TALK AUDIO IS EIGHTEEN TODAY! KEY TO THE DOOR!

Some good while back, the Internet began to impact print media adversely. If you ever saw the Walter Mitty movie remake, you will understand why it broke me up. The central theme was about art photography and how important the true photographer really is to recording our world. It was also filled with the crackpot dreams of Mr. Mitty, as it should have been. The central characters big magazine was going online-only.

As it happened, Fast Car magazine survived where Max Power did not. I have been on a promise with the editor of FC, Slim Jules to write a piece called “Know Thy Enemy, Electronic Countermeasures” for ages and keep on seeing new cameras. But I will get at that.

Anyway, a full decade and a little bit ago, as the work seemed to dry up at Fast Car, it was clear that Talk Audio was the place to be online. The audience was five times the size the biggest car audio specialist magazine ever got. The post count was in the millions and Google utterly loved us. I started at A is for Alpine and in time was able to fill up the entire alphabet all the way to Zapco.^*

I would have SEO experts get in contact to try to sell me their wares and I could afford to be utterly disdainful. Because Talk Audio googled like a bitch. I even used it to sell site associate status to all the big Japanese companies.

I was visibly nervous, which is a good executive approach because it shows genuine risk and a lack of mendacity. I would ask them to put the model number of anything I might have reviewed into Google. BOOM, there it was, page one and often the very very first NOT paid for entry. I conversed with one SEO merchant who was astonished. “Yes mate, that is REAL!” It was almost as if he could not believe the reality of what Google was supposed to do and that which he thought he could abuse. Hilarious.

‘Second Life’, ‘MySpace’ and ‘Friends Reunited’ are proof of the speed of trend change online. Although Facebook is seen as a bit more elderly than Instagram, since the very day I was told it was not optional to start a Talk Audio page on Facebook, that site has grown absurdly. Facebook rapidly replaced the social element of Talk Audio, which was a big piece of it. Yet the forum happily cooked with all the car audio and related stuff still going on.

If you are reading this here, then you will know that after a decade of work as magazine editor on Talk Audio, my body of work has been expertly parlayed to this brand-new shiny WordPress website. And this very day marks day one for the old forum as an independent entity. For that too has had to change to a platform managed from the outside. All our fabulous moderators were young when they started and now mostly have young families. Except Neeley, he never seemed that likely to breed. (I adore Neely, by the way, the loveliest mod we ever had imho.)

And now there are forums software operators that merely for the minor advertising revenue, will translate epic amounts of data, keep the software underneath running sweetly, and allow the forum to be a grown-up all on its own. At the age of eighteen to the very day of its inception, Talk Audio which is proudly regaining its own name back (nobody liked “Talk Stuff” if we are honest) is now operating here: (That fresh that we have to put “LINK SOON” here.)

The community on Talk Audio literally saved my career from the doldrums and indeed allowed it to soar to new heights. The figures were so huge and impressive that they muscled me into the CES show as a scholarship journalist. That meant that the organisers schmoozed me first in London at the Groucho club and then along with a very select group of other journalists, flew us to Las Vegas on a budget we could apply to the airline of our choice and put us up in the British style fairy castle called Excalibur. In return, I never worked harder, until recently upon my new outdoors title. It turned out that I hold the record for the greatest amount of quality copy. As I do not drink and I do not not gamble, I always found Vegas a bit shocking, have a love/hate relationship with the place, as many do. I can also tell you, that I was even invited back a second time on the same basis.

Now the north halls of the Las Vegas Convention Centre look very different at CES time than they did back in my day. There are still a few companies making and selling car audio over there. (JL Audio continue to go from strength to strength, although they promote their kit their OWN way, outside the CES mill.) . The size of the US market and the number of cars and how long they keep them is such that it may always be the case. I do hope so.

But here in the UK, the aftermarket is over. It is purely hobbyists and a delightfully expanded segment of the car audio aware who can now afford it. So we still have some specialists dotted around the country and the TA forum lives on.

I have often used a scary analogy about myself to do with tenacity and staying power  – sheer bleeding bloody mindedness. “What’s the difference between a Rottweiler and Adam Rayner? A Rottweiler will eventually unclench its teeth!” meaning I am one stubborn bastard. That translates into refusing to give up car audio reviewing. I also really enjoyed the Metallica stuff for Big Mick and Meyer sound and fancy a bit more big system reviewing. That can mean high end home theatre, theatre itself, or rock’n’ roll. And now that my catapult magazine is finished, (www.slingshotworld.co.uk) I shall send it to that top end executive at Harman, who incredibly turned out to be a catty fan! He is also a crucial cog in Harman’s car audio program in Europe and I want to look at Harman stuff across their entire milieu. The trouble is, there are no other journalists  who cover all of those fields as related. It’s just been my entire career, from pro to consumer and I bloody love it. Sound, audio and electronics are in the very core of my being and if you have seen me, you’ll know that’s a bloody long way in. So it ain’t changing, I am not going away!

I wish the Talk Audio forum an illustrious future for the next 18 years! You have the key to the door! Now go grow up some more…

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Adam Rayner 23/7/2018

^{*(Some brands worked with, plenty missed out)… apologies!)} Alpine , Audio Control, Audiobahn, Blaupunkt, Boss, Clarion, Caliber, Denon, Digital Designs, Esoteric Audio, Earthquake, Focal, Ground Zero, HiFonics, Infinity, JL Audio, JVC, Kenwood, Linear Power, Maystar, Midbass, Nakamichi, Orion, Pioneer, Quart (MB), Rockford Fosgate, Streetwires, Soundstream, Treo, US Amps, Vibe, Vestatec, West Coast Customs, Xine, Xtant, Yamaha, Zapco.