Hi everyone!
I would just like to add that after many years along this love/hate journey in the pursuit of high-fidelity, I too am grateful for 6moons' presence. The efforts of Srajan Ebaen and his team of writers have been, IMO, greatly influential in bringing to light those other views, players and philosophies which often differ from the current mainstream. In doing so, we come to discover alternative options; and sometimes these prove to be more than merely different paths to Rome, they can even change the landscape of the mainstream.
However, in writing this, I do not want to ignore the efforts or influence of the other individuals in the audio reviewing community who are also doing this very thing and Art Dudley is one who comes to mind for example. In fact, Mr. Dudley's previous mag "Listener" was a print version of this very idea. Stever Rochlin of "Enjoy the Music" has also been a pioneer in encouraging us to look to broader horizons, and now I see webzines like "Tonepublications", Positive-feedback, Stereotimes, the previous American Wired, etc.
Therefore, without taking away from the above mentioned and the many others that haven't been named but certainly have helped to enlighten the rest of us, let me just say briefly what it is about 6moons that I appreciate in particular. 6moons has a "World Music" quality to it. What I mean by this is that they introduce us to audio reproduction from a more global view rather than simply a "Western" or even "American" only view. Furthermore, they do this also in regards to technology, philosophy, and finally financially. One can learn about mainstream, alternative, underground, and dare I say it "garage band" audio reproduction. In the same week I can find equipment costing tens of thousands, even more or I can read about a pair of speakers for $200. Regardless, I feel that it is the former which is far more influential long term. Bringing to our awareness, technologies and even more importantly the many and various designers, distributors and builders of such designs greatly changes our marketplace.
Yes, we have heard of SETs, yes we have heard of horns, and TVCs before, etc. You can and do find mention of these in the mainstream magazines....but, and this is the key difference, it is usually only a mention or only one such item is reviewed. The mainstream mags tend to leave us with the impression that only the bleeding edge, very niche group with tons of $$$ to burn are really able to explore these kinds of waters in audio. In contrast, 6moons has simply made the world smaller, and taken a previously dark and obscure market and illuminated it. This is wonderful! If I want to buy a $100,000+ SET called a Kondo Audio Note Ongaku, or the Cary 300SEI, I can just read Stereophile. And if I just read Stereophile, that is probably all the SETs I may think even exist. But thanks to 6moons, I've now got Fi, Yamamoto, Canary, etc. And this is not to say that 6moons is only about SETs, I am just using this as an example. But thanks to 6moons, I was introduced to DeVore, Zu, Omega just to name three; and many many others. Its not that enjoythemusic hasn't been enlightening us, or the previous Listener mag, its just that 6moons is doing it so effectively well. There seems to be a "spirit" among the writers, willing to explore and test out new waters; they seem hungry for it. We readers benefit from this, we have new options to buy, new ideas to consider, new audiophile philosophies and designers from both our own country and others we weren't aware of before. It is not that these new ideas are always right, or that the reveiwers perspectives are the same as our own, that does not matter. It is important that we now know about them and if interested can experience them for ourselves.
Rather than suggest that none of the other webzines are doing this (because I think several are), I simply want to applaud and emphasize what a huge impact I believe 6moons has had in these regards. The fact that now we are seeing more and more of this among the other webzines is encouraging. Maybe down the road, our little world of hifi will mature and grow in its understanding of what makes playback musical because of the greater exposure to the many valid views out there. Its like the more minds involved, the better the chance we have of getting to where we want to be.
Keep up the good work!
David Vair
