Robert
Tapehead
You can tell from their recent amp designs.
Best Hifi Manufacturer User Forum
- Thread starter ryder
- Start date
You can tell from their recent amp designs.
sideshowbob
Champagne fascia aficionado
Terry Bateman used to run the Leak newsgroup. He's always been a valve fan
paulfromcamden
Baffled
Don't think I've seen any mention of Lenco Heaven yet on this thread (does it count as a manufacturer forum?).
Certainly one of the friendliest hi-fi forums around and an astonishing level of knowledge for stuff like older cartridges, obscure valve amps etc.
Certainly one of the friendliest hi-fi forums around and an astonishing level of knowledge for stuff like older cartridges, obscure valve amps etc.
It's a pity the Harbeth forum still remains the same as it did after all these years. Old habits die hard I guess. I used to post on the forum 11 or 12 years ago when I bought my first pair of Harbeth speakers (how time flies). At first it was all rosy but things turned ugly after a while when certain topics were discussed. I recall seeing the moderator(s) there practising an iron first approach by attacking members in a rude and condescending manner. Alan Shaw was more discreet in his style but he had his own ways of shooting down ideas that did not coincide with his own. FWIW you are not the first person who feels the same about Mr Shaw as there are others who speak about his arrogance. Some think that Harbeth's success may have contributed to the egoistic ways of the group.
Back in the day, there were several members or cohorts on the HUG who joined in the attacks of members who did not share the same beliefs or values that the clan preaches. It's a tight-knit community as those who opposed the doctrines were cast aside like an unwanted child. AS used to despise the chat on fancy wires or high grade terminals and amplifiers of all sorts but I see he has changed a little and started to endorse Hegel amps for his speakers. Nevertheless, some things remain unchanged..
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Just as an a aside did Naim make the old forum available in an archived state as they said they would when they launched their new one a few years ago? It's just it had a lot of useful obscure set up information in there and if I ever went back to Naim I would find it quite useful.
sideshowbob
Champagne fascia aficionado
Yes, I'm a big fan of Lenco Heaven. diyaudio.com is good too, but I guess neither count as manufacturer forums.
Tony L
Administrator
Manufacturer forums are clearly sales and marketing tools. They take a lot of time and effort to run and for a business they have to add value for the brand. The Harbeth forum is typical of the breed IME. The only one that breaks the mould that I’m aware of is Klipsch as that is full of tweaks, mods, refurb information and happily allows third-party parts supply etc. I found that one really useful.
PS Lenco Heaven is great, I need to pop over for a look sometime. It is obviously an independent forum like Audio Asylum, Audio Karma, DIYAudio, pfm etc. Lenco haven’t existed since the mid-70s or so (its a random brand name on some plastic tat these days, but has absolutely nothing to do with the Swiss turntable company).
I found it a bit strange. They hate the LP12! There are sections for every other brand but not Linn and they flip out if you even ask about it. Great source of info on the Lenco though so if that's your bag.
The first Naim forum when Julian was alive and regularly contributing had amazing info on it. I wonder how long he could have kept that up if he'd lived longer. Repetition is bound to creep in and make it boring after a while.
Linn tried to encourage contributions from their engineers but it takes quite a lot of spare time to make regular contributions and never really happened. Plus I think the engineers would need a lot of confidence to handle some forum members. They were all specialists in specific areas too, so could easily fall foul, not knowing the big picture or all the history. Whereas, someone like Julian understood the reasoning behind each decision and understood all the history so could handle any queries with ease.
The Lejonklou forum is similar but much smaller scale and so the forum is much quieter.
Linn tried to encourage contributions from their engineers but it takes quite a lot of spare time to make regular contributions and never really happened. Plus I think the engineers would need a lot of confidence to handle some forum members. They were all specialists in specific areas too, so could easily fall foul, not knowing the big picture or all the history. Whereas, someone like Julian understood the reasoning behind each decision and understood all the history so could handle any queries with ease.
The Lejonklou forum is similar but much smaller scale and so the forum is much quieter.
What this all says to me is just how good PFM really is.
I have been on here since 2003 and even though i rarely post i can honestly say its the best Audio forum i have come across because it tackles such a wide breadth of topics and moderates only when necessary. Theres no draconian silly rules along the lines of 'you must post pics with your listing' type thing (guess which forum i refer to here?!) and its also stood the test of time !
All in all thats a pretty good track record. The platform seems geniunely democratic and i have learned so much from listening to what others say on here.
So its not the title of the thread but to my mind this should be a big congrats to Tony L and PFM really.
I have been on here since 2003 and even though i rarely post i can honestly say its the best Audio forum i have come across because it tackles such a wide breadth of topics and moderates only when necessary. Theres no draconian silly rules along the lines of 'you must post pics with your listing' type thing (guess which forum i refer to here?!) and its also stood the test of time !
All in all thats a pretty good track record. The platform seems geniunely democratic and i have learned so much from listening to what others say on here.
So its not the title of the thread but to my mind this should be a big congrats to Tony L and PFM really.
wylton
Naim and Mana member
I have a Lenco 88, so I use Lenco heaven, not so much recently and it can't really count as a manufacturers forum.
Tony L
Administrator
The early Naim forum was great fun, though the internet was a very different and far smaller place back then. Julian was a character, and certainly had a sense of humour, so it made it a special place.
If you are a manufacturer of conservative engineering lead products then I would agree that the cost of effective moderation to maintain a positive contribution to the marketing of the product is likely to be far too high compared to the benefits of a few users saying good things about products which are good because of technical performance which can be established by other means.
In contrast for more marketing-lead products what builds value in the eyes of owners and enthusiasts makes an expensive to moderate forum worth considering. This is particularly the case for small manufacturers which are more limited in the ways they can market effectively. The AVI forum was a good example of this. The OTT BS that was spouted to promote the products drew plenty of flak from the more informed but it was effective at making an impression and getting the products discussed plus it seemed to reach the type of person that was a potential customer. For a small company consisting of one person handling the engineering and one person handling the sales and marketing it seemed to work given the way they opted to run the sales and marketing. In the eyes of many that weren't potential customers reputation was damaged but it wasn't in the eyes of most customers because they received what they valued.
Indeed. As for Mr. Shaw, he appears to no longer be discreet in that he now leads the pack in its attack on dissenting opinions and/or evidence. I think he doubled-down on me because I'm a published scientist and data analyst and was questioning some of his supposed scientific methodology, especially where it concerns differences in cable performance and whether or not a valid home-based A-B study can meet any scientific standards. Every time I answered their questions as to the methodology I employed they would simply ignore them or keep moving the goal post further down the field. My repeated question as to why they even allowed a controversial topic on cable differences if the game was already rigged by their a priori belief system was completely ignored. I still love my Harbeth M30.2 XD speakers, but as a result of my experience on HUG the brand has been eternally tarnished for me.
Yep. Their 40th Anniversary and XD models all have terminal and wire upgrades. I guess these things only result in higher performance for Harbeth and nobody else. It's this type of hypocrisy that drove me nuts on HUG. Every time I pointed it out (as diplomatically as possible) I was either ignored or condescendingly attacked by Mr. Shaw.
He is in a business selling high priced luxury speakers and so if potential customer's value fancy plugs, fancy wire, bi-wiring or whatever that doesn't reduce technical performance and increases manufacturing costs only modestly then including them is likely to lead to enough additional sales to more than cover the increased costs. The classic example is bi-wiring. When this first started to appear as a marketing hook every speaker manufacturer knew it made no sense in terms of high cost (extra amplifiers and no doubt expensive audiophile wire) for a zero-to-negligible improvement in technical performance. Customer's however started to value at least the potential to bi-wire in the future and purchasing decisions started to lean towards speakers with bi-wiring. This rapidly forced the majority of manufacturers to introduce the additional cost of bi-wiring in order to remain where they were in the market increasing the costs and complexity to the customer for no increase in technical performance. The most amusing example is perhaps Roger Russell who campaigns at length against audiophile wire and yet includes it in his own expensive speakers.