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)
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).
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 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
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!
Oluvs personal preference aside the one thing I love about his reviews are the sound demo/comparisons of headphones and BT speakers. This style of review I find much more to my liking than the standard yt reviewers mumbo-jumbo “oh this product x is really crisp and smooth at this an this frequency range”.
Sadly there are only very view reviewers who do sound demos. Hats off to Tharbarmar and Oluv. Zeos does them too but only for the single product at hand. Thanks to them I saved a few bucks on gear which turned out to be not so great as I imagined.
One audiophile meme he initially supported and even hyped was the Focal Elex. Then his broke, and he had issues with the replacements too, so he went public with the build quality issues and withdrew his endorsement. That’s not something you see often, and I have to give him props for it.
I would agree with his sentiment there. It’s one thing to have a fantastic headphone and what seems to be initially good build quality and finish, only to pull your hair out once something actually breaks.
Focal and Klipsch are the prime evils of aftermarket parts when you want to replace it with original ones. Look at the Klipsch HP-3 as an example, looks and sounds fantastic. Build quality is very solid at a glance, and all the hinges etc are of superb quality. But did you know that the leather headband is not actually stitched? It’s glued, with an absolute miniscule amount of material and glue too.
So when my brother’s pair separated at the top of the headband, Klipsch basically wanted him to shell out €300 for the headband and €150 for EACH cup. That’s half the bloody headphone for parts that are basically wear and tear only.
Focal are equally retarded expensive when it comes to spare parts. Not something you want to deal with when the drivers can basically survive for decades if you treat them right. Meanwhile you can get Sennheiser parts anywhere and for very little money out of your own pocket, it’s basically like buying spare parts for an older Volvo. Got a pair of 22+ year old HD600 and they’re still kicking.
I wish more companies thought of product lifetime and aftermarket support.
