Question of transparency - Help or Harm?

[f1eng]

I bought my first D-Premier a few years ago, well before this forum existed.
I like the Devialet a lot and just use it to listen to music, I trust them to be more expert than I am, and I am a quite experienced engineer.
Personally, from an engineering perspective, I am often astonished and/or exasperated by comments on hifi forums.

Maybe I am just old but the whole "masses of customers having discussions on internet forums" does not lead me to expect anything from manufacturers that we didn't get pre-internet.

I see discussion forums really only as ways for enthusiasts to have fun discussing their hobby which is great and I don't see why it should be anything other than this.

Requests for software changes may make sense, but there are so many different requests and widely different views on priorities that it is more confusing than enlightening.

Having a representative post on a forum usually results in more heat being generated than light.

I gave up completely on motor racing forums over 15 years ago since none of the forum fanatics wanted their firm opinions contadicted by facts...