Thread: Where have all the members gone?

Posts: 124
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Post by classicrecordings August 7, 2012 (1 of 124)
I really enjoy this site. I enjoy reading the comments in the forum section, and I find the reviews very helpful as I build my personal collection. But I have found that many people who were at one time very involved in this site have not posted or reviewed for several years.

There have now been almost 8,000 SACD's released, and I am finding with the people I listen to music with that the interest in SACD continues to grow. I have got at least five people interested enough in SACD to go out and purchase players and disc's in the last two years.

I am just wondering what has happened to those who were once involved, and is there some way to get them re-involved? Zeus, is there a way for you to send out a mass e-mail to all members reminding them about the site and the continued interest in the SACD format?

Just a thought.

Post by zeus August 7, 2012 (2 of 124)
classicrecordings said:

I am just wondering what has happened to those who were once involved, and is there some way to get them re-involved? Zeus, is there a way for you to send out a mass e-mail to all members reminding them about the site and the continued interest in the SACD format?

People come and go. My concern is that the forum has become stale and with too much bickering. I also have little time for armchair critics here. I've been giving all this thought for some time and there's likely to be significant changes in the future, aimed more at discussion on available content and less unfocussed exchange. I don't have anything more to add at this time as I haven't made any decisions yet.

Post by Windsurfer August 7, 2012 (3 of 124)
zeus said:

People come and go. My concern is that the forum has become stale and with too much bickering.

The bickering and the unfair and odious carping at certain labels has driven away at least two very nice friends I met here about 6 years ago.

Post by SnaggS August 7, 2012 (4 of 124)
I used to check everyday to see if any new releases had come out, but its not up-to-date any more, so I don't tend to come here as much.

Post by akiralx August 7, 2012 (5 of 124)
Windsurfer said:

The bickering and the unfair and odious carping at certain labels has driven away at least two very nice friends I met here about 6 years ago.

I was a keen site reviewer until a couple of years ago, my review numbers and posts have reduced dramatically. Two reasons:

1. The boring discussions about the technical specifications of recordings.
2. The unpleasant comments from several users, who I'm amazed are still allowed to post - they should have been banned years ago.

Post by Ubertrout August 7, 2012 (6 of 124)
akiralx said:

I was a keen site reviewer until a couple of years ago, my review numbers and posts have reduced dramatically. Two reasons:

1. The boring discussions about the technical specifications of recordings.
2. The unpleasant comments from several users, who I'm amazed are still allowed to post - they should have been banned years ago.

Yup. Bitrate carping and personal attacks characterize an annoying amount of the posts here.

Honestly, though, part of the problem is that there isn't as much to discuss as increasing numbers of major and mid-size labels are abandoning SACD. Channel and BIS and Pentatone rock, and there are a few other labels as well. But...while lots of discs are still coming out, many if not most of them are live recordings of provincial european orchestras playing the same core repetoire. Much of it seems aimed solely at audiophiles, and is mostly of niche interest.

I'm not denying that great stuff is still being released...but less and less of it overlaps with the broader classical market.

Post by Jonalogic August 8, 2012 (7 of 124)
All I can say to the above is 'ditto', and then a bit more...

I was a keen poster and reviewer until several months ago. Then I basically gave up, when I realised that the pain was consistently outweighing the pleasure of participating..

1) The fundamental reason was continuous ill-informed, boorish and just plain nasty ad hominem attacks from the well-known carpers and jihadists on this forum. Whether or not we like it, some people seem only to want to contribute bile and prejudice. All web fora have morons like this, but SACD.net just seems to have more than its fair share.

Some moronic jerks systematically going through all my reviews and retrospectively trashing them after one heated debate was the final straw. Enough is enough.

2) Second reason? The reviews in this Forum are - for the most part - simply not credible and believable. Over-marking was always rife here and - as a separate thread notes - five stars are systemically awarded to palpably sub-par sound and performance. And, frankly, some of the staff reviewers are the worst culprits.

I am not sure why this should be so. I do not for one instant think there is corruption or 'buying of stars'. I suspect sub-par equipment may explain some of the more bizarre observations. Plus many reviewers seem not to be aware of what live music actually sounds like, and consequently value affect and artifice over musical veracity. There is also widespread ignorance, apparently, concerning great recordings of the past, and the standards they set. The bottom line is that when 5 stars has almost become a default for new recordings, something has gone fundamentally wrong.

3) The quality and utility of most threads is now minimal, in some cases zero. However hard most forum members seek to discuss music, performance and the SACD medium, they are regularly trashed by the yahoo brigade, resulting in threads degrading to sterile technical nit-picking or rampant yar-boo shouting matches between the same old culprits.

This is very much connected, I feel, to the pervading intolerance of divergent or heterodox opinion in some quarters. Different opinions or perceptions are great; they can stimulate constructive debate and resolution. But just how much of this do we see in this Forum? Instead we see knee-jerk hostility and attack whenever YOUR opinion differs from MINE. That's childish and wholly destructive to the overall tone and standard of debate in this Forum.

4) One of the highlights of this Forum was always its ability to reliable inform of new and forthcoming recordings. When this went, so did my main reason for visiting this website.

I know of several folk who, for very similar reasons to the above, no longer participate actively in SACD.net.

Best wishes. Sort these out problems, and I'll be back. And I'm happy to help.

I nearly forgot. OLYMPIC TEAM GB ROCKS.

Post by flyingdutchman August 8, 2012 (8 of 124)
Since I seem to be the source of some people's angst, I will leave. May the celebrations begin.

Post by emaidel August 8, 2012 (9 of 124)
I too feel that the endless bickering amongst the same handful of miscreants is the primary reason for the departure of members. What's so unfortunate, is that many such negative posts - particularly those against BIS's recording techniques - have actually hurt the company's bottom line.

I'd like to relay a story that happened to me while I was VP of Sales and Marketing at Stanton Magnetics, back in 1999. The result of this incident, much like some of the carping here, had a significant impact on Stanton's business.

We had a top-end cartridge called the "Collector's Series 100," or "CS-100." Our primary business was the DJ business, but we had a few very supportive dealers of the CS-100, and it also sold well in Europe. Then, one day, a young man from The Absolute Sound magazine called me and said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "We've received many letters and phone calls from readers who own this cartridge, and like it so much they feel that our not having reviewed it is doing other readers a disservice."

Well, they reviewed it all right, and blasted it to hell and back. For whatever reason, the young man who reviewed it hated Stanton cartridges in the first place, and disagreed with a glowing review of an older model - the 881-S - by a colleague at the magazine. The CS-100 was based on the 881-S, and so, never stood a chance. While the reviewer who praised the 881-S was given brief lip service in the review of the CS-100 (he actually liked it a lot), the bulk was full of incredibly nasty stuff, and a lot of sheer nonsense, creating pseudo-scientific sounding terms like "rotational torque" that had no basis in fact anywhere.

And what happened to sales of the CS-100? They came to an abrupt standstill, and we never made any more.

Of course, reviewers have a right to express their opinions, but there are limits to playing fast and loose with facts. We at Stanton were allowed a "manufacturer's comment," but that too was ridiculed.

This seems to be what's happened here all too often, primarily by the same small group of loudmouths, mostly whenever a BIS recording comes up for discussion.

I think we all need to step back, take a deep breath, and remember the name of this site: "SA-CD.net," and try to remember why we're all here. And, instead of condemning a label such as BIS, we need to praise it for continuing to support this format, probably more energetically and with more dedication than any other label out there.

Amen.

Post by Jonalogic August 8, 2012 (10 of 124)
Arnaldo said:

Please Zeus, don't change anything or else Colonel Gaddafi is coming back from the dead. I promise I'll behave!

Thank you for proving my points so succinctly and rapidly. Some things - and some people - just never change.

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