In the most recent TOTL video from Abyss, they reacted to the Joshua Valour review of their Diana TC. Obviously they were quite happy with the review since JV said that the Diana TC was the headphone to beat for the next decade. I was hoping to get some objective reactions from the less than stellar review from Resolve so I posted a comment on the video. Surprisingly, I can still see the comment but the comment is nowhere to be found if you look at the video outside of my account. Has anyone else had experience with Abyss trying to censor questions or comments people have made on their headphones?
Iâm fairly sure I had a comment censored once on one of their videos, itâs been like a year though. It was a video about cable costs⌠The dad made a comment in the video about having 100,000 ft of cable in their warehouse, and I questioned that claim for obvious reasons.
I havenât heard a single headphone of theirs, and Iâm fairly sure I would like them as I love big planars⌠but this video in particular really rubbed me the wrong way. Not a lot of perspective up there in Buffalo. Does DMS still work for them?
It seems like he still does but itâs not super clear as to what he is in charge of. I would think if heâs in charge of marketing, something like this wouldnât occur. He seems to be a pretty reasonable guy from the videos on his own channel.
Your comment on Youtube is not present at this moment. However, donât be surprised by vendor messaging and control over their channel. This is not news and was much more common before the web made public end-user reviews (i.e., Amazon) routine.
Youtube just hid the thumbs down count too, so there must be a lot of pressure behind the scenes.
Also, with a link to another channel they may have perceived you as a shill or spammer. But probably not.
While disagreement has the potential to spark constructive discussion, I donât have any issues with the removal of comments deemed to be unreasonably combative. Speaking from personal experience, you can spend your entire work day dealing with people whose minds youâre never going to change, even if you engage as diligently as possible. Maybe they thought you were out to get them with that one haha - it can sometimes be hard to tell what the intentions are behind a youtube comment. We have the benefit of knowing youâre a nice guy with good intentions .
But yeah the threshold for that conclusion may have been a bit too low on this one though.
Edit: Also, Iâd love to review that new Diana TC - if they got the harmonic distortion in check, that could be a really fun platform to play with.
Censorship isnât cool, but itâs naive to think a company will spend as much time focusing on a negative review as it does a positive one.
How many brochures or digital ads for headphones that feature glowing review excerpts or star grades also feature negative and one-star reviews? Try none.
This is called marketing and promotion. You highlight your wins and praise.
That said, I enjoy these videos. I enjoy the perspective of Joe and his sons and DMSâ production work. Theyâre proud of their products, and they promote them. Plus they often discuss some cool audiophile topics and offer a lot of knowledge about the hobby.
Iâm on Team Joe and Team Abyss. Iâm also an upstate New Yorker â from Syracuse. Just look at my forum avatar. So, donât shit on Buffalo!
I think it was a review of the AB1266 Phi TC. It was a strengths and weaknesses thing or me. Weird FR and THD, great âsubjectively desirable qualiaâ hahah. But, this is also a situation where if you donât do a review saying itâs the best thing ever, or find some criticism, then the response is that the reviewer must have hated it, and I really didnât - it just wasnât for me.
oh! Got it. I thought you had somehow already gotten your hands on a DTC and made a review and was surprised tbh. Actualy currious question that kinda OT. Did you ever try 1266 on 13R?
Yeah, the thing is⌠the main issues with the AB1266 are things that an amp canât fix. All the other aspects, the stuff not immediately readable in FR, are already excellent.
Thereâs an element of ânothing to see here folksâ to it for sure haha. I just think itâs likely a misunderstanding as to your genuine interest in wanting them to address it. At the end of the day itâs just youtube vids.
to be frank, abyss has pretty abysmal (ha) PR. Im not really sure why removing bad comments is all that surprising. IMO its much less of a misstep than their handling of OG dianas horrid fit by just sticking their heads in the sand and then denying they litteraly had to sell modded ear pads for them to even be usable by vast swaths of people
I used to live in Syracuse. After reading your comments, I have only one thought. How do you have time to interact on the forums? Shouldnât you be outside shoveling snow? I am worried you are getting behind on your shoveling and you may be trapped inside your home.
This touches on a real nerve for me today, as it must be tougher than ever to be a reviewer who is painstaking and cares about the community like @Resolve and others.
Why? Because weâve turned into a world of easily offended weasels who live on poles, with no gray area between.
The second someone offers a negative opinion, even when nuanced and researched like Resolve and other quality reviewers, theyâre a âhaterâ or âhate this headphone.â The second they praise one, theyâre âshillsâ or âsay itâs the greatest ever.â
The truth almost always lives in that gray-hued purgatory between the two extremes. Just because reviewers find flaws doesnât mean they hate a headphone. Just because they like it doesnât mean theyâre on the take from the manufacturer or are ready to toss their entire collection into the classifieds.
Personal example: I didnât like the lauded Sennheiser HD 560s because of the clamping force, treble spike and less-than-energetic sound. Does that make it a bad headphone? Of course not. Itâs a terrific headphone, one of the best values under $200 in audiophilia. I didnât hate the 560s; it just didnât work for ME.
Nuance is being lost in this post-truth world, in which fewer and fewer people either can or take the time to deduce opinion from fact. I admire the resolve â pun intended â of quality reviewers like Resolve and others who are more than willing to live and flourish in the gray areas with pros and cons to offer the most comprehensive, intelligent reviews of audiophile gear.
Just donât get outraged if a reviewer doesnât shower your favorite headphones with sunshine, seashells and balloons. Some of the responses to Resolveâs recent preferred headphones list in this forum prove that some in this hobby have a long way to go in that area.
I tried to read the first few paragraphs of that, and I was reminded why I wasnât smart enough to go to an Ivy League school or a sub-Ivy like Stanford. It damn near made my explode trying to comprehend.
Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy is the defacto first resource for any of that stuff even for people who didnât go there. Itâs an amazingly thorough and helpful platform. Itâs also highly regarded enough that itâs a big deal for professors and other academics to have a publication there, kind of like something that shows theyâve âmade itâ. I canât recommend it highly enough.
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I am worried you are getting behind on your shoveling and you may be trapped inside your home.