I really wish people, particularly people who expose themselves to the public through things like YouTube, would learn not to be dismissive dicks about other people’s tastes. Which is hardly unique to Oluv, in fact seems to be endemic to the audiophile community honestly, particularly on Discord. But for Oluv, like it can’t be that some people just like the enhanced soundstage of the 800S, it’s “wrong” and “unnatural”. It moves for him from a matter of taste to a moral issue. If you like this, you’re wrong. It’s funny to me that he’ll call something “unlistenable” and then in the same video say your ears adjust to unusual tunings and they sound normal. So, not actually unlistenable then? His hyper focus on frequency response is weird, he seems to think detail retrieval is just a function of treble FR, but this is obviously disprovable by taking a cheap earphone and eq’ing up the treble and seeing if it has the same detail as an expensive earphone with high detail retrieval. But maybe he just doesn’t hear detail retrieval or speed or transient response or timbre the way other people do? Or he’s convinced himself that he doesn’t hear these things? Like I think he said he didn’t hear the 800S having more detail than the 400SE, and I haven’t heard the 400SE but I find that hard to believe? I donno, it’s weird, and I don’t really get it, and I feel like there’s something that I’m missing. Like I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt (unlike what he’s willing to give other people’s opinions) that there’s something honest and real to him about what he’s saying, but I don’t understand what it is. In any case, dismissing everything except like 3 things as unlistenable crap is just absurd and frankly makes you look insane.
Though I do kind of respect the way he’s kind of an anti-reviewer more than a reviewer, like generally a reviewer’s brief is to explain what a product is about and who it might be for, why someone might want to or not want to purchase it and how it compares to similar products. Oluv though isn’t interested in who a product might be for, he’s only interested in whether it’s his very particular definition of true, and almost nothing is, and the stuff that is is typically cheap.
Further, this idea of using pink noise to figure out what’s neutral to your personal hearing is absolutely fascinating and I wish he or someone else would break down step-by-step instructions on how to do it, because I’d love to try it with just all my headphones and see what it sounds like. It looks like Oluv MIGHT have something like that on his Patreon, if it doesn’t only work for those EarMan things he worked on, and I might have to sign up for it just for that, unless anyone knows someone else who’s explained the method somewhere. I have headphones and earphones that I love but feel like there’s something nigglingly wrong in the FR that needs tweaking, but I’m not skilled enough at recognizing the frequencies to know what it might be.
There is a tool made by a researcher that claims you can adjust a headphone’s FR to your hearing by listening to specific tones a volume-match them one by one. I guess the methodology is similar to oluv’s?
There is nothing, absolutely nothing, more dangerous than telling an audiophile they could have had 90% of what’s to be had spending 10% of what they spent.
Once you have spent the big bucks, what you bought is inseparable of what makes you…you. You are ALL IN and will go to war to defend the many awesome reasons your purchase decision was divine.
Hence you rarely read things like “I spent $3K on this and I wasted my money” but you often read things like “at $500, I expected much better”.
Ah, the irony.
Oluv has a way to rub these people totally wrong.
But, as so many out there these days, he is also obsessed with “a FR curve to rule them all” and he is wrong in that regard.
Sunk cost fallacy is definitely a thing. But I mean, it’s not as simple as that either since even people who like expensive gear will tell you some expensive gear doesn’t sound as good as some cheap gear. Eg. People ragging on Meze or Grado while still enjoying expensive Hifiman headphones. (Joshua Valour has a funny video for example where he explains why he thinks the sr60x sound better than the $1000 Grado headphone that’s 10x the price.) This idea that you can just EQ everything to a target and make them sound basically the same because FR is 90% of the sound or whatever seems obviously and demonstrably false. However, everyone also agrees that there’s diminishing returns as you go up the chain which definitionally means you’re getting less value for your money as you spend more.
Which is all to say I think his claim that a $10 Sony with EQ is better than the HD800S is obviously nonsense, for example, but I also think there’s something to the idea that people chase the new shiny thing to get that dopamine rush and have an investment in believing it’s better, when a lot of things that cost more than the HD600 probably don’t actually sound better than the HD600.
Just as it’s seductive to think all these expensive things make a difference, it’s also seductive to think that none of them do and it’s all a big scam, and it’s easy to convince yourself either way because you want to believe.
Yes, my generalization is just that…a generalization. I have come away from $2K+ headphones purchases thinking “darn, it’s better, but not $1K better”. But of course, even I took a few weeks to admit that to myself.
Secondly, yes as well, the other side of that argument is also a fallacy. A large segment of the market wants to believe something cheap can outperform something very expensive. Probably because no one likes to be left out.
As often in this type of scenario, the truth is probably in the middle.
There is probably a price (maybe $1K right now) beyond which bang for the buck diminishes exponentially.
You look how Oluv make too much mistakes , DHRMC for blue and me for green look stuck for 10khz no solution to fix weird how ?? by Squiqlink is community audiophiles database graph . Any solution or boycott anyways , your vote me appreciate it for any solution .
That is funny, about 3 months ago, I was talking about the deal where some IEMs do or don’t sound like they have good bass. I find that nozzle angle has a huge impact on how good the IEM seals, and as a result the bass.
I was surprised that I had a very different experience with the Artti R2 and EW200, than most of the folks reviewing them. The oddest bit was that people who loved the Artti R2 seemed to dislike the Ziigaat Cinno. Those two have very different nozzle angles, and I think was what I was observing.
You true ,I have check documentation,treble is crucial to our hearing even audiologist probably hate . The best is know frequency loudness db volume despite signstures ,10khz look to harsh ,actually there is no harman ,rtings,crinacle,super review target to do .For me prefer ,bass because I have sharp ear listening way .
If he know treble and bass ,he have strong knowledge to deal it ,you all may know why audiologist hate over amplify as average listener ,for me I know where can be up the 1 or 2 db amplify .Same to Paul @ps audio what is talk for experince while review equipment .For me ,chifi has hrtf and don’t claim their signatures which confuse to average person and me too ,trust audiologist if everyone hate themselves ,same method different technique only .Just it ,for him he will prefer chifi .So for harman ,they know it so well and they have doctor and jbl specialist team and samsung audio team ,there is no way to criticise.And he say jbl low power but he probably jbl dna for speaker ,but audio for speaker that is why jbl speaker small or big has open environment ,for sony we know it all ,sony built for old people .
I don’t know where my ear can be position of stereo image , if I say treble left or right mid section is in front .Cause by science of audio or others , so probably I can detect fast and sharp , if you want true frequency mic rta .
