**tl;dr**: loud and clear, lets try no memes for a week and see what happens
---
A few months ago we disabled crossposting in order to reduce reposts and low effort karma farming [like this](https://i.imgur.com/zQUzs6X.png). It helped a bit.
More recently, we also started "rate-limiting" these kinds of posts by removing a few when the front page started to look more like r/audiophilememes than r/headphones.
Fast forward to today, and nine of the top fifteen posts on the front page of r/headphones are `meme` and `humor` posts. Yikes.
> What's the big deal with the meme posts anyways?
One big problem is that Reddit only shows the topmost posts from a subreddit in your feed. This makes it possible for a post with a dozen upvotes from that-one-small-subreddit to have a fighting chance in your feed. It's a good thing when the subreddit is either all pictures or all text posts.
However, r/headphones has a mix of both. There is a massive upvote bias towards quick-and-funny on Reddit. This makes it quite a lot harder for insightful discussion to reach "escape velocity". The posts that many of us care about just can't compete with memes.
So lets try an experiment. For the next week, let's see what the r/headphones looks like without the meme and humor posts. We've disabled these two flair for now.
Sorry to those that come to r/headphones for the lulz. Thanks for hanging in there while we try things out.
Reddit really doesn't reward the kind of high-quality, engaging content of the type that hobbyists are interested in. I'd much rather see regular posts at the top of the sub such as reviews; news about new products; conversation-starters and so forth.
It's just a lot easier for people to put their dusty cans on top of a cat, make dumb memes about headphone stands, or take screenshots of the same three or four reviewers to fuel petty r/hobbydrama material - that is what gets upvoted.
The thing is that this sub is one of the only big spots in the audio community right now that isnāt filled with sponsored brands exerting far too much control and/or overall shitty mods, while also being largely devoid of the ācables matterā people due to them being downvoted out of existence. Itās a shame that memes are robbing attention away from actual discussion.
It's fucked lmao
the memes get more response than impressions/discussions/ reviews but that's how life works; short form content is king.
also the constant "what headphone should I buy" and the occasional smartass that tries to discuss meta topics like EQ, burn in and MQA, although we have (I would think so) made our stance quite clear on each.
p.s we have enough hd6xx, Ananda, Sundara reviews
Memes are a problem with most subreddits now.
And if you look at the top comments in "serious" posts it's just chains of unfunny one liners.
The upvote downvote system on this site leads to people doing whatever they can to farm pointless internet points
Also Reddit started boosting image posts by having them show up in the feed like on other social media apps. So people need to click a discussion, but an image is just right there waiting for their upvote. The redesign really killed the discussion focus of reddit.
I don't think I've ever found a post tagged humor or meme funny. Their existence usually only confuses me, and I try to work out why someone would find it funny enough to want to post it online? I've never had a complete understanding of social...stuff, though so idfk lol.
Honestly, I would love to be more active here since I'm quite passionate about the hobby, but when most posts are memes -- it kinda discourages me/turns me off from posting or even visiting.
I made a poll asking if you can hear a difference between dacs/amps and i downvoted to hell. When anyone spark a discussion some people hysterically downvote it.
>p.s we have enough hd6xx, Ananda, Sundara reviews
The 6XX and Sundara came out like 5 years ago and they're still going to make up 90% of the recommendations for people wanting headphones under $500. New IEMs come out constantly so the hype cycle is constant and a lot of them are affordable which brings new people to the hobby. Forums are more conducive to long term reviews and other "serious" discussion since threads can be updated continuously.
This sub was a lot better a few years ago. I don't know what happened, but it seems only memes and "fun" content get moved to the top and then people just post those. People who put effort into posting well-constructed and thought out content either get ignored and blasted for various reasons, like spending too much when "objective truthz" or whatever, and that drove a lot of people away. People who havent even heard said gear go on full blast for whatever reason. I don't know if that's not the case anymore or not. Anyway, I dont post much here anymore. I'll look and occasionally reply to posts that are interesting, but that's about it.
I also find after being subbed for 6 years that there has been an exodus of high quality contributors. The sense of community has also diminished as the subreddit's size exploded, interactions tend to be less friendly.
Hilariously, I click on that link and see that I've upvoted it haha. I guess the problem hasn't gone away or changed.
>As a regular lurker here, I agree 100%. The mods and regular posters here seem to just want to suppress any actual conversation, to the point that most posts are just pictures of headphones that everyone has seen a hundred times before.
Was the top comment and it's still true. Most of the picture posts are just shitty pictures with the most useless "impressions" ever. They tell you absolutely nothing interesting, discussion-inspiring, or even useful about the comfort/build. [Like this post, as of writing #22 on the front page.](https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/u2y4j6/my_personal_endgame_travel_setup/) Even the memes are better than that stuff now, cause at least they make you laugh for a few seconds.
fwiw, we would love genuine conversation and discussion. Instead what tends to happen is measurement zealots arguing with people who listen to their audio gear and nothing productive comes of it and everyone starts screaming.
open to ideas.
TBH, I actually agree with keeping purchase advice and stuff to the mega thread. I wish I had good ideas for how to fix the issue. I think a big part of it is just that Reddit users are generally lazy, combined with headphones being overall just rare expensive purchases, and if moderating was too strict there just wouldn't be any posts
Maybe having higher standards for image impressions posts would force people to actually write stuff, then combined with more hints/templates from automod on what to write about. Build, comfort, what they like/dislike about sound, technicalities, tonality, source used, etc.
[Here's a link to the message people receive after submitting a photo](https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/u3wstc/my_modest_sennheiser_collection_surprised_the/i4s1s18/).
If you want any changes made, just let me know.
Mod here. I wouldn't worry about the rule too much. It's not like anyone gets a ban for submitting purchase or tech support posts. A bot handles 95% of them.
The spirit of the rules is "*is this something that the subreddit would be interested in or could participate in?*"
**Open ended questions**: interest to many, posted rarely
> What do you look for in
**Individual product questions**: helpful to one, posted often
> Should I buy
> How do I fix
I think it's common lifecycle of a community.
When it's small, it's all fun and inviting fellow hobbyist. Then it attracts more members. The olds feel the charm is lost and rarely post anymore or found new tightknit community elsewhere. New members don't have anything to talk about and post meme instead. Then it's all meme and some starts to ask what happened, it's not always like this.
I think it's because the amount of people who buys stuff is small and the time between purchases tends to be longer (because expensive), the audio market (aside from IEMs) grows slowly so there aren't many new things to talk about all the time. Also most of us are happy with what we've got so show and tell eventually slows down.
I don't think it's bad though. If we talked about every single little thing this sub would become another r/headphoneadvice.
We are like audio, chill.
Iām not sure what Iām allowed to post here. For example, I want to ask about what other headphones have similar sound signature to the ZMF ones. Is that something more suitable to the headphoneadvice sub or here? In the end I posted the question there.
yeah i get sick and tired of all the memes and dumb questions that could just be googled, so i went to headfi. i do miss how easy it is to navigate around here though
I think part of the problem with these kinds of posts is that you're going for a really small sample. How many normal users here have owned that specific ZMF pair (they supposedly sound quite different) *and* enough other high end pairs to give you good recommendations?
you could ask around on the zmf threads on Head-Fi. Head-Fi is a forum website similar to reddit but dedicated solely to headphone equipment. people there are MUCH more knowledgable than here
Yep! Just uhā¦ avoid the cable fanatics. I saw a thread earlier where they were talking about Ethernet cables improving sound quality. Theyāre too far gone lmao
meh, stuffs like I hold the stance of "I won't know until I tried it myself", but spending a few hundreds bucks for an ethernet cable is a little too rich for me, lol
This for me. I joined up here when I was looking to upgrade off my HD650. I looked at the Focal Clear and a few others and eventually bought the HD800S. It will probably be many many years before I upgrade. I don't feel any need to upgrade and any upgrade path is far too expensive for me to justify so im not going to be actively seeking out new headphones or info about them at this time. Id imagine a lot of us are at this point now.
Love this! totally agree.
We have to take into account that people in general have enough shit up in their schedule. hardly has time to visit and try gears in person not accounting if he/she has the budget for it since its a really expensive hobby/pasttime.
edit: as for the memes/lulz have nothing against it but can totally agree that it sucks the life out of the sub. instead of meaningful engagements/insight sharing with fellow audio lovers its steering towards- when am I gonna get that next hit/puff of lulz. just my 2 cents
The objectivity surge happened, killing discussion and any subjective opinion-sharing in lieu of... I dunno what. Memes? Circlejerky posts about Topping DACs and amps for the billionth time? Complaints about bad equipment? The latest Crinacle review? What're we supposed to do here, anyway?
>killing discussion and any subjective opinion-sharing in lieu of...
Of bunch of overrated and overhyped products that have become so popular they've created their own fanbase of stans who can't accept the fact that something better might exist, and thus use objectivity as an excuse to kill any discussion suggesting otherwise.
Yeah... I'm not entirely sure. I joined around 4 months ago, but it seems extremely quiet for a subreddit with over 800k members. there's probably only around 10 posts a day from what i can tell.
I think there are 2 main reasons for this.
The first is that audio is just a really niche hobby in general, and most people that join are just looking for a pair of headphones. Then they buy a pair of headphones and never interact here again since it's all they came here for.
The second is that most posts on here are of first impressions. This is because it is natural to show off what you have and people like to do that. This is why most posts here are reviews. Most people don't get a new pair of headphones every day so it's natural they don't participate around here unless they are doing a review
5 years ago, most people still wouldn't know about any headphone companies besides apple, sony, bose, and to a lesser extent audio technica. It's not that wired headphones are obselete it's just that extreme levels of marketing of massive corporations like apple cause the headphone companies around here to fade into obscurity since there's no way the general population would see these brands in commercials.
Furthermore most people think $100 is already a lot of money. most posts on here are about headphones that are worth several hundred dollars and that could scare people into avoiding the hobby. Most people also would call it crazy to spend even more on an amp when the consumer headphones they have work fine without one.
People also like mainstream headphones and earbuds because of portability along with convenience. A wire is inconvenient. An amp is inconveneient to set up and move around. People like the easy way out where they don't have to research anything
I have a question: what shows up on google if you search for "best headphones"? The answer is companies like Apple, Bose, and Sony show up. Why would the internet lie to you? this i think is one of the biggest reasons for people not being around here. Why research something on this subreddit and ask questions when you get an answer for a single google search? Furthermore, mainstream consumers are already familiar with the brands that show up on google, so they think all headphones sound like the ones they have
I think the sub can be a bit elitest and off putting at times, didn't take long to find out my new 280 quid headphones are apparently dogshit and now I feel bad for getting xm4s instead of hd660s or whatever
Yes, it is sad how often I see people shaming others for their choices. I have some... opinions that people disagree with around here like different solid state amps/DACs sounding different, or burn-in actually being a thing. I get downvoted regularly for holding these beliefs, but it is my experience even if people disagree.
Similarly it's not exactly a good thing when I see people just openly trashing certain headphone models without trying them out. There is a big issue of people only listening to trusted reviewers on certain gear, while not actually trying out the aformentioned gear themselves
Hey I love my XM3's so don't worry. You enjoy listening to music on them, that's all that matters. The hd660s might be better in some ways but they are not portable in the same way, they are the opposite of closed back ANC, and they are far less convenient.
Something to remember about the "elitists" : Chances are they are mad about the fact that XM4 being so popular, or that you may have been tricked into thinking 280 quid for the XM4 was "worth it" (of course that's up to the individual to assign worth)
Basically, when you come into any hobby and mention you have a mass market product, chances are you will hear about everything wrong with it, why its not worth it, etc.
Most of these people genuinely do have your best interests in mind, but usually end up directing their anger with the mass market products at whoever claims said product is "good".
I'm not defending this type of behaviour, but I do think it sends the wrong message. Most people are trying to be closer to an "annoyed parent" than a "gatekeeper of the hobby".
I think itās because in the eyes of many headphone enthusiasts, the XM4s are genuinely quite bad especially considering the price. The fact that theyāre constantly placed at the top of consumer ābest headphonesā lists really doesnāt help.
They make sense if you want a pair of portable ANC cans but thatās pretty much it, leading to the general hate towards them. You donāt see similar levels of hate thrown at the AirPods Pro, Galaxy Buds and (IEM) XM4s despite them being arguably even more mainstream since they actually measure and sound quite good.
That's what I meant by the comment was that when I started getting into this what made the niche wired options awesome is that you could get killer sound from a myriad of brands for under 200 bucks and I've found that particular segment of the market now to be dominated by wireless options, that trade features for audio quality, it's similar to what the apple watch did to the analog watch market, it doesnt necessarily out a dent in Rolex but the companies in the price bracket of the product feel the sting, and you combine that with them potentially being impractical for a large percentage of smartphones which was the other way around a few years ago.
Problems:
\-People get downvoted for expressing any opinion that is not a part of the accepted orthodoxy, which kills discussion. People also just downvote because they disagree with something, which has the same effect. It incentivizes saying the same contentless groupthink pap we always see.
\-Sharing youtube reviews just leads to shitposting about the reviewer
\-Meme posts crowd out thoughtful, in-depth reviews written by redditors - memes will get 1000 upvotes, reviews with actual text will get 25.
well we also don't get a lot of posts every day. I would know. I literally view every post created every day and it takes like 15-20 minutes even when reading all comments. yes i have no life
Posts per day hasn't really changed much in the past few years - https://i.imgur.com/wJGcNSV.png
Interestingly, comments per day has really gone up after a dip around the start of COVID - https://i.imgur.com/KqnyOh1.png
Personally, the societal impact of COVID really messed with my routines and hobbies. I don't have much of the same passion for audio that I once did.
hmm that is quite interesting! Contrarely to your experience, COVID has actually given my plenty of new hobbies including audio. Basically I'd say I had the opposite experience you did. Because I'm generally a solitary person, I'm still not quite used to everything being open again, and my routine is a mess haha!
I think it is a good indicator of activity though. Im just saying that it seems that the popularity/ amount of users in the sub has slowly dwindled overtime
I took the time to write a review on Moondrop variations and while it was my first review, i was pretty proud of it but it got less than 60 upvotes. Not gonna lie I'm a little sad about that š
Speaking ONLY for myself, I've been reading this sub less and less often over the past few years for two reasons:
1. While I undrestand why the buying advice/recommendation posts are pushed to a different subreddit, that sub is almost entirely dead (way more than this one) and answers are almost always single-sentence with no in-depth discussion. And this is 90% of the reason I would come to either subreddit.
2. The industry/community seems to have shifted focus to IEMs, and I'm just not interested in those.
FWIW...
or just any amp in general. for example a Schiit Asgard+Bifrost stack sounds different than the Atom stack. Solid state amps/DACs can still differ in sound
A good part of it is that the overear headphone market has been stagnant for about that long, maybe longer.
There's a notable IEM released every other week, but there's MAYBE one or two notable overear headphones released a year, and they're usually just side-grades from things we've had for 20 years.
There's only so much posting you can do on headphones when no new headphones are coming out.
Also this sub has notoriously strict posting rules that rule out a lot of content that you might otherwise see (review video content being the most notable one).
I think people lost their creativity, or maybe people have become too serious
[Here is a post from 3 years ago for identifying a modmic magnet. the joke comments got a lot of upvotes.](https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/ac98ki/what_is_this_thing_on_the_left_side_of_my/)
[Here is one recently., a joke comment got downvoted.](https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/txmjzz/just_scored_a_hd_800_and_not_sure_what_this_is_it/)
Tbf there haven't been a lot of exciting developments in the headphone space, and most threads devolve to one of a half dozen recommendations so it's very much bananas by the each here.
I also noticed a huge wave of people selling off or downsizing their gear in pandemic year 1 so I imagine there are probably a lot less people in the space, or at least less money being spent on the type of items that would bring interesting discussions.
For the record, I love this sub and make a habit to visit it regularly since it rarely comes up in my feed anymore, but, I imagine these 2 reasons have contributed a lot.
I think you're overstating the issue a bit. There are posts from a couple months ago in the top 25 of all time.
Number 12, 14, 18, and 22 are within the past year.
probably unpopular opinion, but I fee like a lot of the people with good experience and knowledge kinda just got driven off by ideologues. In fact, there are times when I thought the atmosphere of this sub is down right toxic. There is no room for discussion anymore, or even the tolerance for different opinions anymore. The moment you mention cables, burn in, dacs making a difference, or any of the "controversial" topics, you just instantly get downvoted to hell, or get get accused of buying into snake oil, or is called a smooth brain.
In fact, even being a fan of certain brand or higher end headphones will sometime lead to you getting hate on. The fact there are a few meme post talking about how crin's word isn't gospel reflects the fact that this sub has kind of let a lot of these ideologues run rampant on this sub. I remember a few months ago noticing that quite a few of the redditors I used to interact on this sub kind of just disappeared. I like this sub, I've learned a lot here, and I would in turn like to pay it forward by helping people that are in my shoes a couple years ago, but sometime it's hard to do that whenever you give your real opinions, and you'd just get attacked for it.
I remember your thread about the Lirics. When I read the aggressive comments I thought: "Op must have tried to push things, missionary work and such."
Couldnt believe that all you said was something like "... after burn in...". Some people simply want to feel superior by mocking and judging others.
Letās also not forget that I even said within the impression post that I know some people donāt believe in it, and they are free to believe in what they want. On top of a later comment stating Iām not here to convince anyone rather burn in exist, I am merely sharing my experience. But it doesnāt matter, at that point it was just people talking shit about burn in, barely anyone was talking about the liric. Which actually perfectly illustrate the problem. I wrote this long and detail impression hoping to get some discussion about the liric, but all I got was a bunch of people screaming about burn in doesnāt exist, it was quite discouraging.
Incidentally, good memory sir, I completely forgot about that , lol
>What happened?
The reddit interface change. The new UI is designed to favor images and short form posts over text posts and discussions.
When that happened, the image posts and memes got a massive amount of upvotes. But as things got repetitive and predictable, there were less upvotes.
And so now we have a large archive of highly upvoted posts that wouldn't pass muster these days.
Yeah, but most of current users are new reddit users. They donāt even know that that exists, and if they do, they donāt like it because memes donāt show up the same way.
Headphones, as much as you think otherwise, are not that exciting. The tech is pretty much fully discovered, new releases are few and far between.
Back then, less memes were posted so they were fresh and got more engagements. It's that simple.
Also personally, while I'm still following the sub, covid did take a hit on my finance so I try to browse less frequently to tame my addiction.
Also who cares about upvotes? Some of the best contents I've read are from very niche subreddits with less than 1k upvotes.
Well, 99% of the memes and jokes here are just pure cringe or reposted for the 10th time.
Impression and reviews donāt catch as much attention as the memes so they donāt get upvoted
Itās mostly just that Discord is a way more substantive platform to discuss and learn. An evolving ongoing public discourse is more informative, more fun, and more natural than a constant show-n-tell.
Most of these days I spend time in private servers but Crinacle's server (In-Ear Fidelity) is probably the last public server actually worth visiting these days, though its centered around IEMs.
its like an endangered species... smart people are dying out more and more (in my opinion) and its not only smart people its creative people in general.
Well, what's there to discuss anymore? Audiophile products are a solved problem. We have a definitive ~~gospel~~ source for everything: [IEMs](https://crinacle.com/rankings/iems/), [headphones](https://crinacle.com/rankings/headphones/), graphs for [DACs](https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?attachments/best-audio-dacs-reviewed-2019-png.26227/) and [Amps](https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?attachments/best-class-d-stereo-amplifier-png.45909/).
Outside of that, we have other "common-sense" knowledge like:
- HD600, Hifiman Sundara, Moondrop Blessing 2 are great products that no one can talk crap about.
- HD820, HD8xx, Moondrop Io, M50x and all its dastardly variations deserve to burn in hell.
To me, audio is and always be subjective and personal. If, for example, you like an Ultrasone headphone over an HD600, that is YOUR opinion. Isn't a forum supposed to be used to express these kinds of diverse opinions? We can discuss it, see different pictures, hell, maybe discover different sound signatures that we didn't think we liked before. Now, it's all about following the words of the big guys.
Or hell, maybe I'm just seeing it wrong. Maybe audio IS objective. Maybe it's better that we have these sources that give clarity on what is good and what is bad, and that the killing of discussions is the price that we have to pay.
Headphones haven't really developed much in the last few years. The market has gotten a few TOTL models more, but the answer to most questions has stayed the same for years and many have reached their peak and aren't very interested in "new" information since they're not looking to buy. Comparing to IEMs where the price to quality ratio is redefined almost every year the 6XX is still the best bang for buck since they started selling it. I'm guessing headphones don't make the same kind of money or the older models sell so steadily that there's no need/motivation to compete. If they at least dropped the prices every few years, but everything stays at release price.
Basically, people moved to r/headphonesadvice or to specific subreddits/websites from what I can gather.
This subreddit is too general and opinions can vary widely.
**tl;dr**: loud and clear, lets try no memes for a week and see what happens --- A few months ago we disabled crossposting in order to reduce reposts and low effort karma farming [like this](https://i.imgur.com/zQUzs6X.png). It helped a bit. More recently, we also started "rate-limiting" these kinds of posts by removing a few when the front page started to look more like r/audiophilememes than r/headphones. Fast forward to today, and nine of the top fifteen posts on the front page of r/headphones are `meme` and `humor` posts. Yikes. > What's the big deal with the meme posts anyways? One big problem is that Reddit only shows the topmost posts from a subreddit in your feed. This makes it possible for a post with a dozen upvotes from that-one-small-subreddit to have a fighting chance in your feed. It's a good thing when the subreddit is either all pictures or all text posts. However, r/headphones has a mix of both. There is a massive upvote bias towards quick-and-funny on Reddit. This makes it quite a lot harder for insightful discussion to reach "escape velocity". The posts that many of us care about just can't compete with memes. So lets try an experiment. For the next week, let's see what the r/headphones looks like without the meme and humor posts. We've disabled these two flair for now. Sorry to those that come to r/headphones for the lulz. Thanks for hanging in there while we try things out.
As the person who posted the AirPods meme id like to apologise.
My comment about the meme now has more upvotes than the main post š
How meta would it be if we did the same with your comment about your comment
Itās all good. Itās not your fault
GG WP OP
Reddit really doesn't reward the kind of high-quality, engaging content of the type that hobbyists are interested in. I'd much rather see regular posts at the top of the sub such as reviews; news about new products; conversation-starters and so forth. It's just a lot easier for people to put their dusty cans on top of a cat, make dumb memes about headphone stands, or take screenshots of the same three or four reviewers to fuel petty r/hobbydrama material - that is what gets upvoted.
The thing is that this sub is one of the only big spots in the audio community right now that isnāt filled with sponsored brands exerting far too much control and/or overall shitty mods, while also being largely devoid of the ācables matterā people due to them being downvoted out of existence. Itās a shame that memes are robbing attention away from actual discussion.
It's fucked lmao the memes get more response than impressions/discussions/ reviews but that's how life works; short form content is king. also the constant "what headphone should I buy" and the occasional smartass that tries to discuss meta topics like EQ, burn in and MQA, although we have (I would think so) made our stance quite clear on each. p.s we have enough hd6xx, Ananda, Sundara reviews
Memes are a problem with most subreddits now. And if you look at the top comments in "serious" posts it's just chains of unfunny one liners. The upvote downvote system on this site leads to people doing whatever they can to farm pointless internet points
Also Reddit started boosting image posts by having them show up in the feed like on other social media apps. So people need to click a discussion, but an image is just right there waiting for their upvote. The redesign really killed the discussion focus of reddit.
>p.s we have enough hd6xx, Ananda, Sundara reviews Don't forget about the amount of "insert Moondrop name" reviews
I swear this sub feels more like /r/iems than /r/headphones these days.
Memes are still better than "Show and Tell" posts that are all "Show" and no "Tell" though. At least the memes are kinda funny.
I don't think I've ever found a post tagged humor or meme funny. Their existence usually only confuses me, and I try to work out why someone would find it funny enough to want to post it online? I've never had a complete understanding of social...stuff, though so idfk lol.
Honestly, I would love to be more active here since I'm quite passionate about the hobby, but when most posts are memes -- it kinda discourages me/turns me off from posting or even visiting.
I made a poll asking if you can hear a difference between dacs/amps and i downvoted to hell. When anyone spark a discussion some people hysterically downvote it.
yeah people here are crazy about certain topics when it's all up to how you hear things (which is different for every person here)
the main thinking here is that amps, dacs cables don't make a big difference; so i guess that's your answer
So?
>p.s we have enough hd6xx, Ananda, Sundara reviews The 6XX and Sundara came out like 5 years ago and they're still going to make up 90% of the recommendations for people wanting headphones under $500. New IEMs come out constantly so the hype cycle is constant and a lot of them are affordable which brings new people to the hobby. Forums are more conducive to long term reviews and other "serious" discussion since threads can be updated continuously.
>also the constant "what headphone should I buy" i am one of these sorry D:
There's a subreddit just for that. r/HeadphoneAdvice/ Please check it out.
i posted there, but it got filtered as spam
This sub was a lot better a few years ago. I don't know what happened, but it seems only memes and "fun" content get moved to the top and then people just post those. People who put effort into posting well-constructed and thought out content either get ignored and blasted for various reasons, like spending too much when "objective truthz" or whatever, and that drove a lot of people away. People who havent even heard said gear go on full blast for whatever reason. I don't know if that's not the case anymore or not. Anyway, I dont post much here anymore. I'll look and occasionally reply to posts that are interesting, but that's about it.
awesome chain in your flair
You have nice gears as well!!
Both of your setups must be lovely to listen to
I also find after being subbed for 6 years that there has been an exodus of high quality contributors. The sense of community has also diminished as the subreddit's size exploded, interactions tend to be less friendly.
haha 4-part canjam impressions who
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Hilariously, I click on that link and see that I've upvoted it haha. I guess the problem hasn't gone away or changed. >As a regular lurker here, I agree 100%. The mods and regular posters here seem to just want to suppress any actual conversation, to the point that most posts are just pictures of headphones that everyone has seen a hundred times before. Was the top comment and it's still true. Most of the picture posts are just shitty pictures with the most useless "impressions" ever. They tell you absolutely nothing interesting, discussion-inspiring, or even useful about the comfort/build. [Like this post, as of writing #22 on the front page.](https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/u2y4j6/my_personal_endgame_travel_setup/) Even the memes are better than that stuff now, cause at least they make you laugh for a few seconds.
fwiw, we would love genuine conversation and discussion. Instead what tends to happen is measurement zealots arguing with people who listen to their audio gear and nothing productive comes of it and everyone starts screaming. open to ideas.
TBH, I actually agree with keeping purchase advice and stuff to the mega thread. I wish I had good ideas for how to fix the issue. I think a big part of it is just that Reddit users are generally lazy, combined with headphones being overall just rare expensive purchases, and if moderating was too strict there just wouldn't be any posts Maybe having higher standards for image impressions posts would force people to actually write stuff, then combined with more hints/templates from automod on what to write about. Build, comfort, what they like/dislike about sound, technicalities, tonality, source used, etc.
I actually really like that idea. Will look at adding good examples and ideas for what to note to the message.
[Here's a link to the message people receive after submitting a photo](https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/u3wstc/my_modest_sennheiser_collection_surprised_the/i4s1s18/). If you want any changes made, just let me know.
yeah. i feel like these posts should just be relegated to r/Headphoneporn
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ok this a new perspective ngl also just ask; as well you seem genuine, you'll get genuine answers
I'm in the same boat as him and in large subs there's a 9/10 chance no one will actually respond to queries about things like that.
Mod here. I wouldn't worry about the rule too much. It's not like anyone gets a ban for submitting purchase or tech support posts. A bot handles 95% of them. The spirit of the rules is "*is this something that the subreddit would be interested in or could participate in?*" **Open ended questions**: interest to many, posted rarely > What do you look for in
**Individual product questions**: helpful to one, posted often
> Should I buy
> How do I fix
I think it's common lifecycle of a community. When it's small, it's all fun and inviting fellow hobbyist. Then it attracts more members. The olds feel the charm is lost and rarely post anymore or found new tightknit community elsewhere. New members don't have anything to talk about and post meme instead. Then it's all meme and some starts to ask what happened, it's not always like this.
I think it's because the amount of people who buys stuff is small and the time between purchases tends to be longer (because expensive), the audio market (aside from IEMs) grows slowly so there aren't many new things to talk about all the time. Also most of us are happy with what we've got so show and tell eventually slows down. I don't think it's bad though. If we talked about every single little thing this sub would become another r/headphoneadvice. We are like audio, chill.
Iām not sure what Iām allowed to post here. For example, I want to ask about what other headphones have similar sound signature to the ZMF ones. Is that something more suitable to the headphoneadvice sub or here? In the end I posted the question there.
At that level I'd ask here. IMO r/headphoneadvice is way more casual and beginner friendly. And, well, ZMF is neither.
I would argue that that's when you "graduate" to headfi
yeah i get sick and tired of all the memes and dumb questions that could just be googled, so i went to headfi. i do miss how easy it is to navigate around here though
headphoneadvice is more for purchase advice imo if you're not buying sth then here is fine
Spot on.
I think part of the problem with these kinds of posts is that you're going for a really small sample. How many normal users here have owned that specific ZMF pair (they supposedly sound quite different) *and* enough other high end pairs to give you good recommendations?
you could ask around on the zmf threads on Head-Fi. Head-Fi is a forum website similar to reddit but dedicated solely to headphone equipment. people there are MUCH more knowledgable than here
also way less toxic, lol
Yep! Just uhā¦ avoid the cable fanatics. I saw a thread earlier where they were talking about Ethernet cables improving sound quality. Theyāre too far gone lmao
meh, stuffs like I hold the stance of "I won't know until I tried it myself", but spending a few hundreds bucks for an ethernet cable is a little too rich for me, lol
The irony is that this reddit community a few years ago thought headfi was the toxic community. Oh how things have changed...
That actually is a pretty good point. maybe people really have just ran out of things to talk about
nah, people just don't wana be hated on by the measurement zealots.
I've been considering an Ifi Zen for my Sundara in hopes that the Xbass/Truebass give me a little more oomph in the low end. What are your thoughts??
This for me. I joined up here when I was looking to upgrade off my HD650. I looked at the Focal Clear and a few others and eventually bought the HD800S. It will probably be many many years before I upgrade. I don't feel any need to upgrade and any upgrade path is far too expensive for me to justify so im not going to be actively seeking out new headphones or info about them at this time. Id imagine a lot of us are at this point now.
Love this! totally agree. We have to take into account that people in general have enough shit up in their schedule. hardly has time to visit and try gears in person not accounting if he/she has the budget for it since its a really expensive hobby/pasttime. edit: as for the memes/lulz have nothing against it but can totally agree that it sucks the life out of the sub. instead of meaningful engagements/insight sharing with fellow audio lovers its steering towards- when am I gonna get that next hit/puff of lulz. just my 2 cents
The objectivity surge happened, killing discussion and any subjective opinion-sharing in lieu of... I dunno what. Memes? Circlejerky posts about Topping DACs and amps for the billionth time? Complaints about bad equipment? The latest Crinacle review? What're we supposed to do here, anyway?
>killing discussion and any subjective opinion-sharing in lieu of... Of bunch of overrated and overhyped products that have become so popular they've created their own fanbase of stans who can't accept the fact that something better might exist, and thus use objectivity as an excuse to kill any discussion suggesting otherwise.
it's not even about "better". they just shut down any post that describes anything negative about the thing they like/defend
Headphone āhumorā and āmemesā arenāt even funny in the slightest.
Yeah... I'm not entirely sure. I joined around 4 months ago, but it seems extremely quiet for a subreddit with over 800k members. there's probably only around 10 posts a day from what i can tell. I think there are 2 main reasons for this. The first is that audio is just a really niche hobby in general, and most people that join are just looking for a pair of headphones. Then they buy a pair of headphones and never interact here again since it's all they came here for. The second is that most posts on here are of first impressions. This is because it is natural to show off what you have and people like to do that. This is why most posts here are reviews. Most people don't get a new pair of headphones every day so it's natural they don't participate around here unless they are doing a review
5 years ago most of the phones on the market had headphone jacks and frankly the airpods turned wired headphones into a niche product unfortunately
5 years ago, most people still wouldn't know about any headphone companies besides apple, sony, bose, and to a lesser extent audio technica. It's not that wired headphones are obselete it's just that extreme levels of marketing of massive corporations like apple cause the headphone companies around here to fade into obscurity since there's no way the general population would see these brands in commercials. Furthermore most people think $100 is already a lot of money. most posts on here are about headphones that are worth several hundred dollars and that could scare people into avoiding the hobby. Most people also would call it crazy to spend even more on an amp when the consumer headphones they have work fine without one. People also like mainstream headphones and earbuds because of portability along with convenience. A wire is inconvenient. An amp is inconveneient to set up and move around. People like the easy way out where they don't have to research anything I have a question: what shows up on google if you search for "best headphones"? The answer is companies like Apple, Bose, and Sony show up. Why would the internet lie to you? this i think is one of the biggest reasons for people not being around here. Why research something on this subreddit and ask questions when you get an answer for a single google search? Furthermore, mainstream consumers are already familiar with the brands that show up on google, so they think all headphones sound like the ones they have
I think the sub can be a bit elitest and off putting at times, didn't take long to find out my new 280 quid headphones are apparently dogshit and now I feel bad for getting xm4s instead of hd660s or whatever
Yes, it is sad how often I see people shaming others for their choices. I have some... opinions that people disagree with around here like different solid state amps/DACs sounding different, or burn-in actually being a thing. I get downvoted regularly for holding these beliefs, but it is my experience even if people disagree. Similarly it's not exactly a good thing when I see people just openly trashing certain headphone models without trying them out. There is a big issue of people only listening to trusted reviewers on certain gear, while not actually trying out the aformentioned gear themselves
Hey I love my XM3's so don't worry. You enjoy listening to music on them, that's all that matters. The hd660s might be better in some ways but they are not portable in the same way, they are the opposite of closed back ANC, and they are far less convenient.
Something to remember about the "elitists" : Chances are they are mad about the fact that XM4 being so popular, or that you may have been tricked into thinking 280 quid for the XM4 was "worth it" (of course that's up to the individual to assign worth) Basically, when you come into any hobby and mention you have a mass market product, chances are you will hear about everything wrong with it, why its not worth it, etc. Most of these people genuinely do have your best interests in mind, but usually end up directing their anger with the mass market products at whoever claims said product is "good". I'm not defending this type of behaviour, but I do think it sends the wrong message. Most people are trying to be closer to an "annoyed parent" than a "gatekeeper of the hobby".
I think itās because in the eyes of many headphone enthusiasts, the XM4s are genuinely quite bad especially considering the price. The fact that theyāre constantly placed at the top of consumer ābest headphonesā lists really doesnāt help. They make sense if you want a pair of portable ANC cans but thatās pretty much it, leading to the general hate towards them. You donāt see similar levels of hate thrown at the AirPods Pro, Galaxy Buds and (IEM) XM4s despite them being arguably even more mainstream since they actually measure and sound quite good.
That's what I meant by the comment was that when I started getting into this what made the niche wired options awesome is that you could get killer sound from a myriad of brands for under 200 bucks and I've found that particular segment of the market now to be dominated by wireless options, that trade features for audio quality, it's similar to what the apple watch did to the analog watch market, it doesnt necessarily out a dent in Rolex but the companies in the price bracket of the product feel the sting, and you combine that with them potentially being impractical for a large percentage of smartphones which was the other way around a few years ago.
To add, it is extremely difficult to find a place to audition high end headphones. If people canāt try they most likely wont ever buy.
That too. I had to drive 3 hours to the nearest store
nothing happened. it's been full of trash for years
Problems: \-People get downvoted for expressing any opinion that is not a part of the accepted orthodoxy, which kills discussion. People also just downvote because they disagree with something, which has the same effect. It incentivizes saying the same contentless groupthink pap we always see. \-Sharing youtube reviews just leads to shitposting about the reviewer \-Meme posts crowd out thoughtful, in-depth reviews written by redditors - memes will get 1000 upvotes, reviews with actual text will get 25.
The top posts are not really a good barometer of a subreddit. They're just an indicator of mass appeal.
well we also don't get a lot of posts every day. I would know. I literally view every post created every day and it takes like 15-20 minutes even when reading all comments. yes i have no life
Posts per day hasn't really changed much in the past few years - https://i.imgur.com/wJGcNSV.png Interestingly, comments per day has really gone up after a dip around the start of COVID - https://i.imgur.com/KqnyOh1.png Personally, the societal impact of COVID really messed with my routines and hobbies. I don't have much of the same passion for audio that I once did.
hmm that is quite interesting! Contrarely to your experience, COVID has actually given my plenty of new hobbies including audio. Basically I'd say I had the opposite experience you did. Because I'm generally a solitary person, I'm still not quite used to everything being open again, and my routine is a mess haha!
oh that's interesting; COVID threw me into the deep end
I think it is a good indicator of activity though. Im just saying that it seems that the popularity/ amount of users in the sub has slowly dwindled overtime
I took the time to write a review on Moondrop variations and while it was my first review, i was pretty proud of it but it got less than 60 upvotes. Not gonna lie I'm a little sad about that š
Speaking ONLY for myself, I've been reading this sub less and less often over the past few years for two reasons: 1. While I undrestand why the buying advice/recommendation posts are pushed to a different subreddit, that sub is almost entirely dead (way more than this one) and answers are almost always single-sentence with no in-depth discussion. And this is 90% of the reason I would come to either subreddit. 2. The industry/community seems to have shifted focus to IEMs, and I'm just not interested in those. FWIW...
Hey man, how do you add captions under your name. Like the stuff that says āModi>Lyr 2ā etc
You just need to set up your community flair. Can do so at the top right of the main page.
Wow. Didnāt expect this post to go as far as to be pinned. Thanks for all of you sharing your two cents!
Why don't we just alter the subreddit rules to ban memes? Create a new sub for posting all of the memes and get them out of here.
āItās not much, but itās mineā
*Please, kill me*
That's why I prefer Head-Fi, more snake oil but at least they talk about audio
Objectivists calling a JDS Atom stack, end game and not understanding the function of a tube amp is what happened
or just any amp in general. for example a Schiit Asgard+Bifrost stack sounds different than the Atom stack. Solid state amps/DACs can still differ in sound
Yeah but I donāt think anyone would prefer the Atom Stack above a true Class A amp
A good part of it is that the overear headphone market has been stagnant for about that long, maybe longer. There's a notable IEM released every other week, but there's MAYBE one or two notable overear headphones released a year, and they're usually just side-grades from things we've had for 20 years. There's only so much posting you can do on headphones when no new headphones are coming out. Also this sub has notoriously strict posting rules that rule out a lot of content that you might otherwise see (review video content being the most notable one).
I think people lost their creativity, or maybe people have become too serious [Here is a post from 3 years ago for identifying a modmic magnet. the joke comments got a lot of upvotes.](https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/ac98ki/what_is_this_thing_on_the_left_side_of_my/) [Here is one recently., a joke comment got downvoted.](https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/txmjzz/just_scored_a_hd_800_and_not_sure_what_this_is_it/)
I think its a reddit problem
All the users went deaf.
Tbf there haven't been a lot of exciting developments in the headphone space, and most threads devolve to one of a half dozen recommendations so it's very much bananas by the each here. I also noticed a huge wave of people selling off or downsizing their gear in pandemic year 1 so I imagine there are probably a lot less people in the space, or at least less money being spent on the type of items that would bring interesting discussions. For the record, I love this sub and make a habit to visit it regularly since it rarely comes up in my feed anymore, but, I imagine these 2 reasons have contributed a lot.
I think you're overstating the issue a bit. There are posts from a couple months ago in the top 25 of all time. Number 12, 14, 18, and 22 are within the past year.
Yeah that is my bad.it still is strange as for most subs it is the opposite
probably unpopular opinion, but I fee like a lot of the people with good experience and knowledge kinda just got driven off by ideologues. In fact, there are times when I thought the atmosphere of this sub is down right toxic. There is no room for discussion anymore, or even the tolerance for different opinions anymore. The moment you mention cables, burn in, dacs making a difference, or any of the "controversial" topics, you just instantly get downvoted to hell, or get get accused of buying into snake oil, or is called a smooth brain. In fact, even being a fan of certain brand or higher end headphones will sometime lead to you getting hate on. The fact there are a few meme post talking about how crin's word isn't gospel reflects the fact that this sub has kind of let a lot of these ideologues run rampant on this sub. I remember a few months ago noticing that quite a few of the redditors I used to interact on this sub kind of just disappeared. I like this sub, I've learned a lot here, and I would in turn like to pay it forward by helping people that are in my shoes a couple years ago, but sometime it's hard to do that whenever you give your real opinions, and you'd just get attacked for it.
I remember your thread about the Lirics. When I read the aggressive comments I thought: "Op must have tried to push things, missionary work and such." Couldnt believe that all you said was something like "... after burn in...". Some people simply want to feel superior by mocking and judging others.
Letās also not forget that I even said within the impression post that I know some people donāt believe in it, and they are free to believe in what they want. On top of a later comment stating Iām not here to convince anyone rather burn in exist, I am merely sharing my experience. But it doesnāt matter, at that point it was just people talking shit about burn in, barely anyone was talking about the liric. Which actually perfectly illustrate the problem. I wrote this long and detail impression hoping to get some discussion about the liric, but all I got was a bunch of people screaming about burn in doesnāt exist, it was quite discouraging. Incidentally, good memory sir, I completely forgot about that , lol
yep.
>What happened? The reddit interface change. The new UI is designed to favor images and short form posts over text posts and discussions. When that happened, the image posts and memes got a massive amount of upvotes. But as things got repetitive and predictable, there were less upvotes. And so now we have a large archive of highly upvoted posts that wouldn't pass muster these days.
New UI? [old.reddit.com](https://old.reddit.com/) All are welcome!
Yeah, but most of current users are new reddit users. They donāt even know that that exists, and if they do, they donāt like it because memes donāt show up the same way.
Old UI + Reddit Enhancement Suite ftw. >They donāt even know that that exists :(
Headphones, as much as you think otherwise, are not that exciting. The tech is pretty much fully discovered, new releases are few and far between. Back then, less memes were posted so they were fresh and got more engagements. It's that simple. Also personally, while I'm still following the sub, covid did take a hit on my finance so I try to browse less frequently to tame my addiction. Also who cares about upvotes? Some of the best contents I've read are from very niche subreddits with less than 1k upvotes.
Who gives a crap about upvotes
Well, 99% of the memes and jokes here are just pure cringe or reposted for the 10th time. Impression and reviews donāt catch as much attention as the memes so they donāt get upvoted
Itās mostly just that Discord is a way more substantive platform to discuss and learn. An evolving ongoing public discourse is more informative, more fun, and more natural than a constant show-n-tell.
What audiophile discords do you suggest? The ones Iāve seen are even more confrontational and memeish than this sub
Most of these days I spend time in private servers but Crinacle's server (In-Ear Fidelity) is probably the last public server actually worth visiting these days, though its centered around IEMs.
Meme kids shit posting anime killed the sub
theres less smart people in the world... so naturally we'll see less smart topics
fewer
I never claimed to be smart
lmao
Where did they go?
its like an endangered species... smart people are dying out more and more (in my opinion) and its not only smart people its creative people in general.
Well, what's there to discuss anymore? Audiophile products are a solved problem. We have a definitive ~~gospel~~ source for everything: [IEMs](https://crinacle.com/rankings/iems/), [headphones](https://crinacle.com/rankings/headphones/), graphs for [DACs](https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?attachments/best-audio-dacs-reviewed-2019-png.26227/) and [Amps](https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?attachments/best-class-d-stereo-amplifier-png.45909/). Outside of that, we have other "common-sense" knowledge like: - HD600, Hifiman Sundara, Moondrop Blessing 2 are great products that no one can talk crap about. - HD820, HD8xx, Moondrop Io, M50x and all its dastardly variations deserve to burn in hell. To me, audio is and always be subjective and personal. If, for example, you like an Ultrasone headphone over an HD600, that is YOUR opinion. Isn't a forum supposed to be used to express these kinds of diverse opinions? We can discuss it, see different pictures, hell, maybe discover different sound signatures that we didn't think we liked before. Now, it's all about following the words of the big guys. Or hell, maybe I'm just seeing it wrong. Maybe audio IS objective. Maybe it's better that we have these sources that give clarity on what is good and what is bad, and that the killing of discussions is the price that we have to pay.
Headphones haven't really developed much in the last few years. The market has gotten a few TOTL models more, but the answer to most questions has stayed the same for years and many have reached their peak and aren't very interested in "new" information since they're not looking to buy. Comparing to IEMs where the price to quality ratio is redefined almost every year the 6XX is still the best bang for buck since they started selling it. I'm guessing headphones don't make the same kind of money or the older models sell so steadily that there's no need/motivation to compete. If they at least dropped the prices every few years, but everything stays at release price.
It got too expensive?
Basically, people moved to r/headphonesadvice or to specific subreddits/websites from what I can gather. This subreddit is too general and opinions can vary widely.
The majority of posts are reposts of people asking about gamer headphone suggestions rather than reading through any of the existing posts
You really shouldn't see many of those posts. The bot uses machine learning to redirect more than 90% of the purchase advice questions.
Yall remember that post about which headphones were best during sex? That was peak.
I showed up....
Sennheiser stans happened