whatsbestforum - what's going on

Many of the contributors on WBF are ignorant on the elements at play that contribute to sound reproduction, which makes the content of the discussions there hold very little value or substance.

The discussions there are steered, cleansed, and sterilized by Steve and Tom, the deputy dog moderator, to foster a fertile ground for the dealers and manufacturers that buy advertisement banners on the site.

Then you have the village idiots trying to find their way out of a paper bag. Won’t mention names as it is rather obvious if you just have a quick read. It is clearly a text book example of the blind leading the blind.

But what astonishes me the most are all the “high power” members with their proud list of “Uber” “Tipy Top” systems, assembled with the world’s “Top”, “”Most Expensive & Exquisite”, and “Heralded & Distinguished” components that sound underwhelming, mediocre, and in many cases just plain poor.

Not to single out any one individual on there, as there are many “fine” examples, you got the guys that have spent the millions of dollars on equipment and installed them in their beautifully custom built rooms, with activated carbon in some cases, these misinformed or misguided individuals now have rooms that quite literally snuff the life out of the music played in them. Then there the ones that cannot comprehend that listening to “live un-amplified acoustic music” from an audience perspective is very different to the playback sound reproduction of “close-microphone” “multi-track” produced music. I could go on and on, but I won’t.

Our audio hobby and the high-end audio industry has never seen more of a swindle than now and audio web sites that promote or allow the dissemination of unfounded facts, misunderstood & misguided understandings, and in some cases snake-oil propagandas are complicit in it.

@kerrybh sounds like you enjoy the dazzle of shiny objects. Continue your enjoyment of WBF in good health.

@rsf507 Care to elaborate what you learned there? I’m not sure what your experience in audio, technical background, and starting general knowledge is, so perhaps there are current discussions on there that can help you learn and educate you. Glad to hear that you are getting something out of it.

What I’m, and I’m sure others here are also, wondering, if you have “learned more there in 1 yr than 15+ here on Agon”, then why do you post and remain here on Agon and why don’t you join, post, and contribute there on WBF?

@carlsbad2 have you purchased an “Akustika Eterna” advertisement banner on WBF yet?

@kerrybh you came on here to defend and I’m here to impugn.

@agisthos  you don’t find banning someone for the use of VPN petty? There is not much left behind after the knowledgeable ex-members departed. The knowledge base is very thin there. Perhaps I expect too much from those into audio to understand frequency, amplitude, and phase. Asking about sound wave propagation and polar response and you will get the “we only care how it sounds” CAN response, where some members looking for “closed microphone” and “multi-track” studio produced recordings to sound like “live un-amplified acoustic instruments” from the audio perspective.  The attitude there clearly misses the point that you can’t buy knowledge no matter how much you spend on the equipment and having an understanding of how sound and electronics work is much more valuable than connecting expensive components together in a pretty “acoustically  engineered” room. I previously gave the example of the guy that shows up to track day thinking that he is going to get the best track course time simply because he showed up in a Ferrari. Great sound reproduction requires knowledge more than anything else and most on WBF seem to miss that point, as they think that they can  simply spend their way to good results, which is a major fallacy.

@gano you obviously have not experienced the small prune, the dipstick, and deputy dawg.

@carlsbad2 Jerry please check your facts. I asked you if you had purchased an advertisement banner yet? I did not state that you “pay for ads and thus you are a supporter of WBF”. Please re-read my post.

I agree with you, the landscape at WBF is controlled and sterilized with harmless, neutered/spayed, toothless, and declawed pussycats hanging around with no squabbling, politics and petty posts. 

Being a "Stepford wife" has never appealed to me so sorry not butt-hurt.

To be a member of WBF in good standing you must have the following characteristics: docile, subservient, submissive, conformist, lacking individuality, and devoid of conviction to challenge the herd mentality…….fortunately, all the things that I’m not.

@foggyus91 @ghasley Spend enough time on WBF and you will see what is being said here, and if you don’t…….. then you deserve to be there. To each their own, some like taking it, while others enjoy giving it. The choice is always yours.

@foggyus91 Lets get the facts straight. I went to log in one day, over a year ago, and got a message that stated that I had been banned for “using a VPN”. I left it at that. I never inquired further nor have I ever attempted to log in since.

For the record, I am the single most knowledgeable and impactful person that has ever contributed to that forum and my posts there speak for themselves. I have more knowledge on all things audio and on sound reproduction on the tip of my pinky finger than the whole collective there. I am so glad that they were not smart enough to keep benefiting from my contributions as I wasted way too much time attempting to educate some rather dimwitted individuals on there.

So get your facts straight.

@ghasley why do you think that there are others besides me stating similar accounts and observations about WBF? If it was only me then you could speculate, but I am not the only one or alone in stating the same experiences with WBF.

@mahgister please disregard the system page, that is a stale and outdated snapshot. Over the last 7 years my pursuits for the best sound has led me to the DIYAudio Community and custom built products to achieve the best sound quality possible. Today, I have very little interest in commercial products and all my systems are assembled, for the most part, using DIY and custom components.

I can put a very good sounding system for $1,000.00 but you would either be assembling it yourself or paying someone to put it together for you. Don’t be mistaken, I’m a firm believer that cost does not correlate with sound quality and that the most important component of assembling a system and achieving great sound quality is knowledge.

You can’t buy knowledge and you cannot spend your way to truly great sound quality either. Which is the crux of the matter, many members on WBF think that they can achieve great sound quality by just buying expensive components and that is very, VERY seldom the case. Most on WBF are not even confident enough with their costly systems to post an audio recording of them; and that kind of shows you and tells you what you need to know.

Cost doesn’t correlate with performance in most cases and having knowledge of the elements at play in sound reproduction yields the best results.

You can find my most recent actives over at HiFi Heaven, if you are interested.

You don’t sound like someone who belongs over at WBF, but neither do I so you are not missing much there. Take a look at HiFi Heaven it will be a lot more to your liking.

@mahgister check out the last couple sections of my previous post.

All one has to do is review the exchanges, posts, between the moderator and in particular one of the owners and most of the now departed members over on WBF, and it all becomes clear. It is not an exercise in moderation but it had more the feel of a corrupt prison warden who knows that the members are powerless against his actions. Moderation is supposed to be applied consistently and impartially, at WBF it is not.

@ghasley what makes you think that I’m upset? I have nothing to be upset about. They don’t want me there and I don’t want to be there so it is all good. This thread is called “whatsbestforum - what’s going on”, as an ex-member, I’m contributing to this thread by sharing my experience on WBF. What are you doing on this thread? Instead of trying to discount my and others experiences on WBF, why don’t you write of your own experience there. All you done is portrayed yourself as someone that will accept whatever they offer so you are good. Trust me, I have made good use of the time I didn’t spend on that forum over the last year. Have you listen to the audio recordings of my OKTAN6 system? I think that you will agree that it was time well spent. Please post a link to an audio recording of your system, would love to hear it instead of talking about WBF. Lets see and hear what you showed up to the dance with.

@ronres my posts only speak the truth. Instead of being dismissive why don’t you systematically go one by one and show why it is not the truth. You clearly won’t because you can’t. I may be a lot of things but one thing that I am consistent with is telling the truth. If I have written something that is not accurate then please point it out and we can have a conversation about it here in front of this audience. I stand by everything I have said and written. Now it’s your turn to show everyone where you think that I’m wrong or have stated something that isn’t the truth. Come on. I and the rest of the good folks here are waiting for you to point to a single thing that I have said that you can prove is not correct. I’m calling you out.

@ghasley I use audio recordings of my systems as a tool to make adjustments. You should try it. It might get you to the point where you are confident enough to share audio recordings of your system with others.

@ghasley Ron @ronres came here to discredit @daveyf and myself. Ron doesn’t want to engage me directly. I schooled him on his own website and he isn’t going to come here to get schooled in front of others without the protection of his moderator to step in and rescue him. I run circles around @ronres. Ron doesn’t want any part of me.

@kerrybh At least for me, my experience with WBF was not “traumatic” and I’m not upset in the least. As @daveyf mentioned, WBF actually did us a favor by ending our participation, so please stop portraying our accounts of that forum as some type of grievances, because they are not. It is simply the topic of the discussion in this thread and as ex-members we have chosen to participate in it to share some of our experiences with others interest in this topic. If it bothers you that these facts are coming to light about WBF then simply stop reading this thread. Don’t distract by redirecting the focus of the discussion here.

@kerrybh I honestly don’t recall a single memorable post by either you or @facten during my time at WBF. For instance, on one of my threads there I chronicled  how I developed a real-time system transfer-function adjustment process and implemented the system in all-analog, all-digital and in hybrid systems. What great contributions have you and @facten made since I left that I should be made aware of? I don’t recall much about either of you as you were both small time players while I was there, for 12+ years.

@facten Everyone is free to post, I’m not moderating anything. Let’s hear both sides. No matter where the discussions leads I know exactly where I stand. The moderator on WBF is a big issue and was not just for me. When one of the owners attacked me he just stood by and watch it happen, all while constantly harassing me at every turn. I’m not complaining, I dealt with it. I don’t think that you or your buddy have experienced that because your posts there go by mostly unperceived and aren’t that substantive. So yes, different contributors attract different levels of attention from the moderator and the owners on WBF….it’s time for you and your buddy to step up your game and bringing something to the table there that differs from the herd, and then you and your buddy might experience what @daveyf, I and others have been sharing here.

@facten I’m not sure what the burr in your saddle is. You engaged me. I had not contacted you directly. I deal with facts and not acts or image. I post things I want to share and I also share audio recordings of my systems and the sound on those recordings speak for themselves that’s it, no more, no less. All you WBF members that enjoy that forum can choose to go there and enjoy or stay here and continue pestering me like a swarm of nats. I’ll stick around here as long as they will have me. I have been here since 2000. But if you want to keep up with my latest audio and sound explorations then head over to HiFi Haven and you will find my threads there on a regular basis, it is a really nice place to hang out and learn and chat all things audio and beyond.

@mikelavigne What makes you a “large target”? 

@devinplombier Let me be 100% clear when I say that I have no interest in ever again contributing to WBF; unless, or perhaps until is more appropriate here, there is a change in ownership, one of the owners, and moderator. I’m not looking for that to happen. There are plenty of decent audio forums out there and I’m a member of a number of them. There is no reason to lose sleep over it. I have been gone from WBF now for over a year and these are my first posts on that topic, never even thought about discussing the problems there until I ran across this discussion thread. I have said pretty much all that I have to say on it, the rest is just responding to the calvary of WBF members that take a charge at me. It is all good. I’m not interested in participating there, there is not much left there to stimulate my fertile mind.

@mahgister and @devinplombier by the way, you should know that agreeing with my quote from HiFi Haven would probably draw criticism and disbelief over at WBF as the majority of the participants on that forum believe in the opposite.

@rspyder You gave me a good laugh with your post. The “WBF crowd is more intelligent, with better equipment”. You sure are drunk on the WBF Kool-Aid. 

Most WBF members do not know much about the science and technologies involved in sound reproduction. Many will even admit to it and follow it up with that they don’t need to. If you take a look at the owners of WBF. You will see that they hire professionals to come and set up their equipment and fine tune their systems. The reason I bring that up is that I’m a firm believer in that you will not excel at things that you don’t know about. To each their own, but I rather work on my own systems myself.

Regarding the manufaturers-dealers-owners-centric choke-hold moderation at WBF, well if you enjoy being pushed around and dominated then have at it. Some of us aren’t patsy’s.

You keep on believing that there’s something special there. When I was there I would asked the members to share audio recordings of their wonderful and extraordinarily expensive systems to hear what they are working with, and most of them are not confident enough to showcase how great their systems sound, they rather write about it than demonstrate it. All this has been said before so I will leave it at that.

As they say, you don’t know what you don’t know and you sound like one of the ones who will never know. Keep thinking that you at WBF are something special……you better think again.

@rspyder And you have made my point.

@rspyder All you have to do is read my posts on WBF to assess the value of my contributions on that site. I know all about WBF as I spent quite a bit of time there. I deal with facts and nothing else.