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The Moral Maze - How honest are you when your friend demonstrates their hifi?

I've navigated a few moral mazes, but I don't see how offering an opinion -- unsolicited or not -- on a friend's choice of consumer electronics is worthy of great reflection or moral contemplation.

If the person truly is a friend I'm sure we'd have more important things to discuss than, say, whether his system has an annoying node at 246 Hz.

Joe
 
A lot of people are valuing honesty here, but when some guy turned up on the Scalford thread and said there were only one or two half-decent systems ... everyone castigated him.
 
Elephantears said:
A lot of people are valuing honesty here, but when some guy turned up on the Scalford thread and said there were only one or two half-decent systems ... everyone castigated him.
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Indeed!

To to push the scope of this I'll say that personally I hate having to always read between the lines in so many situations in life.... but that's probably something for a new thread in the off topic section :D
 
About as 'honest' as I am when they show me their 'Beautiful' baby, as for people's cars honest enough to lose a few 'friends'..
 
Elephantears said:
A lot of people are valuing honesty here, but when some guy turned up on the Scalford thread and said there were only one or two half-decent systems ... everyone castigated him.
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First of all, the appraisal of there being only one or two half decent systems was incorrect. Second, the owners weren't his friends. The OP is about friends and offering them your opinion.
 
Well, I used to be quite good friends with Gilad Tiefenbrun. He invited me to the factory to hear their best stuff. Now, we have an agreement never to discuss hi-fi!
 
If he or she is not entirely happy with the way it sounds I try to help. Last thing I did was suggest a friend to put the amplifier on the top tier of a rack. We tried it out and it was indeed a world of difference.
 
Who knows if you or mine opinion is right. We do get attached to our own system sound. If they ask what you think then be subtle and ask them to hear your set up and see what they think.
 
pure sound said:
First of all, the appraisal of there being only one or two half decent systems was incorrect. Second, the owners weren't his friends. The OP is about friends and offering them your opinion.
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Yes, and more generally, the judgment about Scalford ignored the context (dodgy hotel rooms with no furniture etc). I think if we offer judgements the important thing is to be aware of the context other people are working from; the limits of their rooms etc.
 
I won't offer a critical opinion unless specifically asked to.

I had to bite my tongue recently when I thought someone's Klipsch Jubilee horns, driven by a SE 45 amplifier, sounded like an AM radio. I was impressed by his Garrard 301 though, first one I'd heard.
 
Elephantears said:
Yes, and more generally, the judgment about Scalford ignored the context (dodgy hotel rooms with no furniture etc). I think if we offer judgements the important thing is to be aware of the context other people are working from; the limits of their rooms etc.
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The other issue was that the poster liked Linn Kans so his opinion on any aspect of good sound was rendered invalid. :D
 
sound is so individual , to them it sounds fantastic
so who am I to rubbish what they enjoy . it may not be my cup of tea
however sometimes I do offer constructive thoughts to help improve perhaps
 
Rodney gold said:
He asks for advice, then ignores it ....
We call people like that Askholes in our neck of the woods...
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I quite like that term!

My friend is a great guy, just too guilble when it comes to believeing in what is written in HIFI mags and what is said by certain dealers. And he's not short of money so doesn't think twice about spending.

S-Man said:
Maybe the advice was rubbish?
Maybe your Askhole is actually an astutehole? :)
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My advice is to listen to kit before he buys it, and listen properly, at home. He rarely does this though because he falls in love with the idea of having something new. He then regrets it later when he realises it sounds worse than what he had before. He trusts me to get the best out of everything because I always do.

hifinutt said:
sound is so individual , to them it sounds fantastic
so who am I to rubbish what they enjoy . it may not be my cup of tea
however sometimes I do offer constructive thoughts to help improve perhaps
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Agree with this :).
 
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