TNT - Editor's corner

TNT-Audio Editor's corner - January 2003

Serious Fun!

This is our first editorial of the New Year so - perhaps - you expect us to summarize the main events happened at TNT-Audio in 2002. We'll be brief and concise as we prefer to focus your attention on the future, instead of the past.
First of all, we want to welcome two new writers, Julian Ashbourn from UK and Hartmut Quaschik from Germany. We heartly wish 'em to enjoy their stay here. We're all here at TNT-Audio to have fun, so we hope they can share a part of this "fun" with you dear readers.

Secondly and undoubtedly, our popularity has grown at a steady pace during 2002. This has forced us to slightly modify our pages layout in order to make the site faster and easier to read. Gone are the old black background scheme (which was quite heavy to download and made printing difficult to some) and the heavy Home Page. A new, fresher and lighter TNT logo and a new first page layout has made our site load quicker. On a standard 56.6 modem connection, we believe our site loads up in a couple of seconds. While other sites becomes more and more cumbersome and heavy to download, we go the opposite way :-) [as usual]

Besides popularity, the 2002 brought us some great reward, also, as we received the Nomination for the Best Italian Website from the leading Italian financial newspaper (il Sole 24 Ore). This Nomination has been achieved thanks to the votes of our faithful readers. Considering we're the living proof of a possible no-profit use of the Internet it is quite amusing to have received that Nomination from a financial newspaper :-)

Not everything has been good and pleasant. To say it with the words of a famous song (by F. Mercury and Queen) ... it's been no bed of roses, no pleasure cruise... and we've had our share of sand kicked in our faces.... If you think everything has been easy and pleasant, you're damn wrong.
First of all, we've had our share of bad experiences with HiFi manufacturers. The we're sending the samples next week attitude seems to be all the rage nowadays. Considering how busy are our personal schedules, finding a blank slot for a product is a damn complicated balancing act. Once the "slot" has been found and decided and the promised product doesn't arrive...well, you can imagine our disappointment.
This attitude, in turn, damages other (more serious) manufacturers who get the reviews of their products delayed because of several "blank slots" filled with NOTHING.
We are no longer going to give a second chance to manufacturers who behave this way, sorry. Moreover, considering the damage they cause with their silly and extremely non-professional attitude, we're planning to make you readers KNOW who these guys are, WHAT they promised and WHEN. Of course we've saved their e-mail messages for future reference ;-)

Even worse, some manufacturer doesn't feel comfortable to deal with a non-commercial enterprise like ours. When something is FREE one thinks it isn't worth a cent. Why do they think so? Eeeeeasy, it is the very same approach they use when designing their HiFi products: cheap stuff sold at N-times its real commercial value. They try to convince customers that, if a component is extremely expensive, it MUST be good. Hence, it must be the same for HiFi magazines and reviews.
We're terribly SAD for their narrow minds and there's nothing we can do to help them. We think we'd better leave them as they are.

Finally, a positive note, to conclude: more and more HiFi Companies are contacting us for having their products reviewed by TNT-Audio. Both well established worldwide known Companies AND even new "kids on the block". We'll always keep an eye wide open on the new things on the market, better if well-promising, soundwise and pricewise.

Generally, we'll try to review a bit of everything (digital and analogue, tubes and solid state) but we will try to keep your DIY flame burning bright also.

Happy New Year to everyone!