Oluv is hilarious, his views are unique and refreshing. You can call him what you want, but basically dismissing the entire industry takes some balls, he obviously doesn’t have any fucks to give. His comparisons with the sound signature of the HPs are comprehensible to some degree and left me giggling. I do see some paralleles to vastly contradictory reviews of the Sendy Peacock. I was also quite shocked about the ear placement issues of the Dan Clarke Stealth. A HP shouldn’t vary in sound signature this much just by changing Its’ position, that’s just not OK. To me, these videos come at a good point in time. Over the years, I have invested thousands in gear and differently tuned HPs and IEMs. I do have a variety of differently built cans and some serious source gear. I will completely jump off the hype-train now. If i want something new or if i’m not satisfied with the sound characteristics of my cans, i will play around with APO and different chain combinations. Buying new gear comes dead-last. I had this growing inside me for quite some time. What made my head spin, were the discussions about EQ’ing in the so-called “audiophile” community. What? Using an equalizer in your setup is a bad thing? Adjusting the frequency response of your gear to your own linkings, or what fits good to the recording you’re playing (!!!) is a no-no? Do you know how f’ing many EQs, normalizers, effecst etc. are being used in the studio to produce what you’re hearing? You do know, that no studio geek in the world can produce music to fit 100% to the capabilites and characteristics of your personal HiFi-system? To me, this so-called “purist” approach is ridiculous, to say the least. I am quite happy with the technical capabilities of my gear and will stop making a fool out of myself. I won’t make myself a bitch of some audio engineers, that just give their gear a different sound signature to stand out of the competition and grab one’s attention. I want to have access to a good EQ in every scenario, if necessary, i will even have to change gear for that. (lol) But taking or keeping matters in your own hand seems to be a foreign language to some self-proclaimed “audiophiles”.
He thinks a 150 dollar chinese op amp sounds the same as a nice class A amp
well, i won’t even start to defend all his views. But shifting the focus to more major issues like horrible tunings of headphones and away from the more subtle differences source gear can make, is quite legit. Shiny, expensive crap is still crap.
It is precisely this “culturally valuable” way of expressing oneself that is also Oluv‘s specialty.
I would never have believed that a headphone or hi-fi community is so unable to articulate itself moderately.
Really wondering why people are going after the reviewers themselves here, imo it’s fine to criticize/discuss/critique the reviews and the info in those reviews, but don’t go after the person behind it, that’s just name-calling/ad hominem at that point
Exactly. His increasingly hostile tone towards the “purist” audiophile scene is due to being personally attacked by the so-called “professionals.” I forgot who it was and Oluv might have pulled his response video to that criticism on his channel, but I remembered the posts were pretty harsh against him. Personally I don’t see why a professional on a forum will call him out and bash him when there are plenty of YouTube reviewers out there that are shilling and receiving sponsorship and cannot even talk about sound well.
That said, I used to subscribe to Oluv’s channel but has now unsubscribed once I realized the type of tonality he likes. His preferred signature is VERY unorthodox, aiming for darkness and warmth. Don’t even try to look for detail on his channel since he’ll say it’s shrill and sharp to his ears. Unless your preferred sound signature is similar to his, one might find it difficult to agree with what he says about gears. Whether his method is grass-rooted and doesn’t fit with the “correct” narrative of the professional scene is up for debate, but it’s evident that he’s dedicated time and investments into pursuing evaluation gears he thinks can honestly reflect his preferred tonal signature.
Unsubscribing ain’t a lost for me since most of the gear he reviews are EU-based items. But audience really needs to know what they’re personally looking for in any of the reviewers out there.
@hit_the_right_note @M0N thank you for the constructive feedback. I completely agree with your points - if the reasoning i solid, one doesn’t have to rely on personal critizism or foul language. I edited my response to be a bit less offensive, without compromising the message. I would be glad to act exemplary in this, since this business is toxic enough already.
Because he goes after people personally in his comment section including name calling as well. People’s response here are a reflection on how Oluv responds to his commenters.
I guess that’s fair, but just because someone else is being an asshole doesn’t mean you have to become one in response as well. The youtube comment section is typically filled with garbage with some actual decent comments sometimes in there so I can see how that can really get to people, although still doesn’t justify what he’s doing (apparently, haven’t seen what he’s up to lately myself)
Oh you’re 100% correct on that assessment!
i find all of this is highly reflected in most parts of todays’ society and its issues. It’s a discussion on how offensive, emotional and possibly political incorrect a person can be publicly etc. This kind of stuff is all over the place and you will find different opinions on it everywhere. People have different values and behaviours which is the result of a million factors.
Nowadays a $150 chinese amp can measure as good as expensive amps. So you can’t tell the difference if it’s sufficent enough to drive whatever headphone you’re using.
I think you messed some things up there, buddy. Oluv prefers a rather bright signature in my opinion, which is exactly the opposite of what you discribed. He critisized the Harman Target for having too much bass (which is ok to do, as especially the bass is highly determined by preference), and adapted “his” version of the B&K Optimum HiFi-Target, which is kinda the opposite of “dark” and “warm”. And what do you mean by “detail”? A boosted treble response? Maybe your preference is “VERY unorthodox”?
While I disagree with Oluv on a couple of issues and I sometimes dont like his kinda “aggressive” style, I still think he is a honest guy who just aims for the most natural sound reproduction. I can also understand him in some way, as there is a lot of crappy audio hardware out there which is still getting a lot of praise and hype by “audiophiles”. This can be chastening and I have gone through this too.
But I generally dont care for all this “reviewer” stuff, as I dont find it helpful to try to discribe an audio product like a bottle of wine and I think most of these reviewer guys are just paid or have other incentives, so for me this isnt really helpfull at all. There are way worse reviewers on YouTube I have seen (with even more followers).
Have a nice day.
I view Oluv the same way I view Anthony Fantano for music reviews - he makes fun videos to watch but his tastes are awful and he seems like a bit of a dick.
I’ve been watching a bunch of Oluv’s videos recently and the problem isn’t just that he has very particular tastes; it’s that he’s so harsh and dismissive of anything that doesn’t meet those tastes.
It reminds me of some people I used to know who would only listen to classic rock. Every band had to be a classic rock band with a convention guitar + bass + keyboard + drums, and anyone who deviated from that, tried unique instruments, did anything electronic, or recorded anything experimental - was making music ‘wrong’ and was thus bad.
There are people who actually have that type of viewpoint. And it’s not a viewpoint I’m very fond of.
Oluv’s reviews sort of remind me of that, except with him viewing a particular sound signature as the only ‘good’ one and anything that deviates from it is crap. For example, in a recent video he listened to a Grado RS1e for the first time, put it on for literally 14 seconds, and declared it to be “a broken cheap $20 headphone from Radio Shack”. It wasn’t “This is an unusual sound signature that I’m not a fan of.” It’s “I don’t like it, therefore it’s shit.” And that’s after literally 14 seconds of listening.
Now you can love or hate Grado’s sound, but that’s not a valid way to review something. And he does that all the time with so many different headphones. It’s a mentality of “I have a viewpoint of how things ought to be, and anything that doesn’t match my viewpoint is automatically shit.” That’s just a bad review style and makes people put very little weight on his opinions, even if his videos are entertaining.
He’s the perfect anti-hype guy. 
He is like a less scientific Amir in my opinion. Music isn’t just about being accurate. He would probably take the Sony mdr 7506 over the grado ps2000e, which is laughable
He’s the perfect anti-hype guy.
More like anti-expensive or anti-non-earfun/anker imho
He is like a less scientific Amir in my opinion
I appreciate what Amir is doing, but his headphone reviews are useless imho, if you don’t adhere to harman curve
Definitely not a shill. Anti-hyper and authentic.
Well, he does use his MH1 over much more expensive iems, doesn’t he? They do sound more natural and relaxed than my FH3 and I used to prefer them over them too for a few months but nowadays my ears have been accustomed to the higher resolution of the FH3 and I hardly take out the MH1 anymore.
And he also said my Nighthawks are shit as well as the new Stealth’s, come on Oluv! Don’t spoil our fun!