500 members - a small but significant milestone!

[Marco]

Well guys, that's us now reached our first 'milestone', as it were, since starting the forum last January.

It's a small achievement but we think a significant one, given the climate in which AOS was started where there were already a number of well-established audio forums and as such it was difficult to thrust this one 'into the limelight' with so much other competition and people having their favourite 'haunts'.

The forum is growing very nicely thanks to your help and support; indeed the level of activity The Art of Sound generates both in terms of actual posts written and overall 'hits' is quite astonishing considering the size of our membership and the forum's relative youth.

We will continue to develop AOS and try and give it a different flavour and 'feel' to other audio and music forums where you may also be a member. We have numerous plans in place to help us achieve our goals and so next year promises to be an exciting one. We're definitely going places fast!

We would like to use this as an opportunity for you to offer us your comments. It's inevitable that we'll get some things wrong as well as right, so please let us know what you like about AOS or what you dislike, and most importantly how you think the forum could be improved to better cater for your needs and make it feel more like a community.

There is a section on the forum for this purpose but no-one ever seems to use it. I can't believe that we're that perfect, so come on, let's hear what you think!! We will always act upon any useful suggestions. And please be as frank and honest as possible. As long as comments are constrictive, even if they are critical, we will respond positively.

I'm sure the other members of the management team will be along to offer their thoughts, so once again I'd just like to thank you all for your effort in supporting our efforts here on AOS

Marco.

[Filterlab]

Nice one.

I will just add that we have almost 20,000 posts too! Get typing some more, if we have 20,000 by Christmas day, Steve Toy will buy everyone a drink.

[Beechwoods]

Brilliant news It's great to see the new people coming in through the Welcome forum too.

Do we have any idea how many folks have been active over the last few weeks? That'd be really interesting to see.

I'm looking forward to my pint in the AoS Arms come Christmas

[Neil McCauley]

We have numerous plans in place to help us achieve our goals and so next year promises to be an exciting one. Marco.

If I can help in someway, then please let me know. I'll give it my best shot. Really! Meanwhile congratulations.

Sincerely

Howard

PS

The Detroit Cobras are on the office i-Tunes system right now. The track Hot Dog (Watch me eat) is, err, somewhat distracting.

PPS

Tomorrow I am going to have a second listen to a prototype pair of active loudspeakers that gave an articulation superior to anything I have here - at a projected price of less than £3k. It consists of a 5 input controller with the 4 power amps built into the controller chassis into two lightweight cabinets. Apparently in the past week significant sonic improvements have been achieved!

Forum members, if interested, might be the first to hear.

---//---

[Marco]

Hi guys,

Thanks for your comments and your kind offer Howard, I'll see if I can come up with something different

Beechy,

I'll have a look and see if I can pull out some stats, but you only have to look at the amount of 'views' the major threads get, and the fairly high amount of posts there is per week to realise we're really busy for a fairly small and relatively new forum. Our Google, Yahoo and MSN ratings have also shot up considerably, and the new members we're getting from these sources are proof of that. It's all good, mate!

I'm looking for some suggestions from someone though as to how we could improve the forum further. Come on chaps get your thinking hats on!

Marco.

[Steve Toy]

I was expecting the 500 mark to arrive in the summer but since coming back from France yesterday I notice that my email inbox is full of alerts telling me of new members all within the space of 5 days.

The summer lull (that I guess I wasn't expecting) is now over and we can really press on with a number of projects as well as watch this place grow.

It's all good.

[Mike]

It's an impressive number of members for such a young forum.

I'm looking forward to Steve buying us all that drink too!

[Marco]

Hehe... And me!

Well, we must be absolutely perfect and doing everything right as no-one's suggesting how we could improve the place!

Marco.

[Mick Parry]

Chaps

Well done.

I have to say I lurk a lot now a days but the standard of discussion on this forum is very high.

Better to have 500 good members than a load of morons.

Regards

Mick

[Steve Toy]

Well thanks Mick, always to the point, I really appreciate your input.

The hi-fi industry is hitting tough times like every other.

Our mission is to keep it alive through to when the good times come back.

Meanwhile lets enjoy the music as best we can through whatever medium is available to us and continue to push the boundaries of resolution and ensuing enjoyment factor.