’m sorry to hear that about him. For sale forums are strict, and for a reason.
Such a stupid long rant. You get banned because lots of your posts turned into personal attacks against people stating their opinions.
Head-fi is a shady place, but if you do the same thing in any other website you will get banned too.
That’s quite big coming from a person with:
dickhead@yahoo.com as their email 😉
Enjoy it.
I don’t know you .. you don’t know me .. but I’ve got a GREAT help from you by watching ur videos here and in XDA .. the only thing I’m sure is SO WRONG, is the fact that ur posts are not constructive .. Keep up the good work !
haha well that has to be seen and proved 🙂
Enjoy the videos, whilst they last 😉
Quick question: Do they tell you that it’s permanent or temporary? I got banned as well, and the admin said that “further accounts created by you will be banned immediately”. Does it mean that it’s permanent?
Thank you!
That means it’s temporary. However they should have sent you a pm explaining the reason and duration. Usually it’s one week.
Would be funny if you don’t receive the email, as described in this article.
Sorry to see you temp banned mate, i remember you too :)!
Glad to know. I said “glad” not because I am a heavy contributor there as you were. It’s just because the FS section is handy.
So it’s temporary because they did not say the word “permanent” there? But the admin did say “further accounts created by you will be banned immediately”…
Yeah creating other accounts can lead you to get permanently banned.
As for temporary, it’s because the admin would have had to really warn you if you were going to be permanently banned. That said it is admin-fi for a reason lol
Sounds like my story, with a few variations. Currawong decided that the right thing to do was to punish me for paying a guy back after a package got lost in transit. And he also decided that it is impossible to own more than one of any given product… And that he’d rather ban me, than a guy who tried to scam me, so he is still on head-fi.
To top it off, when I managed to contact Currawong later, he started to harass me personally, saying fx. that maybe i should become more honest as a person, and that it might serve me better in life. I run a small busyness, have over 100 positive feedbacks across different sites, an the only negative I’ve ever gotten was because Currawong banned me in the middle of trading with a guy. Seriously. Well, at least I’m not the only one.
Very sorry to hear you get banned Victor. Head-fi is becoming a terrible place with a terrible reputation.
With all due respect, but don’t you think its a little bizarre getting so steamed up for being banned from some website. This is not real life! Invest your energy (which you clearly have plenty of) doing something useful instead.
Bottom line: this is the internet – non of this is real. Don’t waste your life obsessing on such nonsense.
Absolutely agreed 🙂
In some respects, that’s why I have spent time making my website, and writing reviews – as that’s something I enjoy, and it actually benefits me in the real world :)!
Hypocrisy reigns.
If it is not real, why do you waste your time using it to tell people not to waste their time?
Invest your energy in something useful instead! 😉
p.s. response was to Dee Dee.
Totallydubbed, all the best buddy. Drop me am email is your interested in any trades.
I didn’t waste my time. I invested my time and energy in order to help people understand how certain things are ran in this world.
If it was for that mentality, lawyers would never be successful and people would always be mislead in believing the world is a perfect place.
Regardless of what others think, this was not only fun to write, but truly reflected my opinions and beliefs of head-fi, how it is ran, how people can act over the internet and finally how to deal with people in similar situations.
Oh and yeah I realised it was brother and sure will do
Hmm. After reading about the nonsense, I was wondering if I could block the admins? Apparently members aren’t allowed to do that, and if they were, I bet they would be warned… Hopefully another forum will rise up that isn’t as silly with sponsors and banning nonsense. I rather like changstar.com
(Sorry for the fake credentials… I like headfi, just like I like the U.S… Just can’t stand the government.)
haha yeah
Jude is a NARCICIST.
There, I’ve said it.
I’m not kidding – the man is truly a narcicist.
He thinks the sun shines out of his ***
One of these days he’s going to look down his nose at someone in real life and learn a very important lesson. It’s just a matter of time. People don’t like being treated like they’re inferior, by fools who think they are superior.
Jude, if you ever read this, take a good long look in the mirror – oops, you already do adore yourself in the mirror frequently, don’t you?
But seriously, take a good long, hard look in the mirror and ask yourself, possibly for the first time in your life – do you REALLY believe you are superior to other people? On what possible basis?? Owning a successful website certainly doesn’t make you superior, so keep thinking…
This comment made me chuckle 😀
i just got fucking banned! i don’t even know why.
A week is the cooling off period. Leave that crap site for a week, then come back to see what petty reason they gave you via pm
At head-fi you need an iron shovel to dig through all the shilling.
Most reviewers there get products for free or at large discounts.
It’s all just shooting people in broad daylight and stealing their car keys.
Random example look at the Rein Audio X9, it’s a $350 Chinese DAC, they removed some expensive parts, and then sell it for over $1200 at head-fi, where it suddenly “sounds incredible” and “good value”.
Almost all of the cables sold via head-fi are the same, all the Alo Audio stuff, all of the Hifiman stuff, it’s all around 4x overpriced, I’m an insider I know where it’s all made.
The head-fi admin auto-bans everyone that says the word “legal” because he knows his site is far from clean.
The worst part though is when head-fi deletes members out of jealousy and inferiority complex, it’s like kids comparing toys, it’s a fucking useless joke.
My friend had all his pictures deleted and was banned simply since he has a certain Esoteric player and someone else doesn’t, they’re all psychos and will get banned from the next Tokyo meet due to a certain incident there.
haha wow – cheers for the info. Things seem to be going even worse down there lol.
Re’ Pete’s above remarks about a certain mod at Head-fi being a narcissist, ‘someone’ just posted a link on the Head-fi front page, wherein that ‘someone’ claims that he “..reluctantly agreed” to be interviewed by his cosy chums from Ultimate Ears:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/665083/head-fi-the-community-the-history-head-fi-tv
“Reluctantly”, my arse…
the comments in that thread are nauseating, too…
Yes, I have just run into the same problem. Head Fi is simply a clique of product shillers. They all hide behind their keyboards and get paid for promoting certain headphones. If you post anything that might threaten their income, you get your posts deleted.
Curawong has made a very foolish mistake…
I shall reveal this site for what it really is. It doesn’t take much to destroy an “Impartial” reputation.
Watch this space.
Looking forward to it 😀
There should be more awareness about the censorship , shilling, bans etc. People come to know about it only when they have been banned, their post censored or post of certain products go missing. This site has crazy following and no one knows the truth behind the scenes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeKU-ZK6tXA
nice video and true
TD – thank you for this wonderful article. I am a small business who started to sell objective2 amps. I put a thread up on headfi, not to have a business listing, but to sell one of my own personal ones I has customized. Apparently Jude thought I was promoting my own business (maybe thinking it was a new product) and stopped the thread, with no warning or pm. So I was confused and made one again? I didn’t know why the original thread was closed. This time I received a PM from Jude, claiming I was a member of the trade. At that time I had a very small eBay listing and I didn’t even have my website. It was a very small operation on the side to make a little extra money (needless to say its my only source of income now). I explained that to him and he wanted nothing to do with it. I admit I wasn’t as formal as I should be (I got a little angry at the situation and I might have had a few curse words) and of course, perma ban. Now if I make an account for my business to reply to users for constructive help, it’s banned. I can’t get in contact with anyone to repromend the situation but to be honest, it’s the worst forum I’ve ever been on so they can keep it. There are other forums to be apart of. Just my story!
Thanks for sharing your story!
That’s horrible of him to do that. Ban-fi hasn’t changed a single bit
It’s funny that when out of curiosity I googled Jude net worth and this is the first page that comes up. I was simply wondering how you make any money what so ever from what I assumed was a non profit help forum. I never did find the answer to his net worth, but I’m not sure if I care anymore. This is because I can’t accept reviews that are biased in any way. I’m just starting out in higher end gear and was wondering why the reviews seem so centered around one object with not many on others. From what I read here it makes sense now, and I need to find a new forum so I can truly figure out what the best value for my dollar is.
Haha yeah it is funny what you Google and what comes up!
TotallyDubbedHD,
I have an account in good standing at crap-fi, but after reading your post, I don’t think I’m going to use the site much any more. Their attitude toward the most important members (contributing members) is appalling. How they ever think their forum will survive from random posts about “what are the best headphones?” boggles me! Then again, their brand shills will fill the gaps, and push whatever the *HOT* item is at the time.
Reasons similar to this (backstabbing buttholes, some of them admins, that lie and insult to cover each other’s back, and their ego) is why i left camaroz28.com
If you were to recommend another good headphone forum, what would it be?
That’s unfortunate to hear, this long on.
I don’t actually use any forums for audio gear now – I just stick to my own website and talk to close review friends.
Sounds exactly the the private torrent tracker community. Leadership fails everywhere.
It’s sad when a lot of people contribute to a common goal, only to have the results permuted and distorted by leadership with an agenda (whether that agenda be product bias or simply the exercise of power). It’s even worse that some poor fools probably continue to use what was perhaps once a reputable site, not realizing they are being misled.
Almost exactly like private torrent trackers.
hahaha! That’s one good way to put it dude!
Time to do a DoS attack on Head-Fi and bring the site down until they grow up.
haha!
LOL Head-FI is a cesspool of idiots including the admins. I have never met such narcissistic morons that only promote headphones that they are being paid to promote and recommend. Like you said, the marketplace for buying/selling used headphones is the only good thing to come out of that site. I remember a while back having a really really deep argument with one of the senior members on there about the Denon D7100s… needless to say it was like talking to a wall. Non-quantifiable science and biased opinions only and a bunch of wannabe engineers claiming to know the scienece behind audio when all they’ve read is a damn wikipedia page on impedance.
Forget them bro you don’t need to be surrounded by morons, I can get a better opinion through YouTube/Amazon these days then on there.
haha thanks bud – don’t worry I’ve gotten over Ban-fi looong ago!
Headfi is the most ridiculous forum I’ve ever seen. It’s plainly all about marketing and profit. There’s a guy on there now posting about it. It won’t be long before he gets banned. There’s nothing but silence from the mods to his posts. It’s funny as ****. He’s pointed out to them that theres a sponsor doing reviews and linking to his own site 16 times in the review which of course was a very positive review. He’s pwning long established posters like a mutha*****. It’s hysterical. Funny thing is I know this guy off site, if they mess with him they’ll get a few surprises. The guys an uber legal brain.
If you challenge them in any way, they’ll ban you even if you’re in the right. It’s just narcissistic and the admin team are nothing more than lapdogs in a dictatorship. It’s about the sponsors and making moolah, nothing more.
Unfortunately the whole reviewing thing went quite badly with me – I don’t do sponsored reviews etc, but was treated as someone from advertising rather than an actual unbiased reviewer. Shame to hear nothing has been changing there – thanks for sharing your experiences though 🙂
This epic post and comment thread are fun, but if you want them to have airier highs, then you should add more antler powder.*
——
* (oxygen-free, of course)
“And not a single fjck was given that day.”
“So, you feel shut off, uncared about and pretty much ignored.”
Boy, oh boy…does that describe how I’ve lost interest in Head-Fi as of late, and why I ***won’t*** be posting very much on that site anymore!
And this is coming from a huge fanboy of V-Moda M-100 headphones, in which V-Moda is one of the main sponsors of that site. (I’ve even concluded a few of my posts on the M-100 topic thread there with “Viva V-Moda!”)
So even hardcore-basshead fanboys like me can get disillusioned with Head-Fi, and lose interest and turn away.
Here’s my story.
It was a year ago (in January 2015) when I bought my first pair of genuine M-100 headphones after my old pair pair of fake Beats Pros kept breaking on me. The M-100s sounded a lot better and were much more reliable, and a month after that I got my first portable amp, the FiiO E12A. The combination was so great that I wrote an article about it entitled, “Why a $500 Enhancement for Your Portable Music Player is Awesomely Better Than Spending $5,000 to Upgrade a Car Stereo.” ( http://hub.me/aji60 )
So in early March 2015 I joined the Head-Fi forums to talk about portable headphone systems and to learn about how to make them hit hard and throb deep — like the big car stereo I used to have many years ago — while sounding crisp and clear at the same time.
Well, it was shortly thereafter on March 20th when I discovered something on the Head-Fi Forums that would change the course of my history forever: ***Rockbox firmware for the iPod Classic.*** ( http://tinyurl.com/cbcywvq ) This, in my opinion, truly is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and it *doesn’t* use iTunes or any Apple software. Rockbox firmware also works on a lot of *other* older music players besides iPods, too.
This free, open-source, downloadable firmware enables me to use Notepad on my computer to program and organize a virtually-infinite number of custom equalizer (EQ) presets for my iPod with a huge decibel (dB) range of +24 to -24 dB, a “precut” feature to prevent distortion from it, along with a totally separate +12 dB bass boost feature (in Rockbox) on top of that. I can quickly and easily change these presets on the fly while listening. I also can create a .zip file with these EQ presets, and upload them to the Internet so other people can download and use them on their own Rockboxed music players.
For the following 10 months after that from time to time, I would improve my beloved EQ presets by making them sound better, hit harder, throb deeper, and even have better soundstage and musical detail to go with it. I also created a lot more options, organized them better, and made them easier to use. Just last month in mid-January 2016, I released Version 4.0 — featuring 2 sets of ***590*** EQ presets — along with a detailed, in-depth user guide to accompany it. ( http://tinyurl.com/jh3dexj )
Anyone with a Rockbox-able music player — whether a Sansa Clip, an iRiver, or an iPod Classic — could have the best-sounding basshead experience in the world with a pair of M-100 headphones (and possibly other sub-bassy ones) and a decent non-DAC portable amp — for absolutely free. They could just download and install Rockbox on their compatible older music player, and download DiscoProJoe’s Rockbox EQ Presets, Version 4.0 — all for free — and could ecstatically put themselves in basshead heaven.
As a side note, I quickly realized within two weeks of Rockboxing my iPod last spring that my existing FiiO E12A amp didn’t have quite enough power to push these huge sub-bass increments, so I replaced it with a Cayin C5 amp, which I’m happily still using. In June of last year, I also bought a second pair of V-Moda M-100 headphones (which was a white pair to go with my existing black pair), and a second Cayin C5 portable headphone amp to go with it — for the purpose of enjoying my music with friends ( http://tinyurl.com/zyova4t ) . We could listen to the same song together from my iPod with the same sound quality, and my friend could turn down her own volume on her own amp if she thought it was too loud — while I could still jam with mine cranked up at the same time!
While listening with friends, they’ve all told me it’s the best sound they’ve ever heard, even though a lot of them will turn down the volume on their own amp because they don’t like it loud like I do!
To give you a quick idea (with some numbers) what my portable headphone system is capable of, V-Moda M-100 headphones naturally have an 8-dB low-end sub-bass boost by themselves, the Cayin C5 amp boosts the low end by 5.5 dB, Rockbox firmware on an iPod Classic has a +12 dB bass feature, and on top of all that — separately — DiscoProJoe’s Rockbox EQ Presets can boost the low-end sub-bass by as much as *36.5 dB.* 8 + 5.5 + 12 + 36.5 = up to ****62 dB**** of possible low-end sub-bass boost with good clarity and soundstage to go with it! It’s awesome, and can make original masterings of pop songs from the 1970s and ’80s sound great, along with everything else, too. Here’s the link, again. ( http://tinyurl.com/jh3dexj )
And so, now, I feel like I’m all set for the coming years with a portable headphone system that rocks the house. I don’t expect there to be any more possible “improvements” to my system — nor EQ presets — anytime soon.
Life is good and I look forward to relishing this sound with friends more and more often as the years progress!
But unfortunately,…………my “social” experience on Head-Fi — following the release of recent versions of my EQ presets — has truly been a disappointing and downright failure.
To put it bluntly, hardly anyone on Head-Fi seems to give a shjt — even most bassheads. The snobby audiophiles are downright a55wipes about it, and the number of fans I’ve garnered is so small I could count them on one hand.
When it’s appropriate in discussions, I’ll mention my EQ presets (with a link to the post)…on the Rockbox thread, the M-100 thread, the various basshead threads, and others.
There’s hardly a lick of interest from almost anyone on Head-Fi.
When looking at people’s “signatures” underneath their posts where they describe their equipment (as I also do), I notice they typically have at least 3-to-5 pair of expensive headphones for different kinds of music, several expensive DAC amps, and even silly *desktop* headphone amps that you can’t even take outdoors. I have no idea how much money these guys must spend on all this crap. Most of them also seem to be chasing after the latest products and fads as well — like fools with money.
So then, I come along and say, “Guess what, guys! I can make my M-100 headphones sound freaking awesome on *any* kind of music with an inexpensive, portable, non-DAC Cayin C5 amp! Just dust off your old iPod Classic, put Rockbox firmware on it for free, put my EQ presets on it for free, and you can have the time of your life!”
You can imagine how a lot of these snobby djckheads react to this. It’s as if they’ve just been told that most of their shjt is redundant and worthless, and that they’ve wasted their freaking lives.
The stuck-up audiophiles on Head-Fi also hate the fact that most of my music collection consists of MP3s at my longtime-chosen bitrate of 192 kbps, and they hate that I personally can’t notice any difference in sound quality above that, and my hearing is fine. I tell them how I’ve gone to my local hi-fi shop and listened to Sennheiser HD 650s, Beyerdynamics, Denons, Sonys, and Hifimans, and I say that none of them can hit as hard nor throb as deep as my M-100s can with dance-pop music, nor can sound as good with jazz or classical music as my M-100s with my EQ presets, either. The latter mention *really* pisses them off when I tell them about it! ha
And on the basshead topic threads, everyone seems obsessed with the JVC HA-SZ2000 headphones. My local hi-fi shop doesn’t carry these, so I haven’t personally had a chance to listen to a pair. But according to the discussions on Head-Fi, these bulky cans aren’t very portable, they lack sound quality and clarity, and apparently, they sound really bad at low volume. Sure, the SZ2000s have more sensitivity for bass than the M-100s and can definitely hit harder, but at a large sacrifice to everything else.
Sheesh,…can you imagine how *little* money the sponsors at Head-Fi would earn if everyone on the forums just had one single pair of headphones, one inexpensive non-DAC portable amp, and used the free Rockbox firmware and DiscoProJoe’s Rockbox EQ Presets on their older music players, and hardly ever bought anything else? Damn,…Jude (the site owner) would have a goddamn heart attack!
Extensive, extreme EQ presets like mine are totally anathema to the livelihood of their sponsors’ big money-sucking venture: they want you to use absolutely no EQ at all and just buy more and more headphones, lots of different amps, and expensive new music players anytime you want to change the sound. Perish the thought of just using an EQ to make your system sound the way you want! That would bankrupt most of their advertisers!
Heck, on a lot of songs, if I turn off my EQ and bass boosts, and set everything to flat, it sounds like changing from a giant sound system…to a little Fisher-Price record player. This silly “flat” sound that so many stupid audiophiles fjck themselves with…sounds as dull and boring as watching a fjcking turd dry.
This leads me to another disappointment about the Head-Fi forum: the M-100 topic thread is constantly inundated with haters and trolls, including one particular a55hole who I’m convinced is a *paid troll* working for one of V-Moda’s competitors, or for a PR firm that contracts with them to do astroturfing on the Internet. For more than 6 months, this same guy has been constantly posting on the M-100 thread and saying anything he can to bash the M-100. This fjckhead (and/or his employer) especially hates me and my EQ presets, and hates to see me recommending them to people. Gee, I wonder why!
Other trolls will get on there and be fjcking jacka55es as well. I try to be a civil as I can, and when they insult me, I don’t want to get banned by replying with something like, “Screw you,” or by cussing them out. So I get creative and reply with, “Ahhhhhh,….am I supposed to feel stupid, or something?”
But when I actually accuse one of these jerks of being a troll, *that’s* when the moderators start treating *me* like I’m the bad guy. They’ll delete my post and warn me.
So,…I just put these haters and trolls on block where they belong. Oh, well….
But wait a minute; what about the other M-100 ***fans***? Do they ever back me up, stick up for me, “jump in,” and defend what I’m saying when I’m engaging with the haters on the M-100 thread? Hardly ever. Except on rare occasions, it feels like I’m always “going at it alone” with these jerks. So much for “community” on Head-Fi.
And now for the grand finales.
I bought my dad a pair of the newly-released V-Moda Crossfade Wireless headphones for Christmas last year. I knew he’d like them since he doesn’t use an EQ or amp, and he likes to play music from his iPhone. He really loves his new headphones now and always tells me how great they sound.
And so I thought of a cool TV-commercial idea for the V-Moda Crossfade Wireless, and posted a fun narrative about it on the topic thread for the Crossfade Wireless headphones. ( http://tinyurl.com/hcvc2cv )
Did anyone click the “like” on this post? Nope. Any comments about it, or replies? Nope. Any peep from V-Moda or their staff, who follow these threads and occasionally post comments? Nope.
I also wrote a lengthy “one-year-anniversary celebration” post on the M-100 topic thread a few weeks ago…to celebrate the purchase of my first pair of M-100s from a year earlier. You can view it at ( http://tinyurl.com/jffebwb ) and also can read a follow-up post I made about it at ( http://tinyurl.com/hs8t3am )
Any likes, comments, kudos, etc., from anyone? Not at all. Anyone chiming in with how they felt the first time they listened to a pair of M-100s, or how they’ve improved their own portable headphone system since that time, in response to my “anniversary” posts? Of course not.
And as far as the staff at V-Moda are concerened, the only time they ever responded to any of my posts on their threads was last summer after I posted photos of a friend and me enjoying music together with my headphone system…with the colorful city skyline across the river in the background. During that same week, V-Moda had just started designing expensive, high-end versions of their “custom shields” that you can install on the side of the headphones for fashionable aesthetics. The CEO of V-Moda, Val Kolton, personally asked me in the M-100 thread if I’d be interested in buying a pair or two of $300 high-end custom shields for my M-100s. I respectfully declined and said I wasn’t interested at the moment, but that I loved the headphones, and loved how I could make them sound.
Never once have any V-Moda staff said *anything* to me about my versatile EQ presets, which anyone with a Rockbox-able music player can download and use for free. Bear in mind that I designed these presets *specifically* for the M-100! Wouldn’t *some* of the staff at V-Moda be slightly interested?
But then again, V-Moda can’t make any money off of it, so who knows….
That’s my story. I’m glad I discovered Head-Fi early last year and was able to learn quite a bit. I’m thankful to the users who answered the questions I had and gave me new insights. I appreciate the opportunity to share my work with others as well, and am grateful for the 3 or 4 fans I’ve garnered with my illustrious EQ presets.
But needless to say, it’s time for me to move on from Head-Fi. It’s time for me to get more sleep, get more exercise, and spend more time with friends — in person — who actually appreciate what I’ve done and could care less about the stupid shjt that most of the people on Head-Fi want. I won’t feel ridiculously and blatantly ***unappreciated*** anymore as I have on Head-Fi and can happily share in the moment with others who actually give a darn, and with spectacular-sounding music to go with it.
So with that, I’ll leave you with a quote from the famous “John Galt’s Speech” from the novel Atlas Shrugged. Thanks for reading and have a nice day.
“We — whom you are now calling, but who will not answer any longer — we had lived among you, but you failed to know us, you refused to think and to see what we were. You failed to recognize the motor I invented — and it became, in your world, a pile of dead scrap. You failed to recognize the hero in your soul — and you failed to know me when I passed you in the street. When you cried in despair for the unattainable spirit which you felt had deserted your world, you gave it my name, but what you were calling was your own betrayed self-esteem. You will not recover one without the other.”
Hi mate,
I got your message and emails, sorry I didn’t approve the message faster, I like reading all replies and yours was huge!
I feel your frustrations are more to do with the community rather than the site. I produce a lot of honest reviews myself which help a lot of people, but instead of being appreciated, I get told that a bias site has given it better ratings…It’s annoying to say the least, but what can you do!
Anyway, don’t stop what you’re doing – it’s people like you and me that innovate, provide good info to the world and show people new things.
Best,
Chris
Thanks, Chris!
A friend and I visited the local hi-fi shop yesterday. It was my first time since last June to go there, and he wanted to check out some new equipment. I thought I’d tag along and hear how my system (with Version 4.0 of my EQ presets) compares with the other stuff now.
Upon arrival I let the manager at the shop hear my rig. He was *very* impressed, and said it didn’t even sound like I was using an EQ.
Next, I listened to the Sennheiser HD 650 and Oppo PM-3 through my Rockboxed iPod Classic and Cayin C5 portable amp, but with all the bass boosts turned off and the EQ set to flat. (According to the people on the Head-Fi forums, those headphones are supposed to have the best soundstage in the $300 price range, and you’re “supposed to” listen to them without an EQ.) I wanted to compare the soundstage of the these “flat-sounding” headphones — that most people on Head-Fi love — to my own personal standards for soundstage that I’ve become accustomed to during the last month or two (with the latest versions of my EQ presets, played through my V-Moda M-100s).
The two songs I sampled were the Strings Mix of Utada Hikaru’s “First Love” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRwYVOhIp1o ) and Mariah Carey’s “Anytime You Need A Friend” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li6vpAMmfw0 )
Much to my hilarious surprise, the soundstage of these songs — played through the HD 650 and PM-3 without an EQ or bass boost, and according to my latest personal standards — was ***astonishingly weak***!!! The lower midrange sounded bloated, the treble veiled, and the musical detail was a little bit lacking. I then turned on the bass boosts, chose a suitable EQ preset, and played some pop songs with a hard-hitting beat. As you can imagine, neither one of those pair of headphones could handle the sub-bass. When cranking up the HD 650 with it, the drivers started bottoming out with the beat and went “Snap, crackle, pop!” like Rice Krispies (without *any* clipping from the portable amp or EQ). The PM-3 started putting out driver distortion and/or caused amp clipping fairly easily when cranking it up that way.
So obviously, my beloved M-100 headphones took those other headphones and just whooped their a55es! Now, admittedly, if you aren’t using an EQ or bass boosts, the HD 650 and PM-3 *do* have better soundstage and detail than the M-100 ***without an EQ***. But *with* a good EQ and bass boosts, the M-100 will absolutely clobber those other two headphones in every single category.
Finally, I played around with some the new music players on display at the hi-fi shop. I played with the FiiO X3ii, FiiO X7, Cayin N6, and the Astell & Kern AK380. Since I prefer a scroll wheel over a touchscreen, I obviously didn’t care much for the physical UI on the X7 and AK380. The N6 only had buttons without a wheel, so it didn’t make the grade, either. My favorite new player was the X3ii, but I didn’t like the side buttons, and disliked how the main four buttons (on top) stuck up from the surface and weren’t part of the click wheel.
So the simple, ergonomical physical UI of my beloved iPod Classic still reigns supreme!
I also plugged my M-100 in to those players directly and sampled the sound quality. Those players definitely sounded solid and clean, but when running my Rockboxed iPod through my Cayin C5 portable amp with a suitable EQ preset and bass boosts on, my rig totally blows those new players to smithereens.
I know that’s not a very fair comparison (i.e., comparing a standalone player…to a Rockboxed player with extreme EQ presets running through an amp, etc.), but needless to say, I’m totally happy with what I already have and have no need to buy anything else anytime soon.
I know most of the people on Head-Fi would hate to hear that, but…oh well! 🙂
Haha ok thanks for sharing man. But again, it doesn’t really relate to the article I’ve got up. I suggest piecing your thoughts and posting it on another forum other than ban-fi. I know you’ve got thoughts etc to share, which is great, but these comments will just go unnoticed on my site, as it’s not a thread that talks about the eq or mods of certain audio devices.
Best,
Chris
Will do. Thanks again!
Joe
Meh, nothing has changed, if anything it’s getting worse. Top reviewers on there were challenged to be more transparent review samples and state that essentially they are free goods. To date, only 1 reviewer has acknowledged that in his reviews.
1 of the top reviewers made a poll to ask if he was doing anything wrong. He then made 2 separate threads rallying his buddies to back him. He got 24 people backing him and 5 people stating he was being dishonest. He then requested the thread be closed as he ‘had his answer’. Coincidentally as the dishonesty votes started to climb, of course. The fact that he’s happy with 24 voters on a forum of 1000’s is laughable. He considers the review samples as their property but never returns them 😛
In his thread it was proven 100% (with links) that he openly lied about receiving free goods. Funny thing is the debate was about declaring the goods were free not an argument against free goods themselves. It was an attempt to recognise any bias that could occur in any reviews. only 2 members spoke up against it 🙁
So, after being proven that the reviewer was misleading readers, what did Head-fi do?
Warn him?
Ban him?
Well no, they actually promoted him to Moderator after he threatened to leave. An ill conceived ‘Don’t bite the hand that feeds’ approach.
Truth is, they’re all sheep now on head-fi. Pretty much all the reviews are by shills receiving free samples and showing allegiance to said companies.
Anyone who writes negative reviews are openly and routinely flamed by the shills who of course, routinely and openly pat each other on the back when they, in turn, write favourable ones.
I’ve tried to talk to the guys who blew this open but they’ve had warnings, bans etc as have I.
I can’t help but compare Head-fi to Enron. At Enron it was the traders who brought it down, on Head-fi it will be the reviewers / shills.
Also, it would be interesting to see how many of the reviewers declare the free review samples to the Tax Authorities as legally in many countries avoiding it is considered as Tax Fraud as it’s bartering.
I can’t help but think Head-fi will inevitably hit the metaphorical Iceberg soon but people won’t see it coming because their eyes are too full of greed.
Thanks for sharing buddy, well in terms of reviews, I get things for free and often get to keep them. On my website and YouTube always say thanks to said company for sending it to me. Unfortunately, most write positive things in order to keep on receiving items, but so do massive publications and newspapers!
End of the day, head-fi never valued reviewers when I was there. I haven’t visited nor care to see if anything has changed, but my guess is that the actual care for reviewers has never been a priority for the admins or moderators, little do they understand it’s reviewers like myself that keep the forum relevant and interesting for new viewers. Oh well, I’ve long forgotten the site, which also tried to blackmail me 🙂
Omg,This commentsection is so long and it stretches on for years,but I agree with you,it’s easy for certain people to turn into dick heads once they have some sort of power over certain things,and those admins are just trying to show their power over other members just because something didn’t go the way they wanted it to go. (Usually people with below average self esteem or some sort of a slight social disorder complex that makes them long for power.)
Anyways I loved ur reviews and yeah keep up the great work.
Thanks buddy will always do 🙂
yahh i call them niggas on that shit bitches! and they sent me a pryvate email and said i was out of line. i said hollld up. that cat jude said i was a racist beats salesman
A RACIST BEATS SALESMAN??? THAT LITTLE JAP BITCH BETTER GET HISSELF CHECKED CUZ WERE GONNA BEAT HIS SHIT!
THEIR SCARED OF ME ON HEADFI BECAUSE IM HONEST AND WISE.
one love, barry
Who is the owner of head fi ?
Jude Mansilla is buddy, why?
The best way to stay alive in head-fi now is to be a silent reader and not to express your opinion.
Head-fi should change their domain from .org to .com haha cause it’s more of commercial purpose now
hahaha!
It didnt take long for me to realize headfi was full of retarded and RUDE admins. I started running a youtube channel to give back to the audiophile community by doing various reviews and giveaways. After a long introduction of my experiences and towards the end when I introduced myself as a “youtuber who started reviews on ______ channel to give back to the community” on a newcomer post… I was rudely accused of “promoting my channel and taking people away from headfi”
Alright… I guess that is understandable (not really)…. but treating me in very rude language and then accusing a youtuber who has really little subscribers of promoting his channel to robe headfi users when all he was trying to say was he was a youtuber of a certain review channel?
OK fine that is their policy, so I politely apologize for not knowing their policy of “not being able to introduce myself as a youtuber, website owner or etc.” The point wasnt to grow my channel with headfi viewers anyways… I was just trying to be helpful.
The admin tells me to make review on headfi, alrighty. I make honest reviews and it gets deleted BECAUSE I pointed out some flaws in some products… So I ask the admin why it was deleted… only to be met with the response: The content you provided is inappropriate and contradicts what other reviewers said… I check other reviewers on headfi and realize that its ALL positive reviews, I head on to youtube and other forums and see that people found the same flaws as me. HA HA…. time to leave headfi.
That was my story. I did read your full story and I hope headfi gets what he deserves bro
Thanks fro sharing bro, sorry to hear that!
The few people like yourself who rant about being banned from head-fi seem to invariably have websites of their own that they wish to promote.
You were putting links to your website in some posts which (understandably) can be a conflict of interest for head-fi.
The other reasons they give are likely just fodder to hide the fact that they can’t have guys like you trying to promote your website.
Also, guys like you ( this isn’t the only disgruntled ex head-fi member who happens to have their own site) always cry about missing the community and “helping people”….But in fact you are sad about losing all the traffic you were gaining on your website by linking to it from head-fi.
And if you didn’t offer guest posting without having to sign up on this site….There’d be alot less responses about this.
Really lol?
You can even see my public stats – go see how many were referred from Head-fi – I’m sure you’ll find it’s a total of 0% traffic.
As for contributing – so over 9k posts, massive guides, highly respected member within the community AND reviews almost every 2 weeks – means nothing? Sure thing bud! You do realise, head-fi, or ban-fi literally exists because of people like me or the “one that complain and have a website”, right?
Without genuinely good content and actual reviews/guides, head-fi would die. The only reason it didn’t, is because of $$$ – because it was able to keep up with sponsors, run shows, continue to have presence, while other sites died because they were true to what they believed. Props to head-fi for staying alive, but it’s a shame it lost a lot of its highly respected members – and I don’t include myself in that list, even though I should.
Hey Chris,
Its terrible you got banned on Head-Fi. I know I’m responding to this blog post several years late, but I figured since I have a few things to say about this topic, I’d write in here.
I’m a member of Head-Fi, same username as posted here, as I’m not afraid of using it on both places. Actually, Arysyn is my username on many forums and comment software, such as Reddit and Disqus, though its possible the username may be in use by another person elsewhere, as us the case with any username. However, I haven’t posted on Head-Fi as of yet, just a lurker there reading the site for my own reasons. Again, I’m not afraid of being banned from there just for posting here. Besides, I’m an honest legitimate poster who understands the system, as I’ve been an Administrator of several forums, including a now defunct (due to major board of directors and marketing changes) of the former popular right-to-die forum on the Final Exit Network website.
As an administrator, I ran forums as being open discussion, freedom-oriented, so long as members did not spam, post illegal and violating content, threaten, harass, insult, and demean others’ personal situations with false assumptions and give advice contrary to the situations people posted about, such as telling someone in an abusive environment to take psychiatric medication as a supposed way of resolving the abuse somehow. I seriously cracked down on that, as there were several bad potential outcomes of such advice, plus the insensitive nature of it were definite grounds for action being taken.
Other than that though, there really isn’t anything else I see that is reason for banning members, other than some disciplinary actions against other staff for doing bad things to members or to the site itself. Sometimes what staff do can be worse than members posting on the forum. For instance, after the closure of the FEN forum, I started a website I was hoping to take big into an actual large-scale life choices advocacy group, but then got distracted by other things, including pressing issues involving my health. However, for the short time I ran this new forum, I gave staffing privileges to someone who I had every reason to trust, was a wonderful contributing member on the old FEN forum, that I was confident he’d be great as a member of staff on the new forum. Sadly though, after a member posted about their abusive environment on the forum, they were responded to by another person who totally demeaned them by suggesting psychiatry, which was a huge no-no on the site, a rule I made to prevent serious problems. I, of course banned the individual who made the suggestive response, but then this trusted staff member overturned my decision by posting a public apology to this individual for the decision I had made.
This resulted in my making the difficult decision of then banning this staff member, who was popular with the other staff. I hated to do this, especially as I highly valued this person. I even went against my then gf, who wanted me not to do this, but understood my reasoning as it is, still trying to make peace in the situation. I just couldn’t reverse it though, and I think ultimately contributed with my other reasons for abandoning the site and future projects with it. I imagine its tough decisions like this other already well-established sites, such as Head-Fi, fear ever to be forced into, hence why staff on so many forums try to make a comradery within staff, even when it goes against the good of membership. To the staff, a staff versus regular members situation always is better than a staff versus staff situation, and when a particular staff or two do bad things to the regular membership, most likely the other staff will defend those “bad” staff no matter what.
I’m also a regular member of forums who has been in difficult situations with forum staff. Such for example, a Sprint fan site that lately has turned into a general cellular/wireless tech talk/industry review website. I often post long, detailed opinions and commentary about my views of the industry. I’m always polite, never give any reason to be banned, but a few of the staff do not like how I talk more opinion-based, as they prefer people post short, couple sentence fact statements and quick q&a. My posting generally opens up discussions of things, which some of the staff don’t seem to like, despite the nature of such a forum is to discuss. Otherwise, they ought to state in the rules that it is a bulletin board, not a forum, and exactly what is allowed to be posted and what isn’t, besides the usual type of rules policy, etc.
One particular staff really takes things too far though, and currently I’m being temporarily banned from the site for defending myself in a pm to the head admin about what this particular staff has said publicly on the site. This staff has made homophobic, slanderous, and vicious statements on the site several times, not only towards me though, but towards many others on the site. Yet, no action gets taken towards this particular staff, which likely is due not only to his position as staff, but also his longetivity on the site being a long-held top monetary donor to the site. Curiously, he’s stated on the site that he holds season tickets to many sporting events, which lead many to believe he’s wealthy and speculate that he literally has bought his position and security on the staff of the site.
So, it doesn’t surprise me at all when aI hear similar things being said of how Head-Fi operates, particularly with its sponsors. I’m quite surprised by how much leverage companies such as Schiit and V-Moda have on there. While I’ve never owned a Schiit product and won’t speak either for nor against them, I have owned a V-Moda ZN, which was DOA from the moment I first plugged it in to my smartphone. Their CS was very unhelpful, only accepted a return/refund, rather than trying to resolve the issue or give a replacement. It was my first and only V-Moda product and can say from the experience that it seems like a bad company. They certainly didn’t handle things well, but I won’t even bother mentioning it on Head-Fi, knowing what that may negatively lead to.
Anyways, great blog, Chris, and keep speaking up against forum injustice!
Thanks for sharing your story!
I totally agree with your ruling though, although, as you probably read, that was completely different from what I experienced – but that was long ago, and I’ve grown as an individual and better still become a much better reviewer, who is respected and has continual support from the community!
Glad you like my blog/site, I’m always one who is honest and that’s why I created this article back when I was banned.
-Chris
I was just banned this evening, YAY!
Apparently, the website is run by a little girl who gets her feelings hurt very very
easily or maybe the he/she is on the rag!
My HUGE HEAD-FI CRIME!
I made the GRAVE error of saying that their website was not the most user
friendly after some other LITTLE SNOT NOSE punk made a snarky comment
stating that I should go find and read the OFFICIAL RULES because I dared
to thank someone else for posting what the RULES are for being able to sell
on their website..
I never even mentioned that Head-fi is a VERY VERY VERY CRAPPY DESIGNED website!
I don’t think I’ll miss much over there with all of the Peter Puffers blowing smoke up each other’s
asses about the non-discernible differences between all of the overly priced crappy gear they like
to tout as God’s gift to mankind.
HEAD-FI IS COMPLETE CRAPOLA ~ And RUN by a LITTLE Peter Puffer named JUDE, OY-VEY!!!
Oh dear nothing has changed there…!
I remember visiting head-fi back in the day, I think early 00’s.. not even sure how long it had been around when I first started visiting, It was a nice place to visit, there was not alot of choice back then there were new brands coming out and some new tech being pushed, iaudio, cowon, iriver h, rio karma, and lesser extent ipod classic, were the portables of choice.. there were of course the major head phone manufacturers; nothing like today…the choice now is nauseating, I think as ever places like that are ever important for a valuable reliable source of info, unfortunately with popularity it also introduces floating pieces of shit and also breeds shitty behavior, people get a complex of superiority and let’s face it we all know what real HI-Fi is. not to discount the pleasure one can have from some Cans and a mediocre amp. not saying that, we can find our little balance between price and performance and something that caters to our subjectively repugnant musical tastes.. like fogies cranking recordings from the 70’s on $1000+ headphones and experiencing the recording as great as the 70’s tech could get… blew my mind. I know what I know in my mind, I’ve been Surprised by things in my life and bitterly dissapointed in my life, i’ve taken type train a couple of times and more often than not had been left unsatisfied; not remorseful just meh… The best advice I ever had was my own ear and my own instinct. I just like the fancy photo’s but I don’t listen to a word anyone has to say over at head-fi, there may have been a time when I did but those days are long gone. It is without a doubt the best place to go if you want to jump on a hype train… i’ll give it that.. oh and if you want some smug prick telling you about his planar headphones i’d personally invest in speakers but some people are bat-shit mental for things that they can wear on their heads and I love cans and iems, big fan, i just prefer bigger sound walls.
Haha true! Thanks for sharing btw
Sadly, most audio sites have become either commercialised or hang-outs for quasi- audio religious brownshirts who attack anyone who doesn’t support their view of ‘reality’.
I joined Headfi some years ago now and it quickly became apparent that hordes of fanboys were swirling around this forum. I remember contributing to a very positive thread about t/ts and with another Brit who actually works in a post production role we gave newbies a very clear idea of the pros and cons of different types of t/ts and indeed many newbies thanked us.
As to other threads it quickly became clear that paranoia reigned when anyone, including myself suggested that it was a good idea to take a look ‘underneath the hood’ – that will negate the guarantee was one response and as to modding 99% are terrified by the thought.
Basically, Headfi is for those who want to be told what to buy. I find it hilarious that there are so many that have loads of different cans/amps and love spending fortunes on cables/i/connects. There was one thread about power cables and the O/P was treated with adoration – never did he suggest that the easiest cable to make yourself is a power cable. From experience you cannot compete with the quality of buying a length of commercially made power cable and fitting connectors both ends and thereby saving a fortune.
In the consumer society aka 1984 aka Brave New World – you buy (and don’t question) follow the herd but above all spend, spend, spend. Never mod or create anything yourself, if you display this heretical mentality you will be banned.
Just for the craic I’ve bit for a Dark Voice 336SE on Massdrop why? Because it’s point-to-point construction, where components can be changed and experiments carried out to see what works – never make more than one change at a time or rational assessment is impossible. It uses valves/tubes that give great flexibility in the final sound but here Massdrop has the self same mentality as Headfi.
On the D/V comment thread I stated why I was buying – an excellent piece of kit for modifying – guess what my comment was deleted.
You join Headfi to join one or other fanboy/herd and spend money, same goes for Massdrop. Right now if you question you will become ‘suspect’ – suspected of what – thinking, don’t think, don’t question – when will a ‘heretic’ become considered something far worse.
R.D.Lang wrote a brilliant little book called – Knots and I think that TotallydubbedHD would love the foreword;
I see that they are playing a game
I see that they are playing a game of not playing a game
If I tell them that I see they are playing a game of not playing a game
They will not like me
My comment – tough shit
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on here! Shame to hear that happen.
I am still a member of headfi, although I have not realy been active for the last 6 months.
My thoughts/ experiences realy came about after spending a lot more time daily on headfi whilst waiting on a pre-order product.
I started to notice certain moderators and respected members promoting products whilst in general conversations, also a couple of times when I criticised a certain product or manufacturer moderators who clearly were supporting said product/ manufacturer stepped in and tried to silence me , not by banning but by belittling my opinion.
Example….i realised by owning a chord mojo that a certain player was downsampling when using as a transport, the player in question was a flagship product and one of headfi big sponsors I also owned another player which I rated more and definitely was not downsampling .
I commented on my findings..a moderator commented on my post out of no where and tried to make me look stupid by saying well I doubt you could hear the difference and just because mojo has flashing lights!
I did reply and said if I buy something to do something then I expect it to do it even if I can’t hear the difference!
Blatant protecting interests, and if you read between the lines there’s a lot of subtler promotion going on.
I found that too, back in the day…sigh some things never change
I can completely empathize with your experience. I was banned a while back from Audiogon for….guess what….I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA! And when I started the inquiry process…the cunt admin/owner got pissy because I was asking for valid info as to WHY I was banned. Typical politics of kiss ass members who have others wrapped around their fingers and company interests being supported.
Cheers
Sad to hear that bud!
September 2018, and head-fi is still shit and full of wankers. Its exactly the same as 2012.
None of them have a sense of humour, hopefully the headfi oaps die soon and get replaced by real people.
I am Sick of reading about £500 gold plated 13amp fuses and £6000 silver plated copper cables.
You were banned because you got too smart, too fast. Try doing the same thing at work – You would get fired or “let go” by a boss with an inferiority complex. Therefore, always try to stay “under the radar” or “under their wing” because otherwise they see you as a threat; as someone who could potentially take their job.
All forums on the internet are full of “gatekeepers” – users who think they run everything (but nobody cares about them) and Admins who try to keep things “nomal” whatever that means to them. I’ve learned that over the years it’s a complete waste of time to talk to strangers online. I’d much rather meet with friends in real life and audition headphones/speakers etc.
Audiogon is just like Head-Fi. Too many self-righteous “audiophiles” with limited knowledge spewing irrelevant comments at the speed of sound.
Online dating is the same – don’t get too smart, too fast!
I had 20 active conversations on POF and already got 5 numbers.
The next day, my profile was deleted for “misuse” without any warnings.
Ha, very true.
I just got locked out for no reason whatsoever – I haven’t been posting at all. The lockout prevents contacting admin or resetting password or doing anything, including even reading the posts. Head-Fi has a major problem. They are worthless.
Thanks for sharing!