Audio Pundit Rant (Currawong)

[Music1969]

I've 'liked' a lot of posts in this thread - hysterically funny.

BUT, one thing he mentions (and I don't know if he's specifically talking about amir or other forums) is a true problem.

Comparing different DAC distortion and/or noise figures that are measured at 0 dBFS vs -1 dBFS vs -3 dBFS etc can be a problem, if these levels are not mentioned in the measurements.

But if the level is mentioned in the measurements then at least people have the information, and there's no problem.

Amir does mention levels in recent reviews.

Maybe Currawong was talking about other forums or Amir's old reviews?

 

[pavuol]

We love you Amirm and what you're trying to do here, keep up the good work!

I try to paraphrase:

Amir, keep up the toxic work! The internet is plagued by too much audiophile poison, we just need your "toxic" antidote to help get the balance right!

 

[cjfrbw]

Amir always cracked me up even before ASR, because he had great, very authentic if non-poetic reactions to audio equipment and audio set ups, even if they were very expensive and exotic, and absolutely refused to budge to audio gaslighting when it was heaped on him. Inclusion in the hoity toity halls of high end audio come with strict rules where one must endorse certain status and decorums and simply not ruffle the feathers of commerce with untidy things like objectivity.

Welcome to commercial competition. Many products exist on pure mythology and the power of suggestion, as well as brand naming, and marketing can be the most important department. If you hadn't noticed these forces can be quite powerful, sometimes well funded, and will attack with all the fake news at their disposal.

 

[maverickronin]

NwAvGuy's remained hidden, even till today.

He sent me an O2 for review and the return address said "dScope Way"...

 

[KeithPhantom]

I just watched that video, and what a load of trash. Why people think their ears are better than electrical analyzers? Ears have limits, brains have limits, and humans have limits. These limits should be surpassed by the reproducing gear and the measuring gear to design these must surpass human limits to detect any issues. Facts presented here at ASR have been peer-reviewed by others with their different methods and have been found consistent with the results obtained by others. Heck, I even seen some Topping products measuring bad in this same forum and not getting a recommendation. I like this forum because it is not sponsored by anyone and freedom of opinion is supported. Also, it is a great place to learn proper engineering and practices.

 

[Nango]

It seems no self-respecting audio pundit can resist publishing a rant without taking a swipe at ASR.

Tons of Audio-gd and Schiit gear in the background says it all.

 

[KeithPhantom]

I think NwAvGuy is dead.

Are you serious? We're not talking about kingpins and drug lords, were talking about audio. Dead for exposing the snake oil and bad engineering in the audio industry? Is it that worthy of assassination? Being serious, I think he's retired from audio and looking from the sidelines how communities such like this have grown to represent his ideals. Because of him and many others we have the opportunity to look what means actual performance and how it helps us to get better sound.

 

[Blujackaal]

I just watched that video, and what a load of trash. Why people think their ears are better than electrical analyzers? Ears have limits, brains have limits, and humans have limits. These limits should be surpassed by the reproducing gear and the measuring gear to design these must surpass human limits to detect any issues. Facts presented here at ASR have been peer-reviewed by others with their different methods and have been found consistent with the results obtained by others. Heck, I even seen some Topping products measuring bad in this same forum and not getting a recommendation. I like this forum because it is not sponsored by anyone and freedom of opinion is supported. Also, it is a great place to learn proper engineering and practices.

Because head fi full of clowns that love spewing claims that can't be backed, I got hounded their for poining out balanced armatures perform as good as any planar headphone. This dude really needs to look in a mirror before calling others toxic. lol

 

[restorer-john]

Currawong, or as I refer to him CurraWrong, is a moderator at head-fi. He sometimes moderated the Sound Science sub forum in some most peculiar ways. I've a strong distaste for the guy personally. Didn't bother with the video. If he feels strongly about it, it likely is wrong.

The Currawong is a beautiful sounding Australian bird. In the mornings and late afternoons, they fill our valley with their calls. I'd much rather listen to them- they are never dull, or boring.

 

[Blujackaal]

My butt would hurt too if I had blown so much money on Schiit and Audio GD only to see its true performance revealed on ASR. One could buy a year of Harvard tuition with what was spent on the piles of artisanal headphones and stacks of Schiit in that man's listening room.

He would do well to sell off his piles of Schiit and bubinga wood headphones and perhaps focus on self-improvement or activities involving other humans.

Here are my five pet peeves about the mainstream headphone community represented by Head-Fi and SBAF (no video because I don't want to waste your time):

1. Silly subjective reviews that draw fine (and probably erroneously delineated) distinctions between products
2. A focus on badly engineered artisanal headphones that are often made out of exotic woods and produced only in limited runs on Massdrop
3. Discussions of headphone characteristics that headphones cannot possibly have (particularly "soundstaging" and bass "slam")
4. Lack of interest in information or science
5. Spending loads of money on headphones to earn street cred with . . . other members of the headphone community

1. I've seen them lash out when caught they can't explain their own terms.

2. So pretty much 95% of the TOTL headphone group where they hype a meh $200 product sold for $$$ with worse mesurements than a HD600 & HE400i?.

3. Go to head fi's IEM section watch people say flowerly things about BA headphones they just nicked from other reviewers with no clue what they mean. Like my point 1 says, Really fun watching them say the HD650 is a slow headphone when it CSD graph's say it very fast killing the "more natural" claim.

4. Why bother when it will render their opinions as junk like the dude in the YT video about DAC's & cables?.

5. So reddit in a nutshell where i see people with 12 headphones doing impressions every week where they go this is awesome or bash for something EQ can fix. Gotten -2 once for saying in BA IEM threads just do a +5db 100Hz low shelf if you wan't more meat from them than waste cash on the hype train 8 BA crap going around.

 

[AudioJester]

Tons of Audio-gd and Schiit gear in the background says it all.

The OG Audio-gd "shill". I remember he was one of their original designers or at least configured stuff for them

 

[preload]

I ran away from head-fi as fast as I could. Scary place with scary people.

 

[Southall-1998]

I ran away from head-fi as fast as I could. Scary place with scary people.

Good move!

S.

 

[KeithPhantom]

I ran away from head-fi as fast as I could. Scary place with scary people.

I still post there, but only in sound science. It is a good subforum to see trolls and to see some discussion (but not as good as ASR).

 

[CDMC]

What a wanker. Essentially his argument is that if he likes something and the measurements don’t comport with his subjective views, the measurements are manipulated.

 

[preload]

I still post there, but only in sound science. It is a good subforum to see trolls and to see some discussion (but not as good as ASR).

I had to peace out from their so-called sound science forum as well. During my time there, I met the following # of people who understood:
a) the scientific method = 0
b) basic statistics = 0
c) how to properly interpret an ABX experiment = 0

But there was no shortage of people who wanted to tell me that $500 cables and $5,000 amplifiers would cure the brightness of the HD800.

 

[Blujackaal]

I had to peace out from their so-called sound science forum as well. During my time there, I met the following # of people who understood:
a) the scientific method = 0
b) basic statistics = 0
c) how to properly interpret an ABX experiment = 0

But there was no shortage of people who wanted to tell me that $500 cables and $5,000 amplifiers would cure the brightness of the HD800.

There was no shortage of trolls too, Crying at my view on why get planar headphone when the ER3XR sounds the same with BA tech?. The main dude there also loves re-enforcing his subjective views on others, like getting hostile that people used headphones to master & mix music. 2 had new threads made for their outbursts crapping up threads.

You'd think that forum wouldn't cry at me EQ'ing my IEMs either, Since there no data to back multi driver versions the IEM subforum hype every month to 2 years. But makes sense since the X12i thd is <0.5% like most multi BA, Wouldn't shock me it can handle +8db boost same with final's F4100 & Custom arts Single BA CIEM.

They post on Reddit too, Which i stopped lurking there too. Since they'll downvote & flame anyone they disagree with.