Have you compared the W10 and NOB, including the internals, and found out they are identical in everything else except the tuning?
I believe there are literally 1 or 2 defects found among the total sold quantity. That is not exactly bad QC. AS introduced this product, tuned it, but was not the seller. CS should be provided by Penon. But yeah, I get it that AS promised to talk with Jinny to sort out the issue, so some responsibility does lie with him.
But seriously, the way he is being targeted looks kind of personal. TOTL or not, it is still an outstanding IEM with a brilliant tuning, and very good comfort. I really fail to understand why you are on a crusade against him because you did not like the tuning.
Why so much negativity? There were others who did not like the tuning and sold it off. Why are you making this a personal vendetta and getting hell-bent on spreading as much mud on him? The fact holds that for the price of $599, it is an outstandingly tuned IEM. Much better than the RSV, SA6 Ultra, Neko, and the likes. Should we go off denouncing them as well, then? AS did not run away with someone else’s money, did not force anyone to buy it. Everyone was free to make their own decisions. What exactly is the reason for this hate campaign on him?
Most products aren’t ‘from scratch’ but built upon previous works
Other than the shell, seems like the entire BAs have been changed (yes, I saw the W10 listing)
QC and CS, I have no comment since I don’t have issues with mine
It’s easy to jump into the hypetrain, but the opposite is also true: it’s very easy to jump into drama/hate bandwagon.
I actually found about W10 even before buying Butastur, and I did compare the list of BAs used. I asked a few knowledgeable people (including some IEM makers) and found the price to be justifiable. After getting it, while to me it is also not a TOTL-killer level, but given the price, it is a pretty good value for money. I certainly won’t fault someone trying to hype their products to be “TOTL killer”, everyone does that.
Oh shit, do you think your the influencer? Your still a baby with just a handful of subscribers … and sunglasses…seriously?
I respect the hell outta what HBB does in the community. You shouldn’t try to align yourself there, he is the pioneer, you are the parrot.
As far as Hidizs in a headlock, nah, not even anywhere close. You did see the sales from that Kickstarter right? They are all over the place selling many products to all sorts of folks. They have been rock solid to me in the past with any of my issues. They still make good products, including the MP145.
However, that campaign was misleading as hell and I talked with Hidizs in several email exchanges likely before it was on your parrot radar. What did you do? We know what HBB is doing, it’s good that his pull might have some influence there.
As for the NOB I received a good product, after a defective one got sorted…I’m good and I’m out.
I am not an owner of Butasturs, but I have them on demo for 3rd week or so and I would like to add my perspective. Especially since it looks like it was my original impressions that put the fuel back to the fire that was almost extinguished in this whole story.
1st thing - I think taht if most people are comparing this set to the best ones in it’s price range is an achievement on its own.
To me it is a clear step up in most regards than past benchmark of 500$+ Dunu SA6.
To me if someone would tell me it costs 930$ and Twilight costs NOB’s MSRP I would also not be surprised and would take it as justified in both ways.
It is a set that holds it’s ground for the price in my experience with couple of very expensive sets. It is probably more of a matter of a personal taste if you can justify not so small price, than objective truth that “it is totally worse” than Aur Audio NP or DTE900 and because of that there would be dissonance in reviews. And I can definitely see some people would have NOB as their TOTL - it is a purely subjective hobby and everyone here knows that.
Were there overblown marketing claims on the release? Probably yes.
Were there some half truths or lack of transparency in the original marketing? Probably. Were those on a level unseen in the hobby? Hell no, far, far from that.
Were those even close to something disgusting and unacceptable? Well, it is all subjective, but I think that not really.
The QC and communication problems are real problems to tackle and I feel sorry if someone’s case was not addressed properly by either Penon or American Spirit where relevant
There is some stuff to put a shade on AS probably as certain things could have been done better.
But we as a better version of head-fi - drama and judgement-free community were first to throw stones without even a blink of a second thought. There was similar case with Ian Fann, where it was almost like a public execution, because of his things he did wrong.
@VIVIDICI_111 Childish wordplays like those definitely do not help the case (or our forum) either in my opinion.
I got no dog in this fight as I have never heard the Butastar and it never really intrigued me but I think the biggest difference in some of these comparisons between @AmericanSpirit_JP and companies such as Timsok is that that @AmericanSpirit_JP isn’t an employee or works for Night Oblivion afaik (that was one of the big reasons why his treatment of Head-Fi was so wack). While it’s true that the claims AS made aren’t nearly as outlandish as some of these companies, everyone understands those company statements as pure BS.
Maybe this is a fault of what we expect from community members and reviewers but we are in a hobby where its damn near impossible to try a lot of these sets so we lean on members/reviewers to give it to us “straight”. IMO We as members should be held to a higher standard and should be looking out for each other. When you see some members/reviewers taking advantage of that expectation to seemingly be an agent for a company it breaks that trust and hurts the community much more than a random marketer writing up garbage for some product page.
I want to end by saying that while don’t think AS is trying to scam people here, It’s my opinion, based on the info shared here, that he has leveraged the trust he has built in the community to act as a marketer for Night Oblivion and make broad claims in an effort to bolster sales and I think that deserves calling out (which is has been over and over again). At this point though I think we are getting into personal attack/witchhunt territory which is not helpful or necessary imo.
Well, you are right in a sense when we look at AS as pure average forum member. For me there is too much of a conflict of an interest in him talking about a thing he participated in creation to consider anything that he said as something much more than some kind of marketing material. And I don’t even think it was cynical act of manipulation or greed, but more subconscious, inherent thing that we humans have in common rooted in our brain. At least this is how I see that
There is interesting, quite similar case when Crinacle is talking about his collabs by not reviewing them, but having a full marketing video on those sets driving the sales in a very smart way.
On the other end of the spectrum we have our local @hawaiibadboy who does not bother about perception and puts his own collabs high in his rankings (because I am sure he truly believes those are very good), but has integrity to immediately say if something is better and makes his sets irrelevant. And with both of those we kind of know what is to be expected.
And that is probably the biggest blame to put on AS, as he was coming as one of us (or from other forum), so trust load was on another level.
I would understand if AS ditched this thread and whole hifiguides. Dude just wanted to give the community affordable BA IEMs and in return gets hate from a bunch of people. They just jump on the discredit bandwagon HBB started.
At the end of the day he didn’t want to pay anything to Head-Fi to launch and promote his product there so he chose the next largest Forum? ie HFG to do just that for nada, zilch, nowt…I’m pretty sure he didn’t ask Z first if that was ok? So if you take liberties, and don’t want to pay, your choices are going to be limited tbh.
There are plenty of good affordable BA sets already out there as for "gets hate”…I haven’t seen hate exactly but folks have called him out regarding some of his initial claims and the unfortunate HBB’s “Shellgate” incident.
Ultimately he’s had almost 1200 replies most not ‘hateful’ so he’s had exposure which is what he wanted all for FA I’d call that a result.
He already ditched this thread, which was what led to the “hate” (not hate, rightful criticisms) he got because he disappeared once problems popped up.
Then we’ve got glazers and fanboys like you constantly making excuses for him…
It’s entirely up to ASJ whether he wants to stick around.
Despite your reductionist viewpoint, there were a spectrum of responses to the NOB, the situation, and ASJ.
At this point what I keep seeing is mostly “lovers” and “haters” - many of them without any skin in the game - going at each other while ASJ, having dropped in at the height of things, remains out of sight.
As a NOB owner, I maintain an interest in how whatever’s left plays out in reality, but as for the tribal BS, I’ll pull a quote from the thread: “Please make it stop.” (credit to @tybt, and apologies for taking it out of context good sir)
I have a request. Let us not resort to name-calling someone else completely out of context when he has raised a genuine complaint. That is what our corrupt politicians do. We are rational human beings, we must not do that. Whatever @hawaiibadboy did in the past is not relevant in this case. If we need to discuss let us stay in the context.
I’m just trying to point out the repetitive behavior from hbb hasn’t been appropriate many time, including this one. While the situation is quite genuine to begin with, the way it was approached was not the best. No one deserves to be defined by their past, but by who they are now. People make mistakes, but continued poor behavior is unacceptable.
I concur, the way he tried to call him out on frivolous concerns was not the best. But then, let us not resort to the same - there will not be any difference between us then, right?
Hey, Imma gonna jump back in for a minute in cos you guys are making some valid points.
One of Ry Cooder’s recordings has a bit pre …chatter and it goes something like this; you should be careful about throwing stones cos you might hit with a brick.
Moots says no one deserves to be defined by their past…I suppose it is a bit more complicated in reality.
I think if we acknowledge our mistakes and move to better ourselves that’s all the community we’re in should hope for right?
Just recently HBB has called himself out, on more than one occasion. I respect that. If you watch his channel you know. A few weeks ago here in this thread as well.
I’d bet it all that AS couldn’t have ever even imagined this much drama around his project.
It’s common these days social media raging, spontaneously taking up causes, some valid, others not so much.
The other day here I got caught up, and made a response that I don’t feel good about.
I felt I was being attacked …so I shut it down.
I apologise to Vividici, there is no excuse to hit like I did.
Like many of us here, I’d love for this thread to simply move on in a productive and POSITIVE manner.
Never heard the Oblivion but thanks to AS recommendations I found some other diamond.