The power of the web.

[alb]

I wonder if we would be using the audio equipment we have now, without the influence of the internet.

Thinking back to when i was 15 years old (1973). My interest was sparked by a neighbour who bought himself a separates hifi system. I had never seen one before.
I wanted one but couldn't afford to buy much. Thus I made my first pair of home brew speakers.

At this time there were no web pages to browse, no friendly wise men to guide me. Not much interest from my friends at the time. They were mostly happy using things like a plastic suitcase with speakers built in the lid.
Very little written information, unless you knew where to find it. Just the articles and adverts in Popular HIFI magazine.
It was the internet that gave me the knowledge and confidence to start dabbling in electronics, and that was many years later.

I think i might have taken a very different route without the web.

[SamJones]

All my kit is both selected and purchased exclusively using the web. Realising years ago that swapping amplifiers brought little to my table, I just go for efficiency nowadays. Passive preamps, class-D power and computer/USB DAC front ends. Quite a lot of good quality sound per kWh, especially so with modern low energy computers. Without the web, I might not have been aware of such kit.

[Tony Moore]

I completely agree. My current (hifi) system is all researched, selected, upgraded and discussed on the web!

I started out (as a spotty teenager, many years ago) pretty much like you Al, home built speakers, not to any rigorous design, sounded rubbish really. (Mine did, I'm not saying _yours_ did Al! ) The only place for tinkering advice were the electronics mags that in fact were quite good in those days, before they started introducing "computing supplements" that very quickly took over and became a sea of different PC mags. :steam:

Then along came the internet and now we're able to find niche products all over the world, discuss the relative merits of products of interest and get ideas and help from specialist people spread all over who'd we'd never have had chance to communicate with in the past. :smoking:

Plus I've met up with a great bunch of like minded people through the WAD/WD forum and I'll hopefully meet up with more at ChesterFest! :)

Long live the Web!

Cheers,
Tony

[Filterlab]

Certainly a lot of my reviewing is done on the web, it's a great place for honest consumer reviews as many folk feel 'safe' expressing their opinion from behind an anonymous username on a web page somewhere. It's a great resource for quick specifications too albeit not necessarily on manufacturer's websites. I read lots about my Revels and my Apogee on the web - but in the case of the latter it was after I had heard them.

The Apogee was easy to dig up on the web, loads of great reviews and pages and pages of technical data. I had to listen to it before buying it though. The net is handy, but the ears are the final decider, however I tend to find that when there's plenty of information on the web on a product it tends to be better regarded in general.

That's nowhere near set in stone though.

[John]

I use the web a lot also but sometimes I find it hard to make sense of all the different views expressed. I will use the web to narrow my choices but still use my ears to decide what I should purchase