April 2020

Coronavirus And High-End Audio
The last few weeks have turned our world a bit topsy-turvy.
Editorial By Steven R. Rochlin

  Well, that happened.

The past month has been extremely eventful for everyone around the world. As this article will be online for decades to come, please allow me a moment to put this article into some context. The Coronavirus (Covid-19) has suddenly affected many people throughout the world. It has also caused the cancellation, or delay, of a variety of shows from high-end audio and mechanical timepieces to cars, etc. Summertime music concert tours have also been canceled, or at the very least delayed. There's simply is not enough space to list every music and high-end audio event that has been affected by the Coronavirus.

Show Cancellations And How They Are Being Handled
Please allow me to mention a few specifics, as they do pertain to the music / high-end audio industry. NAMM, a pro audio event, has been canceled and exhibitors will be getting a full refund. HIGH END in Munich was early and, being the smart Germans who know mathematics, canceled their show early on and is providing full refunds as well, or exhibitors can choose to use their funds for HIGH END's 2021 event.

AXPONA decided to delay their April 2020 event until August, yet we all know this is touch-and-go as none of us can foresee the future of how today's Coronavirus situation sorts out. After I sent a personal e-mail to our Manufacturers eNewsletter list asking for their thoughts, I received an overwhelming amount of e-mail replies. Please understand, I consider many of you my friends and so it is your safety that is of paramount importance. The wonderful news is that AXPONA delayed their event before exhibitors had to send out their gear, so good save and thanks AXPONA for delaying your event before exhibitor gear was on pallets and on its way to Chicago.

Enjoy the Music.com does our best to stay neutral in supporting all American shows and our extensive magazine partnerships over the years. We are cheerleaders, together, for the success of the high-end audio industry. We also put our money where our mouth is and pay many thousands of dollars each and every year to sponsor shows. It brings me joy today to announce that Enjoy the Music.com, also featuring all our global partner magazines as well, are sponsoring the Thursday night exhibitor / media press party for the Capital Audiofest (CAF) 2020, Florida Audio Expo (FLAX) 2021, and the Rocky Mountain International Audio Fest (RMAF) 2020.

We planned on a nice full page ad within AXPONA's Event Book, which you'll see we thank the industry if/when AXPONA happens next. Tell ya what, here's the ad we planned to run within AXPONA's April 2020 Event Book.

On a related note, Enjoy the Music.com continues to ask a variety of magazines to join us over the years. Just an FYI as want our readers to know we are open to partnering with all major publications and prominent websites. Enjoy the Music.com truly wants to help the industry at large to succeed. This is why we continually promote magazines owned by many others each and every month on our website, on our social media pages, etc. As best I can tell, no other magazine, either print or online, regularly promotes industry (monthly and online) magazines owned by others.

Doing The Right Thing
HIGH END in Munich are providing a full refund or to have exhibitor's funds roll over to their 2021 event. I've been talking to many manufacturers over the past few weeks and quite a few could use their capital back during these trying times. Let us see if AXPONA also offers refunds as automobile, timepiece, and high-end audio events are doing. We're all just waiting for AXPONA to make a final decision.

As best I can tell from the information I've received to date, after talking to a variety of those who planned on exhibiting, they feel AXPONA should not force everyone to show during 2020 or lose their money in full. Of course AXPONA would probably never do that, it could be suicidal and no one wants that. At the very least, there should be an option of rolling over exhibitor's very hard-earned funds for AXPONA 2021. None of us knows if the Coronavirus will continue to cause cancellations of shows during the latter part of 2020, and if rescheduled shows will then offer full refunds as is appropriate or keep pushing their event dates forward into 2021. None of us have a crystal ball and can see the future. BTW, just learned moments ago that all paid InfoComm 2020 registrations are eligible for a full refund.

As for CAF and RMAF 2020, let us all hope these events do continue on schedule. Again, none of us knows the future. It is this not knowing that can cause some people, while perhaps being in a bit of a panic, to say things that are not backed by facts on-the-ground. Only time will tell what the future has in store for us all. So, for now, it appears AXPONA is holding on to everyones money until they choose to make a final decision.

We Depend On The Smallest Of Things

I can't help but remember H.G. Wells' wonderful book The Wars of the Worlds. No matter what humans did to fight the offending aliens, it was the small things virtually unseen that helped us win. We humans are far more fragile than we sometimes want to realize. There are many fundamental things that have come into alignment, which has allowed our species to thrive here on this planet we call Earth.

And so my musical selection below uses a quote from the brilliant mind of Carl Sagan, who was an American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, science popularizer, and science communicator in astronomy and other natural sciences.

As always, in the end what really matters is that you...

Enjoy the Music,

Steven R. Rochlin

"We go about our daily lives understanding almost nothing of the world. We give little thought to the machinery that generates the sunlight that makes life possible, to the gravity that glues us to an Earth that would otherwise send us spinning off into space, or to the atoms of which we are made and on whose stability we fundamentally depend."

"Few of us spend much time wondering why nature is the way it is; where the cosmos came from, or whether it was always here; if time will one day flow backward... or whether there are ultimate limits to what humans can know. What is the smallest piece of matter? Why do we remember the past and not the future? And why there is a universe."
— Carl Sagan (1934-1996) wrote this introduction for A Brief History of Time in 1988.