Forum Activity or Lack There Of: Why?

[Kevin K.]

Forum activity is down, I would argue way down. How many of you agree? There are a few reasons that come to mind and here are my thoughts:

1. Time of the year, money get tighter this time of year without a doubt.

2. The latest software upgrade for the Forum, definitely a contributor. How much, hard to measure.

3. This is the big one in my mind, PE's posture on the Speaker Building Design Team.

Plain and simple, the Design Team is not allowed to share or discuss their projects with the forum until completion. I, for one, just don't understand how this benefits PE. I do understand how it hurts our forum. First of all, PE picks 10 Designers, and in most cases, 10 of the more active speaker builders here on the forum. They are then asked to complete 3 projects a year with different guidelines, in private. This equates to 30 projects annually that are not disclosed, discussed, or shared until completion. This discourages questions, comments, or suggestions from other forum members. Yes, we can all chime in after the build is done and say "Great Job" but that's about the extent of what I have seen after these are posted. There are not as many questions, there are certainly no suggestions, and discussions are very limited. I recognize the fellas that have been elected to these teams know what they are doing and don't require assistance. At the same time, I feel since we are not getting to watch the build take place and discuss the build as they move along, we are losing members due to lack of activity or interest. I'm no where near qualified to apply for the team, but if I was, not sure I would apply anyway under these current rules. To me, it just doesn't look like it would be as much fun, and IMHO, it's hurting our forum. Curious how many of you agree.

No disrespect meant towards PE. Just stating I don't like the way they are handling the projects from the SBDT. Hopefully they see this and maybe reconsider.

[LITTLEME60]

Kevin, I think the bulk of it is due to the fury that occured earlier this year about forum rule changes, particularly those about design ownership and the inability to mention other companies in forum posts. I saw immediately many of the bigger hitters dropping out. The changing of the deal of the day to the deal of the week really shortened my interest. Sure, I live in the area and still will drop in for most of my needs, but it;'s not begrudgingly. to be honest, this is my first visit in 2-3 weeks. on the off track, I hope you all enjoyed Christmas, and look forward to the New Year, tata.

[mattsk8]

My $.02...

-The site. I can list a lot of reasons for this but the big ones for me are... it's buggy, which is really annoying... you can't click a page in a thread right from the main page (always page one)... and no more links to things PE doesn't sell is a pretty big downer. I can list more but those are the big ones for me.

-(Kind of a tie with this one^) Too many people that just want to argue and be the "chief"; that gets old. And it isn't aimed at anyone in particular, even noobs seem to show up here and try to be "audio websperts". No one can admit the possibility that there might be more than one way to "skin a cat", and they aren't always right.

-Hadn't considered the design team, you make a good point. It does pull some of the guys that used to contribute a lot to the forum away from discussing what they're working on.

[rkeman]

There was a time when three or so interesting threads would appear in a week's time and now there may be one good thread in a three week period. Several other popular audio forums seem to be in a similar situation, so it may be reflective of broader change in the audiophile community.

[6thplanet]

Winters always a down time for me, hard to go out to the shop when it's 20-40 degrees. Most of the people on here are in the mid country with the same kinda weather. I'm currently playing with my latest build, but nothing really new to post about. This is my usual xover play time till the weather breaks, then back to finish the build for the following "gatherings" 'n such.

[dynamo]

I think there was a struggle when the forum rules hit hard but I think it has come back from that quite a bit.. I think people plagued with unheated shops (in that boat myself) and the holidays slows it down. Didn't know the design team can't discuss builds in the works.. that's a bummer and likely affects thread count as well

[r-carpenter]

Until dealers, equipment sellers and manufacturers realize that sound systems need to be promoted as a social status symbol rather than high tech doo-daa, hobby will be continuously declining. And not just commercial but DIY as well.
Having said that, new PE software sux.

[Face]

The season, new software, new rules and how they were presented/brought about. I could see the design team possibly having a factor in that...or maybe not.

[Beau]

Yes, in my opinion it appears to be way down.

I have my own, very definitive, thoughts on why this is. Although I am not known for being one who is hesitant to express my opinions, in this case I think it would be best if I keep my thoughts to myself.

But, yes, I agree that it appears that traffic is greatly reduced.

[joeybutts]

I faded a bit due to life changes but am hoping to be on the rise again. Some of the things posted are a little bothersome, but doesn't lend itself to really stopping me from being here. It is unfortunate about the not being able to post/link to other products not sold here. I think that is a grand flaw, especially since many of those products are being intermingled with what PE sells.

It is what it is, and will forever be, changing of the tides.

Here's to a more prosperous year of speakerbuilding! (redesigned subwoofers, backyard speakers and custom soon to be NLA desktop 3-way to name a few! )

[neildavis]

No disrespect meant towards PE. Just stating I don't like the way they are handling the projects from the SBDT. Hopefully they see this and maybe reconsider.

I think the design team silence until publication is a valid concern, but not a huge factor. The design team final write-up documents the end product and some of the thought processes along the way, but there is a word limit that prevents discussing all of the details and design considerations. I agree that it would be nice to share some of these other thoughts and get some feedback on this forum. It could help ensure that the designs are more relevant and could stimulate some positive forum activity.

I'd throw in another cause for declining interest. My own opinion is that audio interests are evolving and that the existing DIY communities haven't kept pace with the new technologies. What's selling now in electronics stores is active speakers with WiFi or Bluetooth connectivity. Some of those WiFi speakers are actually very good, but they require DSP, microcontrollers, advanced networking protocols, class D amps, 3D printing for small enclosures, and lots of software. It's harder to "DIY" the hot new products, and there aren't that many on this board who have the skills or knowledge or electronics background that's needed to DIY active WiFi speakers.

I've got some active speakers planned for my SBDT work, but I'm struggling with how to explain the technology and make the electronics and software "simple" to a broad group of forum participants. But I think we need to have more DSP, electronics and software on this board for it to move forward and attract new members. Winter might be hard on the cabinet makers, but it's a great time of year for writing code .

[rpb]

A newbie walks in wanting to build a some speakers of his own design. Five posts later he's been talked out of it. End of interesting thread.

[PWR RYD]

Software change sucked, the rule changes suck... then the owner name calling... I decided not to share any of my projects on here anymore. I rarely stop by here these days.

[captainobvious99]

Plain and simple for me: the new forum software flat out sucks. They should have stuck with what was working. Search sucks, messaging sucks, forum view sucks.

I'd also agree that discouraging or flat out disallowing open conversation and linking about other companies offerings is not the way to go. These changes seem like the "fix it until it breaks" mentality.

[Waboo]

I'm new here as a forum member so I'll probably get spanked for having an honest opinion. I lurked for quite some time, in fact a long time, and remember the fiasco of the law being laid down regarding linking to other competitors sites.

Why doesn't PE sell ScanSpeak, Eton, SB Acoustic/Satori, and SEAS. Morel seems to be about the only exciting stuff here, and we know it's not terribly exciting. Where's all the good ole Euro drivers? I know Dynaudio and Focal backed out of DIY, and it looks as though this opened a door to all kinds of Dayton drivers being introduced to fill that void. I like the Dayton subwoofer lines, but the other Dayton stuff just doesn't tug at me much. I'm sure it's alright, just kinda vanilla for my tastes. But my girlfriend just loves vanilla.