Unfortunately, I find most of the discussions of high end tend to turn into my way or the high way approaches. Like Harbeths triumph over everything :D I always hated how some discussions always got sidetracked because of mentality like that.

 

If anything, I feel hifi is a journey and we aren't always yet on the same place of the journey nor are we approaching on the same routes. What some of us can do is to be guides to others in earlier stages if we've been through the same routes before.

 

If you asked me say 3 years ago, I would NEVER have expected power cords or interconnects would ever make a difference...the approach that bros like francis advocates: come and see, works great and probably explains how I got hooked :D

 

 

Ha, sudden interest on this thread again...

 

I do not agree that High end discussion will always lead to hostility, it all depends on culture of the participants, and positive moderation whenever needed.

 

Culture of the participants-- say the forum is hypothetically made up of 90% mid-end to newbie hobbyists and 10% more serious audiophiles, how effective can this 10% more knowledgeable ones share and promote the hifi activity in an really objective manner?

 

This may often lead to newbies posting too many open-ended generic questions and waiting to be spoon-fed by the knowledgeable ones. Also, only more limited inputs are being offered by the smaller population of knowledgeable ones. Is this going to lead to a quality and healthy forum in the long term? go figure.

 

Vice versa- say the forum is now hypothetically made up of 90% experience and knowledgeable audiophiles, with 10% newbies and mid-end hobbyists, now what would one expect the depth of coverage of the discussion to be like ? In fact, if an audiophile forum has good depth and is well structured, it will become a wonderful resource center for the more positive newbies to do their own research and reference first, before blindly shooting generic basic questions over and over oh so often.

 

Positive moderation---- tend to think that if there is a big pool and wide spread of knowledgeable forumers, then the forum often becomes self-moderated, cos no one voice can dominate the space, and inputs and comments are often being balanced or exchanged with other knowledgeable ones, with admin moderations just for cases of abuse and flaming.

 

In a way, may be another angle to look at the situation is that with the demise of echoloft forum, xtremeplace may now (unknowingly) in a position.... to either just maintain its role and community like what it used to be in the past complementing echoloft (may be then one of the ex-echoloft drifter would then decide to create a EC II :) ), or to take this opportunity to broaden and fulfill a bigger role to be a more comprehensive one stop HT and Audio forum.

 

Of course, the direction of the forum is not decided by one member but the moderator and majority members. Am just initiating the poll out of curiosity, and also hope to trigger some thinking and opinions from XP bros :)

Now my own interpretation of "Highend" with regards to Audio....

 

It is true that some of the most lifelike and realistic music are being reproduced by some of the most expensive equipment, yet too often many of the most expensive equipment when put together casually sound horribly wrong. The difference is often the lack of attention to various details linking and matching these individual pieces of component.

 

Taking this "lifelike and realistic" music reproduction that we remember or so desired, some get there solely by means of just expensive equipment, some DIY or modify equipment to get there, some rely heavily on tweaks, accessories, environment etc, while quite a number of audiophiles adopt a good mix of all to get closer to the "lifelike and realistic" music reproduction.

 

Thus, my interpretation of "Highend" is sonic related not just limited to high price equipment. Whether one achieve the "Highend" sound with expensive exotic equipment or with more practical equipment made up by sophisticated modifications and tweaks, both are of equal relevance. In other words, it is a knowledge based pursuit requiring effort and of course with certain $$ commitment, but not a simple money splurging game that many have assumed.

Unfortunately, I find most of the discussions of high end tend to turn into my way or the high way approaches. Like Harbeths triumph over everything :D I always hated how some discussions always got sidetracked because of mentality like that.

 

If anything, I feel hifi is a journey and we aren't always yet on the same place of the journey nor are we approaching on the same routes. What some of us can do is to be guides to others in earlier stages if we've been through the same routes before.

 

If you asked me say 3 years ago, I would NEVER have expected power cords or interconnects would ever make a difference...the approach that bros like francis advocates: come and see, works great and probably explains how I got hooked :D

 

 

 

What a load of rubbish!

 

 

Everyone knows Harbeths sound terrible ;)

Leno, not everyone wants to have 'lifelike and realistic' music reproduction. Everyone has a different idea of what is the best sound depending where they are in their journey.. similarly I'm sure when reading old posts, even seasoned forumers may look foolish in their past comments. I'm one of them probably. :)

 

All is fine as long as people can deal with controversial comments in a mature manner. Your own perception of audio is unique and you're definitely going to defend it if someone says its not up to expectation. ;)

 

I guess to pull it back to jimi's point.. what I think is that there are just too many silos at the moment as the experience is just too divided at the moment, lacking in experienced participants. For each topic, I can only think of a small handful of active forumers who has the experience to discuss more in depth.

 

So how to increase the participation? God knows.

Rather than create more planets, maybe the high-end afficionados can just label their topics [High End] or something...that might deter/warn those who are not interested in such advanced discussions from reading them, while also serving as a signal to those interested to check out the thread.

 

Otherwise, it seems to me that what some people really want is a 'Planet Echoloft'...personally I never went there so I have no opinion about what it was like, but my reaction would be that XtremePlace already has a very definite culture, and it would probably be pointless to try and recreate another culture in a little corner of this forum. Those who miss Echoloft should just try setting up their own forum site, and if there really is a demand for such discussions then that new forum will grow on its own.