The State of High End Audio

[Rodney Gold]

I have and still do moderate many forums..I would never in my wildest dreams post a PM publicly..no matter what the circumstances
Its a total breach of trust ..
The only time I have ever reported a PM to mods in forums I dont moderate was when I got a death threat
Im rather dismayed with the turn of events.

 

[Blizzard]

Gone to sleep, woken up and check in but no progress....

Ok Mike it's time to break out your bible,

Self help books for everyone !

There's nothing religious about that message. Religious examples are used, but it's completely religion neutral.

The message is far to complex for many to absorb.

 

[Al M.]

And I would still appreciate an explanation of why you asked me to take an iPhone app SPL reading of my listening room only to then tell me it is useless and of no value. I feel somewhat manipulated by that exchange and I am still a bit confused by your request for me to do so. I acted in good faith with an interest in learning something from you.

As far as I can tell, the point that Amir wanted to make is that sometimes measurements do not tell us all we need to know, and that not every measurement is the right kind of measurement (see below).

In some way that is a point that we 'subjectivists' (whatever that may mean) have been pushing for years.

Isn't that a message that we should welcome, especially from someone like Amir who puts so much value in measurements?

***

If I understand correctly, the SPL meter measures all frequencies with the same intensity (especially when standard C-weighted), and that most of the intensity in a quiet room comes from low-level bass frequencies that are ubiquitous. Yet our ears are the least sensitive to low bass frequencies. Therefore, an SPL reading of 30-40 dB in a quiet room. which is based mostly on bass frequencies, is deceiving: to our ears, which do not hear the low frequencies as much, the room really is very quiet, and the SPL reading is simply too high relative to that perception.

See Amir's article on his website:
http://www.madronadigital.com/Library/RoomDynamicRange.html

 

[Blizzard]

I have and still do moderate many forums..I would never in my wildest dreams post a PM publicly..no matter what the circumstances
Its a total breach of trust ..
The only time I have ever reported a PM to mods in forums I dont moderate was when I got a death threat
Im rather dismayed with the turn of events.

Was it an argument over frequency response at the listening position?

 

[Rodney Gold]

It was a laser forum..one guy claimed that nozzle gas pressure when cutting would affect the laser beams shape and deflect the beam..he was an uncouth nutcase at the best of times..he just went a little too far that time...

 

[Blizzard]

It was a laser forum..one guy claimed that nozzle gas pressure when cutting would affect the laser beams shape and deflect the beam..he was an uncouth nutcase at the best of times..he just went a little too far that time...

Well pretty close to frequency response at the listening position I guess. Did you tell him the shape of the beam is called a house curve, and 99% of professionals in the laser cutting business prefer it?

 

[Rodney Gold]

Oh..you know a bit about lasers too? You are a very accomplished young man.

 

[Blizzard]

Oh..you know a bit about lasers too? You are a very accomplished young man.

No not much. CNC routers, but not lasers. Although I'm quite familiar with them.

 

[Folsom]

It was a laser forum..one guy claimed that nozzle gas pressure when cutting would affect the laser beams shape and deflect the beam..he was an uncouth nutcase at the best of times..he just went a little too far that time...

Have you ever met Ron Hood?

 

[Blizzard]

Have you ever met Ron Hood?

Robin's brother?

 

[FrantzM]

I have and still do moderate many forums..I would never in my wildest dreams post a PM publicly..no matter what the circumstances
Its a total breach of trust ..
The only time I have ever reported a PM to mods in forums I dont moderate was when I got a death threat
Im rather dismayed with the turn of events.

+1

I would trust the WBF upper management henceforth to never post a PM on the Public Forum. Let's keep a PM PRIVATE. In the name of decency.
This has been so far a clean and decent forum, in spite of all the cries of its demise and state but this is the kind of things that happens once in a while and should be buried. It has happened one time too many, it should never be repeated and please let's not try to justify it it is unconscionable.
Peace!

 

[PeterA]

You are simply operating under a false promise that such inappropriate PMs are private. They are not. Never have been either.

You want to bully and insult someone, do it elsewhere where such rules don't exist.

I am here to tell you in official capacity of the forum what our policies are. You can shop for answer if you like but the answer above will not change.

Please do not insinuate that I have ever sent an inappropriate PM to anyone at WBF. To my recollection, I have not. And I have only reported two posts as being inappropriate in my entire four year history here at WBF. If you feel it is necessary to sanction me for inappropriate language, please do and help me to understand what it is that I have written that warrants such action. You keep writing "you" as though you are referring to me. I feel like you are using me and my words as an example where none exists. It is starting to feel very personal, Amir.

 

[spazmatron]

There's nothing religious about that message. Religious examples are used, but it's completely religion neutral.

The message is far to complex for many to absorb.

Well you do seem to have something of the evangelical about you Mike but I am aware the message is of no formal organised religion in its origins.

It's not complicated either it's implementation is beyond our programming on any meaningful scale.

Oh and conflict is the humans one constant, whether it be behavioural based, individual of as part of a collective or biological in nature as our body's are fields of war one way or another. Anyhow this is why we are all still here and why we are advanced like we are as a species...Might be to complicated for so some I would hope not

the conflict going on here will stop when both sides realise there is merrit in each other's arguments and feelings of dissatisfaction. Ones theoretical in nature, the private is private and the other is a guy who feels he has no support and got a little fed up... Probably been feeling this way for some time but it's all seems to of got blown up now.

I don't know what's going on behind the scenes but when your in the public eye like the bosses here you will get dumped on, the secret is coming together in support of one another. That will give you the strength to rise above the abuse and nonsensical goings on that are bound to happen in this domain.

It's sad that one of you felt so lacking in that support, to be driven to publish pm messages. Rather than have a song and dance about what's passed why don't you have a private chat about how you all got thier in the first place...

Warning this will require some emotional honesty.

Good luck to you all..

 

[rbbert]

One sort of amusing thing about this latest tempest in a teapot is the reason I sent amir a PM rather than just post in the forum; that was to give him a chance to do the "right thing" without embarrassing him publicly. That worked out well for him

My father is/was also an engineer. A few years after he retired he got bored and for the last 20+ years he has been serving on various local water boards as an elected member. A local newspaper columnist reporting one of the water board meetings described him this way: "he wanted the first word, the last word, and all the words in between on every issue"

 

[spazmatron]

One sort of amusing thing about this latest tempest in a teapot is the reason I sent amir a PM rather than just post in the forum; that was to give him a chance to do the "right thing" without embarrassing him publicly. That worked out well for him

My father is/was also an engineer. A few years after he retired he got bored and for the last 20+ years he has been serving on various local water boards as an elected member. A local newspaper columnist reporting one of the water board meetings described him this way: "he wanted the first word, the last word, and all the words in between on every issue"

That's genetics for you

 

[ack]

There is nothing literally "private" about a PM - it's just a method of delivery of a message to a controlled group of recipients, as opposed to the general public. As such, whether or not these messages need or should be made public is up to one's own discretion, and I would second the position that one should not feel "safe" from public exposure by sending nasty PMs to one another - like in the end, who are you to persistently try to correct someone else. Personally, I choose not to expose PMs or private emails with similar nasty character, I simply cut off people, like people who consider "condescending" thoughts about equipment when someone else says something is "obvious", or "nothing new", or some innocuous thing like that.

 

[amirm]

There is nothing literally "private" about a PM - it's just a method of delivery of a message to a controlled group of recipients, as opposed to the general public. As such, whether or not these messages need or should be made public is up to one's own discretion, and I would second the position that one should not feel "safe" from public exposure by sending nasty PMs to one another - like in the end, who are you to correct someone else. Personally, I choose not to expose PMs or private emails with similar nasty character, I simply cut off people, like people who consider "condescending" thoughts about equipment when someone else says something is "obvious", or "nothing new", or some innocuous thing like that.

Thank you . The problem I face is that I cannot cut off these members. Three times I gave a polite answer to Rob but he kept coming back. He then proceeded to make trouble for the management team by reporting my post. Clearly lack of action on my part has emboldened a few members to keep conducting themselves in this manner.

My options are to sanction them formally but then that gets them to go and cry victim. So I avoid doing that and sit on the PMs. I have been doing this for months and the severity and reckless abandon with which these individuals have been acting to create politics and factionalism in the forum has hit the roof. There has been significant development of that in the last 7 days as these people have tried to tailor the public opinion to their liking and enjoy the lack of disclosure of what really has gone on. If membership are to be used to make points, then the membership is entitled to knowing more than they do.

One of the principles I live by since I was young was hatred of bullying. Hurtful speech sent to members falls squarely in that bucket. This is why I want to encourage reporting of such so that people know not to use the tools and platform we have paid for and developed, to be used for such acts. It is not right, it is not proper, it is not fair. Do not expect any privacy when your intent in sending a PM is to hurt that person emotionally. This is not why that system was created and our terms of service clearly stipulate that this forum is built on foundation of friendliness. As you rightly say, a PM is just like a post but with limited distribution. That fact does not excuse anyone to use vulgar, insulting, demeaning language to address anyone.

In this case we are talking about a site co-founder. Under what book of etiquette do I look that says people have the right to send me PMs with the most insulting language in them? I mean I am sitting on a PM that has this in the title: "when will you get the message and get off your arrogant pompous ass". I have been sitting on this for nearly 6 months while this person campagnes to tell everyone I am the bad guy. And turn around say, "members hate you so I am right!"

If tables were turned, how many of you sit here and take no action whatsoever as I have done? What would you do if you were me?

 

[Rodney Gold]

What would I do..recuse myself from the moderating team.. sit back , worry free.. write those well constructed replies and enjoy life as a pleb and as such you can also hit the ignore button at your will...Seriously..you sound very stressed about all this. Really not worth it

 

[amirm]

One sort of amusing thing about this latest tempest in a teapot is the reason I sent amir a PM rather than just post in the forum; that was to give him a chance to do the "right thing" without embarrassing him publicly. That worked out well for him

I offered you three times to go ahead and "embarrass me." If I feared that, I would not have made that offer. Did you do that? No. Instead you made some excuse about the thread being stale. I go ahead and fix that for you with a cordial response despite the way you had addressed me in private:

Even though I invented the Internet (Al Gore heard the idea from me), my Internet service has been down for a few days so can't look things up in Wikipedia to post here.

If you like to add something to the conversation, you are more than welcome.

What did you do instead? You went looking for trouble by reporting my post. And now you are still up to no good with such commentary. Instead of saying, "oh, I was mistaken on this technical discussion; I am sorry Amir I told you all of that in private" you are gloating that you are ahead?

My father is/was also an engineer. A few years after he retired he got bored and for the last 20+ years he has been serving on various local water boards as an elected member. A local newspaper columnist reporting one of the water board meetings described him this way: "he wanted the first word, the last word, and all the words in between on every issue"

I have been a manager in everything from small to very larger corporations and companies. I managed an entire division at Microsoft of about 1,000 people (yes, I am bragging; shoot me ), that included 40+ people in marketing, nearly as many in business development, infrastructure support, etc. In other words, its own company within the larger company. The skills required to keep such a large group of people with sharply different skills and responsibilities goes way beyond the pigeonholing you are doing by calling me an engineer. My #1 job by far was people management as is the job of any senior manager.

Yes, when I post here is often technical. But when I act as a site co-founder, it is anything but. Please don't use your lack of knowledge yet again to make a derogatory comment about an entire group of people.

 

[Al M.]

Thank you . The problem I face is that I cannot cut off these members. Three times I gave a polite answer to Rob but he kept coming back. He then proceeded to make trouble for the management team by reporting my post. Clearly lack of action on my part has emboldened a few members to keep conducting themselves in this manner.

My options are to sanction them formally but then that gets them to go and cry victim. So I avoid doing that and sit on the PMs. I have been doing this for months and the severity and reckless abandon with which these individuals have been acting to create politics and factionalism in the forum has hit the roof. There has been significant development of that in the last 7 days as these people have tried to tailor the public opinion to their liking and enjoy the lack of disclosure of what really has gone on. If membership are to be used to make points, then the membership is entitled to knowing more than they do.

One of the principles I live by since I was young was hatred of bullying. Hurtful speech sent to members falls squarely in that bucket. This is why I want to encourage reporting of such so that people know not to use the tools and platform we have paid for and developed, to be used for such acts. It is not right, it is not proper, it is not fair. Do not expect any privacy when your intent in sending a PM is to hurt that person emotionally. This is not why that system was created and our terms of service clearly stipulate that this forum is built on foundation of friendliness. As you rightly say, a PM is just like a post but with limited distribution. That fact does not excuse anyone to use vulgar, insulting, demeaning language to address anyone.

In this case we are talking about a site co-founder. Under what book of etiquette do I look that says people have the right to send me PMs with the most insulting language in them? I mean I am sitting on a PM that has this in the title: "when will you get the message and get off your arrogant pompous ass". I have been sitting on this for nearly 6 months while this person campagnes to tell everyone I am the bad guy. And turn around say, "members hate you so I am right!"

If tables were turned, how many of you sit here and take no action whatsoever as I have done? What would you do if you were me?

You have my support on this one, Amir.

As you also have proven by reminding people of the -- justified -- public posting by Steve Williams of thoughts from a PM to him by Peter Breuninger, it's not that you are the 'only bad guy' here. None of you is the bad guy, and insulting PMs can warrant disclosure under appropriate circumstances.

I think Ack is indeed right on the money:
There is nothing literally "private" about a PM - it's just a method of delivery of a message to a controlled group of recipients, as opposed to the general public.

In fact, on another forum where the moderators were behaving inappropriately (unlike this one, for sure), I took discussions with other members about those moderators to email instead of PM, for precisely that reason -- PMs are not private.