The Audio Community

Community is a typical Anglo-Saxon definition for a group of people that, for the most diverse reasons, share an interest in the same matter or share at least partially the same fate, or carry out similar tasks etc.

The word community sounds rather new to us Europeans.
We did not ignore it, of course, but we seldom had used it out of a sociological context - like for the Italian "mountain communities" for instance.
It was often used for initiatives taken in a spirit of community, initiatives that therefore rarely were animated by that concept of "having in common" which refers to a feeling of having common belongings, common intentions, common tasks to pursue, common activities to share.

The Audio Community in the U.S. has been a structured and powerful reality for many years now, provided with its own regulatory bodies, organizations, with its own rules - written and not written.

In the "Audio Community" manufacturers, retailers, salespersons, the press, the audiophiles take part, in a word all those who are in the consumer audio and feel to be an active part of such community.
Jeez, the Audio Community is neither Plato's "Republic", nor the socialism made real: competitors stay competitors, little daily disloyalties keep existing, just like personal aversions and other human trifles.

Yet the community has an aggregating ability, an attitude towards self-defense and proposition that is completely unknown in our neighborhoods. I know, it's a very American "verve" anyway, one of these things that almost annoy a bit us ancient and experienced Europeans, or we find them ridiculous, like going to a fair or to a conference wearing everybody a badge with her/his name printed on. But that badge, being ridiculous and not elegant, is a thing that works: nobody is a Mr. Anonymous, and you free anyone from the embarrassment of having to recognize you, even if she/he does not remember of you at all. And if you start a conversation between a salty snack and a drink with somebody, she/he will know how to address you instead of decrypting from your words what is your job or interrupting you to ask what is your name.

It is useful, and under a usefulness point of view we can't move any exception to people from the US (except for switchboard operators at telephone companies, and the booking staff of the airlines).

The Audio Community, like any community, is very practically minded: not only it defends its own interests, but it also interacts with those of the public, has an open and fair confrontation with the press (where this latter is, on its turn), supports itself and backs its members in troubles.
But to us, ancient and experienced Europeans, this thing looks a bit ridiculous too, so we keep on fighting each other to the bitter end in far more ridiculous field battles, hoping to defend our small field from the assaults of our enemies. But, who is our enemy? Everybody else, of course.

Each manufacturer dreams of the death of that other manufacturer who markets the products closest to his ones. Distributors don't mind if they get ruined, the point for them is snatching agencies each other, and magazines, instead of contemplating how to grow and make the market grow, are always slandering each other (like if they didn't get slandered enough by themselves). Audiophiles are ready to defy each other in shod mace duels just to support an opinion different from that of their counterpart. Somebody, at this point, would reasonably ask: "What are you telling us, that the US market is a happy island? Come on!"
Right, it's not a happy island, it's a market, a market (I'm talking of the audio one only of course, the one I know best) from which we'd better learn something anyway.

I've been a member of AAHEA (Academy for Advancement of High End Audio) since it was founded, even though I've been attending it very little in recent times. It's a mighty "community" that brings together manufacturers, distributors, journalists and representatives of customers, all involved in high quality audio and video.

Even AAHEA has had its splits and divisions but, for instance, I saw it intervene very concretely in favor of small manufacturers that were in troubled waters, of colleagues from the press with health or family problems.

I took part in a lot of meetings (with no luster and no hierarchies) in which a common and healthy path for the market was pursued, instead of individual short - term interests. This with - once more - a peculiar American rationality, that included the awareness that a healthy market automatically means defense of each one's own interests.

For example, it's unconceivable that anybody in the U.S. Audio Community intervenes to prevent a competitor from taking part in an audio fair. Please rise his hand the manufacturer or the distributor who can say that the same happens in the much smaller European market. Avalon or Audio Research are happy to exhibit their gear in the same fair where Pioneer or Sony exhibit theirs. In fact, they know well that if a one-percent of the enthusiasts of these large brands pop in into their showrooms and enjoy their sound, that will mean at least one year of bonanza.

We are always ready to absorb by impulse the worst things of the American society, but the best ones always look a bit ridiculous to us.

It's like that very blasé movie reviewer who loves to crush my still beloved, epic movies with Robert Redford. Yesterday I followed his advice and went to see that humbug called "Phone Booth" by that emerging and intellectual-ish Joel Schumacher, intellectual-ish in the sense that he pretends to be an intellectual instead of an AD professional who got swollen-headed. I felt like an idiot, after the movie. I think I should just stop following that reviewer's advice.

We are utmost supporters of the free market when this matches our own interests, but we are lobbyist and change-adverse when it seems that the so much trumpeted free market can offer other people these chances that we assume must belong to us only.
Not understanding, precisely, that either that market is fizzy, then it belongs to all of us, or simply it does not exist, therefore it ends not belonging to anybody.

That is the point. Since I like the positive aspects of the US, and firmly criticize those that in my opinion are the negative ones, I'd like this little magazine to be perceived as one of the "trends of thought" of the Audio Community.
But what Audio Community, someone will object?
The one which we must absolutely build if we want to hope that a world of the Audio will still exists tomorrow.