So this is the question for the forum. Do you guys think that someone that hasn’t actually owned a piece of gear should make recommendations to other members?
I’m not saying not giving opinions, everybody is entitled but… Should members disclose in their posts that they havent actually owned gear before passionately take a stand for or against it or recommend it wholeheartedly to new members looking for advice?
This is something I’m very interested in hearing everyone’s opinion.
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I think it is important to disclose whether you’ve actually heard something or not. I know that I personally always try to do so. If I recommend something that I haven’t heard, I normally say why I am recommending it by including the positive feedback I’ve heard from others.
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I think it’s important to disclose that information usually in the form of something like “I heard” or “I haven’t tried this but…” as while the recommendation can be helpful it lets them know it’s an opinion based on just what you hear not your actual experience. Though Anything in this hobby should be taken with extreme grains of salt. From reviewers, to thoughts on here, to terminologies, everything is just kind of niche and opinionated.
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I wouldn’t want to recommend anything i haven’t tried myself. But i could be inclined to mention a product with a disclaimer that i hadn’t tried it out myself (something likes this “…i have not heard it myself, but every reviewer raves about it” )
And I would guess that would be a common way of giving advice in a community like this, since most of us have a limited budget dedicated to our hifi interest, so the number of products we have actual experience with is also limited.
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IMO is one of the most helpful phrases in this hobby. Most of us only have experience with limited amounts of gear and if we give opinions on sound it should either be from experience or with a disclosure that we are only restating what we have heard others say.
Also, personally I like to take things slow and really get a feel for a piece of gear before I post detailed impressions. I find that sound is a tricky thing to nail down. The more I listen to certain things, the more I notice. I think audio is different than visual and your brain sometimes takes a while to adjust to something. Then once your brain adjusts you get it. Example: I’m working on my Elegia impressions now after I have used them as my daily driver for the past 2 months. I feel like I have a good enough grasp to describe what I’m hearing now that I am familiar with them.
I’m still fairly new to this. I’ve been interested in personal audio gear for a while and I’ve had a set or two of decent headphones over the past 8-10 years, but it was only in the past year that I started to become more of a hobbyist. I’m slowly moving through things that interest me and I’ll post my thoughts as I go. I don’t consider myself knowledgeable enough to write up anything more than a subjective post here and there about gear I have heard. Beyond that I’m just here to enjoy the conversation.
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I totally agree with what you said. In my case I have very limited experience so far and wouldn’t go as far as recommend something to someone. But I am trying to at least write my experience with the gear I have/had.
Also it is hard to become somewhat valuable member of this forum without at least trying to formulate own experience. Without that I feel like I am just bothering experienced people with my noobish questions.
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I couldn’t agree more. Unless you’ve been in the hobby for many years imo you don’t have the experience to judge gear just by hearing it from a friend or having just bought it. It takes a lot of knowledge and a good ear to be able to do so…
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We’re all noobs at some point. As we say down here in Spain:
“If you ask you’re dumb five minutes, if you don’t ask you’re dumb all your life”
That’s how you learn and IMO this forum has been the BEST to learn about audio that I’ve found and I’d love for it to remain so.
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I love talking about audio gear. Answering questions is not a bother for me. There are many other helpful people on here too.
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I agree with the prevailing views of this thread so far:
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comment most on gear you have direct experience with
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take your time to be thorough and learn about the gear you do have
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be clear if you haven’t heard a piece of gear
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if you comment on gear you haven’t heard, cite the source from which the opinion came
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if you copy/paste a post or passage from another forum user or other resource (Innerfidelity, Crinacle, ASR, etc.) cite that source and provide a link to the original
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respect that we all have different tastes
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Could we add do not copy and paste other people’s opinions like they were yours? Because that’s happened.
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I figured that falls under citing sources. But I will edit my post to explicitly add that.
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Think it was mentioned in post’s but the thing i kinda hate is taking the quote and “taking those others opinions in and presenting it as your own opinion is kinda dangerous”.
I have actually been thinking this before. Since we live in modern tech. and all what it gives.
Does “i have heard” mean.
- I watched a bunch of Youtube videos, so can say"i heard"
- I read a lot of text’s and reviews, so now a can say “i heard”
- I actually heard them “i heard”.
Im kinda lost in the translation time to time but to me it’s i “have heard, like actually heard in real live”. If you search (even this forum) some really like to use “i have heard” a lot.
Then the question pop-ups in my mind. What the heck does it actually mean?
Sometimes the advice can be helpful even without hearing the actual thing in question. Simple example like “Sennheiser house sound”.
If you have heard like the HD650. Fellow hifi member/people write “the 6xx is the same” and measurement back it up. If people same people write or tell in person “HD600 has less bass” but house sound is there.
That gives you a image “what it probably will be” but some personal experience is required.
Personally i like to have few options what others can give. Like asking for the way, “in the general direction and figuring out more on the way” Then actually testing these options before buying unless im 100% sure. Like the mentioned Sennheiser.
I kinda do not like “This xxxxx is the best and then every possible audio word description there can be”. Since personal real live experiences where “this banana sounds like purple gold”… then you try it and “it’s a yellow banana and nothing purple or gold”.
Then again. Actually hearing the “thing” you are about to buy and are looking or searching information. There is no better way in the end than testing it urself.
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Making it very clear where your opinion or advice comes from is definetly important. (as others have said)
Having heared/used something should enable everyone to judge if their experience is comprehensive enough to be shared in the given instance (which has to be judged on a thread by thread basis).
I for myself hope I get that decision right more often than not.
With equipment in general, a 3/5 score by >10 people on some online shop should be taken as a red flag. Reviewers might praise some product to the high heavens, they don’t get the “broke after 3 weeks and support does not reply”-experience.
If someone in a purchase advice thread asks about a product and I find reviews (user or reviewer/article) that say a device has QC issues (recent publishing date on the review), I will forward that no matter how hard everyone raves about a product.
Amen
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Considering the “What did you buy today” thread on this forum now has 6200 messages, I think it’s fair to say we don’t need opinions from people who have not heard, or from people who don’t know others who heard, specific types of gear.
Nothing wrong with saying (reviewer) liked it, either.
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Even some of the Youtube review’s I’ve seen cast doubt on that they actually listened to the product they were reviewing 
lol.
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Got a point there. I think I am guilty of not being a little more transparent on my sources when I say the words of I heard. I will go ahead and alter that to show sources and where I got my information.
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Following up on @LeDechaine’s point about the number of “What did you buy today” posts, I encourage HFGF readers to write your own amatuer reviews of the stuff you buy in the appropriate official threads after you’ve spent sufficient time with the gear. Initial thoughts are always exciting and encouraged, but what you think of a piece of kit after you’ve listened for a solid 7-14 days is better, after a couple months better yet. We can all learn to trust each other’s recommendations by reading opinions on the gear with which we have shared experience. I’m in the process of practicing what I preach on that and working on reviews of some of the gear I have that I’ve never done a “full review” on for the forum. That way many of you will have a shared reference point(s) with me. Then, you will know that a WaveTheory recommendation isn’t just some guy with a too-pretentious username for an audio forum flapping his gums, you can go look and see how my listening preferences and tastes align with yours and weight my thoughts on a piece of gear accordingly. My reviews might be long and detailed. Yours don’t have to be. But, I do encourage you to say enough about your likes and dislikes about individual pieces to help out the rest of us and the new users that come along daily. Cheers, all 
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This is great! I’d love to start seeing (and writing) more long form reviews of gear. I did one comparing my Shozy 1.1 to the BLON 03 a while back and I’m working on an Elegia one now. They take some time and thought but I like writing and I like audio so it seems like a good match! I think long form, organized written reviews would also be very beneficial for the community as a whole.
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Well… I didn’t read the question but I hear it’s a good one…
j/k of course. I agree with all-a-y’all… Hazi really said it succinctly and early !
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