The Monkey Posted October 24, 2013 Report Share Posted October 24, 2013 Are you suggesting that, if someone were to launch a class-action suit over, say, the Singlepower debacle, HF might be a defendant? I think HF handled that incident pretty well all things considered. Wasn't it kind of the first major incident of that nature? And by someone who had been a valued member for years. iirc, nothing was suppressed and the information was pretty well circulated. Certainly there were things to be learned, though. And things like deleting negative comments or pictures of shoddy work or letting vendors continue to advertise who haven't communicated with customers for a year, all after the SP incident, strike me as kind of cavalier in the risk assessment department. Hell, even here we had someone make a stupid threat about using his name, which was indeed stupid, but out of an abundance of caution (and to get him the hell away from us) we stopped using it. So I guess my point is that doing business with unsavory business partners is a risk that, imo, should be seriously considered. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morphsci Posted October 25, 2013 Report Share Posted October 25, 2013 Not losing money is not the same as making money. Maybe I am naive but my perception of Jude's initial intention was to have Head-Fi pay for itself since at the beginning he did front the costs for the site. How quickly that changed into a for-profit site I will not even guess Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acidbasement Posted October 25, 2013 Report Share Posted October 25, 2013 And things like deleting negative comments or pictures of shoddy work or letting vendors continue to advertise who haven't communicated with customers for a year, all after the SP incident, strike me as kind of cavalier in the risk assessment department. No freaking kidding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forbigger Posted October 25, 2013 Report Share Posted October 25, 2013 i believe its going to take some serious injury or even fatality to have an authority start investigating on those shoddy practices of the manufacturer mentioned in this thread. Even that I believe Jude as the administrator of the site will be far far away from any liabilities. CMIIW Additionally, unless the amount of money is huge, any cheating/skimming money over at HF will also fly under authority radar. Couples of complaints wont move the authority to take actions. They have a much bigger fish to fry....... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spritzer Posted October 25, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 25, 2013 I think HF handled that incident pretty well all things considered. Wasn't it kind of the first major incident of that nature? And by someone who had been a valued member for years. iirc, nothing was suppressed and the information was pretty well circulated. Certainly there were things to be learned, though. And things like deleting negative comments or pictures of shoddy work or letting vendors continue to advertise who haven't communicated with customers for a year, all after the SP incident, strike me as kind of cavalier in the risk assessment department. Having been at the center of that mess, how it was handled at HF was highly suspect. When we initially posted about it with just internal pics from owners as evidence it was all removed and all our claims refuted by Mikhail. The pics were good enough to fully redraw the circuit but it was made abundantly clear that without a unit to rip apart nothing could be said about the matter. It took close to a year to source an ES-1 and by that time Nate has posted about the Extreme and shit had hit the fan. How many new amps were sold and how many owners sent in amps for repairs in that time frame is the real question though. An open discussion could have changed some of that. The issue of the cheated owners taking legal action against HF (as well as Mikhail) has been brought up a few times over the years. I've never wanted to be a part of it aside from providing all the data I have from that time (everything was saved for posterity). I've had enough of legal BS to last a lifetime. The monetary amount is certainly sizable as there were enough of 10K+$ amps that never worked. This also applies to this thread and any other detailed discussion about a commercial product. The consumer should be presented with as much info as is possible, not just what the MOT wants them to see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Monkey Posted October 25, 2013 Report Share Posted October 25, 2013 Additionally, unless the amount of money is huge, any cheating/skimming money over at HF will also fly under authority radar. Couples of complaints wont move the authority to take actions. They have a much bigger fish to fry....... "Cheating/skimming"? WTF? I hope you're not getting that from me because I certainly never implied it. To be perfectly clear, I don't think anyone at HF is doing anything intentionally wrong. But, HF, like many other similar websites, takes a risk with its business partners and that risk increases commensurate with the amount it sticks its neck out to protect them. Whether there are bigger fish to fry is debatable, but that is one point among many in a proper risk analysis. And it's so easily mitigated. What are these vendors going to do--walk? I doubt it. Walk where? There's no place else to advertise right now, at least in the headphone market. Big audio is a different story. I can't wait to see someone sue one of the cable manufacturers. That's going to happen. And if I ran one of the magazines that relentlessly feeds the hype machine surrounding cables, I'd be worried about that, First Amendment notwithstanding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forbigger Posted October 25, 2013 Report Share Posted October 25, 2013 for lack of better words Dinny. What i meant was like the episode of SP. Taking money and never delivered the products. I find it a bit waste of time for anyone to sue the cable mfg. Unless youre talking a class action vs the big boys like Monster. But for a single individual to sue those boutique cable company, I seriously doubt any individual will go through the hassle. Besides when it comes to this junction usually its only the lawyer thats win. I have slightly a different experience than headphone world. But this is with wine in Australia. I helped some of my clients to source some premium Australian wines. Was introduced this wine trader by the name of Andrew Roper from Wineflyer. This happened way back in 2004. I send the money and this asshole didnt send the products. After all avenue was exhausted, I engage a lawyer to demand him to payback all the money he have taken. Didnt work. It was roughly USD30k lessons for me and around 3k for the fucking lawyer whom is totally useless in helping. Try going through governmental channel, didnt get much help too. And this happened in Australia where the law and regulation are supposed to be good and fair Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Monkey Posted October 25, 2013 Report Share Posted October 25, 2013 $30k? That is very upsetting. (Grange?) And your experience points out a very serious flaw in the current system. It is still way too easy to defraud people online, especially internationally, because of the highly frustrating process of trying to go after these people. And places like ebay and paypal don't help at all. And as we've all seen, this goes both ways. Vendors are regularly defrauded by the scamsters out there. Justin's recent detective work shows just how useful a tool the forums can be when information is freely exchanged. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forbigger Posted October 25, 2013 Report Share Posted October 25, 2013 Yep. Assorted wines. Granges, Hill of Grace and Wolf Blass Platinum's. Took me around 1.5 yrs to pay back my clients and fortunately they're very understanding about my situation since I show them all my email correspondence with lawyers and the sob who cheated me...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nnotis Posted October 25, 2013 Report Share Posted October 25, 2013 Justin's recent detective work shows just how useful a tool the forums can be when information is freely exchanged. Can you please elaborate? Was someone trying to scam Head-Amp? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwzhan Posted October 25, 2013 Report Share Posted October 25, 2013 Can you please elaborate? Was someone trying to scam Head-Amp? Someone scammed lots of people including TTVJ and tried to scam Justin. There is an article on Tyll's website. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nebby Posted October 25, 2013 Report Share Posted October 25, 2013 Someone scammed lots of people including TTVJ and tried to scam Justin. There is an article on Tyll's website. Link for the lazy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarlSeibert Posted October 25, 2013 Report Share Posted October 25, 2013 I think Dinny it's on to something. This whole new world of viral/community marketing makes me uneasy. Best thing that could happen would be some legal authority to come along with a flamethrower and scare the living bejesus out of a lot of people. Let's face it, for all the good in online communities and much of the rest of it, there's a tremendous amount of greed involved. marketing through communities costs next to nothing. And there's a sense that there's no risk involved. No accountability. And the day to day culture is corrosive. There's no way somebody can spend all day stealing copyrighted work and keep their moral compass. There damn well needs to be some risk. Bring on a dangerous person, I say. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nnotis Posted October 25, 2013 Report Share Posted October 25, 2013 Isn't this site a fix for the "Head-Fi Gone Wild" problem? I think a lot of people come here to search for info on headphone X or amp Y. Even if Jude deletes posts that mention it directly, Googling "Cavalli Audio Liquid Lightning" brings up this thread 6 spots down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roadtonowhere08 Posted October 26, 2013 Report Share Posted October 26, 2013 (edited) Isn't this site a fix for the "Head-Fi Gone Wild" problem? I think a lot of people come here to search for info on headphone X or amp Y. Even if Jude deletes posts that mention it directly, Googling "Cavalli Audio Liquid Lightning" brings up this thread 6 spots down. This site is everything that Head-Fi should have been. There is a lot to be said about culling the heard on forums by strictly adhering to a set of principles from the get go. Anyone not willing to follow the culture is run off. That's why this place is still great years later and Head-Fi is a bag of shit. Then again, one could make the argument that Head-Fi is still following it's original principles: build the base and cash in. Either way, it's still shit. Jude deletes posts about this place because he is an insecure shithead. Edit: I like to say shit today. Edited October 26, 2013 by roadtonowhere08 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tin ear Posted October 26, 2013 Report Share Posted October 26, 2013 I haven't been around this scene long enough to know what head-fi was like "back in the day" but it's a headphone hype-mart now and Jude's video previews are as critical as a late night tv advertisement with similar production values. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guzziguy Posted October 26, 2013 Report Share Posted October 26, 2013 Isn't this site a fix for the "Head-Fi Gone Wild" problem? I think a lot of people come here to search for info on headphone X or amp Y. Even if Jude deletes posts that mention it directly, Googling "Cavalli Audio Liquid Lightning" brings up this thread 6 spots down. I tried this to see what would come up besides Cavalli Audio. There was a glowing review on avforum. Probably the reviewer should stick to TVs. I noticed one interesting thing. It appears that Cavalli Audio isn't confident in the robustness of their products as they offer only a 1 year warranty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Monkey Posted October 26, 2013 Report Share Posted October 26, 2013 I like Jude and I'll always be thankful for Head-Fi. Without it, I would not have met many of the true friends I have made through this hobby. It's the sleazy vendors and aggressively stupid posters I can't stand. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roadtonowhere08 Posted October 26, 2013 Report Share Posted October 26, 2013 I like Jude and I'll always be thankful for Head-Fi. Without it, I would not have met many of the true friends I have made through this hobby. It's the sleazy vendors and aggressively stupid posters I can't stand. You are more than welcome to like him, but you cannot separate him and the others. It's his site and his rules. When those people you cannot stand are allowed to run wild on his site (not to mention the pervasive nepotism), he is just as responsible. Think of all the shillery and vendors who are just full of shit. He could kick them faster than they could spell snake oil, but he does not. I understand that idiots are gullible and are prone to marketing, but he's aiding that practice by allowing it to happen on his site. He has done a lot to help the hobby, but he has also done a lot to hurt the hobby at least indirectly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMoney Posted October 26, 2013 Report Share Posted October 26, 2013 I've always thought what head-fi needed to solve some of these issues was a reputation system, ideally with a way to upvote/downvote posts. I've told this to Jude personally at meets, but I don't think he was all that keen on the idea. Also it'd be nice if reputation in certain forums like the DIY thread and the Summit-Fi thread were weighted much more heavily as opposed to the budget/joke/lifestyle threads to help distinguish who knows what the heck they are talking about from those who don't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nebby Posted October 26, 2013 Report Share Posted October 26, 2013 Reputation systems also come with their own set of issues, just implementing one doesn't easily fix the issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMoney Posted October 26, 2013 Report Share Posted October 26, 2013 Fix? Of course not. Step in the right direction? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spritzer Posted October 26, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 26, 2013 Best would be to abolish post count. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morphsci Posted October 26, 2013 Report Share Posted October 26, 2013 Best would be to abolish post count Head-Fi. FTFY Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grawk Posted October 26, 2013 Report Share Posted October 26, 2013 a good part of head-fi's value comes from the idiots with a million posts. They're seen as influencers and attract more people. Whether or not we agree with the recommendations they make, or their judgement, or whatever, it's how head-fi attracts new people. And eyeballs and influence are what matter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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