August 23, 2012

1,000,000 And Counting!



It's been a long, long while since I did a Mind Over Hifi posting(I must confess that very little of my mind has been in hifi of late), but the occasion warrants it today. It's been a depressing day for me. A day of opportunities lost, of deep frustrations and a general feeling of helplessness. However, when I turn on my PC and logged in to this blog, a small, if insignificant number cropped out of our page views counter. Yes folks, we've hit the million readership mark on this blog site. It's the feeling of a small achievement, that manage to end my bitter day on a some what sweeter note.

Please allow me to re-count on our journey so far.

Both me and Odioslueth started this blog as an audio adventure partnership, a little over 3 years ago, coming together from our past contributions in another audio blog site called Desirable Audio Boutique. We had intended to use this blog to promote the hobby of specialist audio for greater society participation. We shared our audio philosophies, beliefs and our practical experiences in this musically rewarding hobby of ours. We also document our equipment up grade trial, and shared our sonic triumphs with you, our dear readers. We may not always be right, but we're always man enough to own up if proven otherwise.

Soon, we found industry wide support in our passion for high end audio. We sincerely thank all those dealers who supported us with product review loaners, the little social parties called events, and most of all the friendships that were developed as result from the blog's activities. We appreciate the trust these dealers put upon us with the mega bucks gear on loan. Trust me, while we thoroughly enjoyed our time with them, the responsibility to return them, un-marked, and free from un-warranted molestation is enormous while under our care.  However, we are proud to have achieved a 100% blemish free goods return rate, except when the times that we fell head over heels over the subject under scrutiny and return in cash instead! Odiosleuth happily calls this occasion an "occupational hazard!". I couldn't agree more, happy reviews, and merry dealers, what's not to like?

Now, I am not exactly sure how much influence we hold sway upon our audience, but there sure as hell that some industry players cared enough about what we had to say. There were times when we had to make choices, between those that came bearing gifts, or those that let their legal departments do the "talking" and editorial integrity, which we'll always choose the later without the slightest of considerations. As a result we may have alienated certain industry players. There are also times when readers accuse that we always have something positive to write on every equipment under review. My guess is that if neither side is exactly pleased, then we're probably balancing along the fine line with equal measure. There's a proverb for this too, "You can't please everyone all the time, but you can please most people, most of the time".  In this blog site, we remain truly "non profit" in our hearts. For all I know, our smart readers couldn't give a jack sh*t about our ramblings here?

There are plans to bring this blog site concept up another level soon, pending legalities and other regulatory requirements which we have to comply upon in the near future. Details are still being worked out at this point, but we trust that our new effort will bring even more cheer and excitement to the high end audio market place. As we still have some on going editorial commitments to fulfil, this blog site will continue in it's present form for a little while more, so please stay with us till the very end. This is NOT a good bye note, not just yet!

Lastly, there are times when people come up to us, because they recognise us from these pages, and tell us that they love our work, or that it's the first web page they look up to when they switch on their computers, that's more than enough motivation to carry on with our sharing of musical gifts and audio joys. A million thanks to all our faithful readers, and we couldn't have done it without your un-ending support. We are proud to have gone this far with you indeed!

3 comments:

Ken said...

Congrates!!

Now the second million ;-)

tan said...

Congrats to BigE & Odiosleuth, keep up the entertaining write-ups.

Big E said...

Thanks for the support guys.