Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler AVS

There are a lot of fascinating things going on in the forum world, and unfortunately, most of these things are not good.

I always thought the forums (in terms of audio) were supposed to be a place where guys (and the occasional brave lady) could hang out, have fun and share USEFUL information.

The forums have morphed into the fans of certain companies shouting down everyone else. Guerrilla marketing runs rampant.

I started posting here again because it is one of the few places which is a community. If someone comes here liking some other company's products, he is welcomed. This is a good thing.

After I had posted here again for a few days, I received a PM. In this PM, I was told to look at a competitor's products. A link was provided.

That is WAY past "not cool". But it is an indicator of the state of this hobby today.

We are losing the "millennials" from this hobby. The reason we are losing them is they go on a forum, and immediately get told to "buy XYZ" product.

Typically, it's a $1000 - $3000 subwoofer from a "favorite" ID company and a bunch of speakers this young person can't afford, either.

My 23 year old son just bought his first house, and asked me to help him out with a home theater purchase.

His number one feature was Bluetooth so he could rock the house with his Droid phone.

Lots to be said on all of this, but for now, we need to make the forums both useful and fun again. Like this place.

I get really tired of the ubiquitous posts that are generated everyday, especially at AVS - 'I'm a Dummy - Choose a Speaker System for Me'. It seems that most don't want to take the time to do any meaningful research (that is available in spades) & they want to be spoon fed.

Then of course there are the same people who gleefully reply repeatedly with their own particular favourites, so that the OP ends up with a dozen or so 'subjective recommendations' that contributes to even more confusion...

TAM

If one looks at most forums today, unfortunately, they have no longer become a source of information and intelligent discussion, but, rather an "opportunity" where someone can spew forth their venom anonymously with little or no consequences. Also, if you look closely it usually it is the same small "cast of characters" who apparently don't seem to have a life, yet, the forum moderators still permit it and AVS is no exception. I can remember back a couple of years ago when I made one of my infrequent comments on the "Sound AND Vision" website and something came up about what were relatively new models at the time(the 1100"s)and that I had heard them and how much I enjoyed their performance. Believe it or not the next day, a comment came through criticizing my response by saying that Axiom speakers were "crap" and I must be a "shill" for the company(I wonder where they came from, Hmm?). The newspapers are a prime example as when a story is told about anything no matter how positive, the naysayers and critiques dominate the responses.

Overall, and quite sadly, most forums serve little purpose anymore(present company excluded, of course).

I've been accused of being a shill & even an employee numerous times (often by the same few) & that I had to be getting 'freebies' from Axiom.

My response is - 'Nope, I'm just a very satisfied customer, & no, I don't get 'freebies' nor would I accept any'. Of course, they don't believe me, but that says more about them than me...

TAM

That'd be CV, TAM. Oh, he'll deny it, just like he denies being born in Canada, but don't fall for it. He gets everything for free in exchange for relentless (almost soul-less, really) shilling.

You'd think part of the deal is that I'd post somewhere besides Axiom's own forum. But hey, I'm not going to argue against having a home field advantage.

So, you failed shill school then?

CV ... You need advanced shill training. You need to learn to tell how a speaker sounds based on looking at it.

All you need to do is tell someone that "The Acme product can't sound good. Look - the tweeter is a ____________ (fill in blank), which everyone knows sucks".

Commit to this, and you can never go wrong.

That happened in spades at AH a while ago at the Bryston Speaker launch when almost everyone (except moi & 3db) pontificated on how awful they were going to be by simply looking at pics on the web. Nobody had heard or tested them yet. Really, the only reason there was controversy was because of the manufacturer (you know who), not the brand name.

I was really disappointed & appalled by the behavior of a bunch of so-called learned enthusiasts who profess to be totally driven by 'audio science' & how they could carry on that nonsense for page after page of posts that were full of bias, supposition, hearsay, speculation and venom. In the end, the Brystons are universally highly thought of by anyone who has actually heard them - what a novel idea...

TAM

Hey Craig, that's all, back to the regular scheduled program.