August 2026

Freely Giving: Innovations, Partnerships, And Celebrating Audiophile Culture
Journey over three decades celebrating pioneering online audio journalism, groundbreaking industry firsts, and influential partnerships that helped shaped the modern high-fidelity audio landscape.
Editorial By Steven R. Rochlin

Huge Preface
First, please allow me the honor to humbly thanks the many thousands of music lovers who have helped us shape today's high-fidelity audio landscape. We freely, at no cost, promoted many other (partner) publications, as my feelings are that a bundle of wood is stronger than a single twig. Yes all boats rise in high tide. From day 1, Enjoy the Music.com was launched online during 1995 as a way to easily answer the many questions I was receiving from other music lovers and hi-fi enthusiasts online. Answering the same basic questions from various people during the very early days of the Internet, when at that time information was scarce, I felt having various common questions and answers on a website was the logical action (to save me time from answering the same questions over and over again).

This was before Google, and we worked alongside Yahoo in the 1990s in getting them to 'find' audiophile websites. As I recall, it was Lucio Cadeddu of TNT-Audio who started/worked with us for a 'Hi-Fi Circle' or some such, which means we different online guys worked together to promote one another, as search engines were still very primitive and did not always find / crawl websites. Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity was at the forefront as was Doug Schneider's excellent SoundStage!, each was early to have a website presence on the Internet. We were pioneers, rogues if you will, beating the print guys at posting show coverage, world premiere reviews, etc... and being the Internet we inherently reached a truly global audience virtually instantly.

As we were rogues us all, some of us dead broke, we'd pack five or six guys into a hotel room, thanks to Lucette Nicoll. These were magical times for the early internet. There were no discussion groups, we had JoeNet (Sound Practices / DIY tube and horn lover) via email threads... oh my those email threads! There were also newsgroups, but very few at the beginning. For those who enjoyed rec.audio.tube, that was my doing to get it added, and a few other rec.. The early days of the Internet were people helping other people, freely. Like the Shareware and Freeware 5.25" floppy disk wall at the Heathkit I worked at during the mid-1980s, the same fiercely and ferociously, and yes sleeplessly helping one another. Dawn Gordon of CompuServe's CE Audio forum is where some of us were, and TAN too (The Audiophile Network BBS system).

All Enjoy the Music.com partner magazines, from us being asked to publish Hi-Fi News & Record Review's (HFN&RR) very first official online presence back in November 1999, to the early 2000s and onward with helping The Absolute Sound, Listener, The $ensible Sound, Sound Practices... and many others over the decades. Being an inclusive publication, we gave this offer to all major English language publications over the decades. By joining us, we brought them new subscribers, a newfound global readership, and free online promotion.

For those who joined us, a most humble thanks and our deepest appreciated goes out to you. We were there for you, to help... freely and generously, and always on-time publication updates. As you may recall, I have written about the old print publication software file formats were a challenge, and the Internet was 56kbs (or ISDN at double that, no one I know had T1 in their homes), so HFN&RR would send me a physical copy of each month's magazine, and I used an HP flatbed scanner with SCSI card to do OCR-To-Text for the Table Of Contents and Editorial (OCR never really was 100% perfect back then, though it did save a bit of time).

Again, please allow me the opportunity to thank the many thousands of enthusiasts, over the past 31 years, who have supported our efforts, which is what creates the immerse treasure-trove of information here at Enjoy the Music.com, and shapes what we all experience today.

And before I forget to thank... during the early days of World Wide Web, online site and hosting servers, website Search Engine used quite a bit of processing power (bogging down your website server), so you usually outsourced your Search Engine. In the 1990s to ~ early 2000s we used the same extremely $tate-of-the-art Search engine company as IBM and other Blue Chipper$ were using (we know the Search Engine owner). He eventually sold his incredible Search Engine company and went on to... and we again thank him for providing us a Fortune 100 quality search engine during our early years of the world wide web.

We now outsource our search to the widely popular Google.

Now, before I go into the below, please understand the HELPING FREELY part plays a big role here. No plans, just love and passion for music, and sharing our mutual love. Today, while high-end audio is a bit behind the high-horology industry, we are seeing more and more big companies and large corporations, private equity, and venture capitalists becoming more involved within luxurious high-end audio. Perhaps they have a (Harvard, or was in Cambridge?) four or five year plan, which another magazine editor said to me during our phone call. Financially speaking, the 1990s in high-fidelity audio were far more challenging than they are today. Prices were, on average, much lower as well. The engineers and designers were the same guys you'd meet at shows. Remember what I said earlier, all boats rise in high tide. We internet guys were adding water long before the big, possible private, commercial interests we have today, and in the years to come.

I foresee the future... which is an 'echo' of another passion I've enjoyed for decades.

Fuse 1998 In Atlantic City

PS-ish: It was also fun being an IASCA Sound Quality judge during the car audio heyday, joined by the brilliant and inquisitive to my advanced ideas in audio, technical editor Bill Burton. Many of us miss him. Thank you IASCA for keeping the mobile audio hobby going.

What a long strange trip it's been.

Thank you, thank you, and once again thank you. 

And now, on to the 'formal' part of my editorial that celebrates the history of.....

Innovations, Partnerships, And Celebrating Audiophile Culture
Few publications in high-end audio can claim a lineage as long, as inventive, or as influential as Enjoy the Music.com. What began in 1995 as one of the earliest online destinations for audiophiles has grown into a global publication with many thousands of pages, decades of reporting, and a reputation for innovation that helped shape how enthusiasts experience audio journalism on the web. Over thirty continuous years, we have not only chronicled the evolution of high-performance audio—we continue to actively push the industry forward through pioneering digital features, strategic partnerships and sponsorships, plus a commitment to bringing worldwide audiences inside luxurious high-fidelity audio events.

Did you know Enjoy the Music.com were the first to stream music online without the need for a plug-in or program? When you went to our website, the music automatically loaded and played. Not MIDI, we did that, too, yet here we're talking a world first for real music. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

A Digital Pioneer In The Early Web
In the mid-1990s, when most audio journalism lived exclusively in print, Enjoy the Music.com emerged as one of the first online-only audiophile publications. I recognized early that the internet could democratize access to expert reviews, give (literally) immediate industry news, and same-day show coverage. Am sure many old timers remember me at CES toting around equipment. At a time when dial-up modems still screeched their way online, we published gear reviews, music commentary, and technical articles that reached readers far beyond the circulation limits of traditional magazines back in the day.

But we didn't stop at simply publishing online—we embraced the web as a technological frontier. The site became the first audiophile publication to stream live, professional high-resolution video from high-end audio events, a milestone achieved through our sister platform EnjoyTheMusic.TV. These streams weren't passive broadcasts; they integrated live chat and social media interaction, another first for the luxury high-fidelity audio industry, too, and thus allowing viewers around the world to ask questions directly to exhibitors and industry leaders appearing on camera. This level of interactivity was unheard of in the early 2000s and set a precedent for how modern audio shows and online streamers engage remote audiences today.

We launched the first WAP-enabled audiophile site, allowing early mobile users to access content long before smartphones became ubiquitous. For desktop users, we developed Sidebar integration for Windows OS desktop, created a customized web browser for audiophiles (pre-loaded with great links to audiophile websites), and experimented with digital tools that pushed the boundaries of what an online audio magazine could be. These innovations were not gimmicks—they were forward-looking attempts to make high-end audio journalism more accessible, more immediate, and more technologically aligned with the future.

Partnerships That Expanded The Audiophile Conversation
One of the defining long-term strengths of Enjoy the Music.com has been our ability, together, to collaborate with respected luxury high-fidelity shows and publications across the audio world. These inclusive partnerships expand editorial reach, diversified perspectives, and helped unify a global community of enthusiasts.

Among the most notable collaborations:

These partnerships were not mere content swaps—they were strategic alliances, 100% free of cost, which broadened the publication's editorial ecosystem and global reach. They allowed us to serve as a central hub where diverse voices, technical expertise, and global perspectives converged. Where all boats rise during high tide as, together, we can do so much more.

A Legacy Of Show Coverage And Industry Sponsorship
Enjoy the Music.com's show coverage has become one of its most defining contributions to the audio world. With over 300 audiophile show reports, we have extensively documented nearly every major high-end audio event across North America and many in Europe long before the U.S. guys noticed. We were at HIGH END in Germany... Frankfurt(!), and let's remember Top Audio & Video in Milano. These reports—rich with photos, commentary, and room-by-room impressions—were essential reading for enthusiasts who want to experience shows they cannot attend. Our early reports and style have greatly helped shape how the luxury high-fidelity audio industry reports on events today. Our professional TV studio gear and live broadcast style lead the industry into the future like never before.

More importantly, Enjoy the Music.com is the only audiophile publication to serve as an official media sponsor / sponsored, as best as I can tell, all major industry-operated events within the U.S. and Canada. We are honored to represent the industry, year after year, including:

Our sponsorship role goes beyond only supporting event coverage. Enjoy the Music.com has funded industry-facing mixers, special exhibitor events, and public seminars, some of which were live or delay streamed, and later made available on-demand at YouTube. With John Atkinson's well-earned recent retirement, back in 2018 we were there sponsoring his 50 Year of Being an Audiophile seminar.

We've also given our fans exclusive access to special events during luxury high-fidelity shows, including a fun-filled go-karting evening! We've also hand-picked leading magazine editors, exhibitors, and special friends to an exclusive timepiece event at Mayors (Watches of Switzerland) where, yes, they had multiple Rolex stainless-steel sports timepieces you could buy (new @ MSRP). A very rare occurrence in today's market! While many publications get invited to events, we are the ones inviting our friends to join us in the spirit of fun and comradery.

These efforts continue to help strengthen community ties, support manufacturers, and elevate the professionalism of luxury high-end audio shows. We also know, today, companies are getting bought (and re-bought, and re-re-bought) plus large corporations, private equity, and venture capitalists may have a plan to maximize profitability (over a 4 or 5 year textbook strategy). Look at the prices of high-end audio equipment today, our industry has attracted the Big Money types.

Am honored to be part of, and growing up within, the high-luxury and high-fashion industries. In a related industry, my multi-decade longtime love of horology extends to donating to Horopedia, AHCI, NAWCC, etc. With the luxury high-fidelity marketplace being about 5 to 7 years behind what is going on within high-horology, please see below video. It might not 'make sense' to some, to others they can financially see the numbers flowing..........

Thankfully, we lovers of the very finest in watch making may choose to skip over the typical, and go directly to brilliant and very talented people, such as Kari Voutilainen, Maximilian "Max" Büsser, Rexhep Rexhepi, Torsti Laine, Dominique Renaud, Simon Brette... and even Louis Vuitton are now creating some very impressive works of wrist- and home-based time-art. And yes, thankfully Rolex are 'Heather-proof', a professional durability rating we give my wife that supercedes all other durability ratings known to mankind. :)

A Publication Built By, And For, High-Fidelity Enthusiasts, Audio Professionals, And Musicians
Over three decades, we continue to grow into a vast digital archive with over 9000 pages, including an immense collection of photos documenting the evolution of high-end audio. Our Review Magazine publishes monthly long-form reviews, which are on a single page for ease of reading, plus think pieces, and the occasional video feature. This site's news updates keeps you informed about high-end audio products, music industry developments, and important technological trends.

Our mission has always been inclusive: to welcome newcomers, seasoned audiophiles, musicians, and industry professionals. Content is provided gratis to our worldwide fans, all of it, graciously supported by advertising from companies who recognize the value of reaching our longstanding global audience of passionate listeners.

The Spirit Of Innovation Continues
Even after thirty years, Enjoy the Music.com remains committed to exploring formats, both new and old, new partnerships (if you have a publication and are interested in partnering, email us... it's free just like all others), and new ways to bring the joy of music to lovers. Our modest social media presence on X/Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook fosters conversation. For Old Schoolers, our RSS feed delivers near-daily updates as our editorial voice continues to blend technical rigor with a genuine love for music. Our history is not just a timeline—it is a testament to how passion, innovation, and collaboration can shape an entire industry. We helped define what online audio journalism could be, and after well over 31 years our legacy continues to inspire both readers and fellow publications.

In the end, as the site has always says, what truly matters is that you...

Enjoy the....

WAIT! Wait wait wait a minute Steven. How about the Passport To Sound booklet, you know, doing it to help the kids learn and have fun too? Oooopsie, will have to just hyperlink to that new endeavor. See, we're always growing, innovating, and freely helping both music lovers and the industry.

Passport To Sound, an educational booklet for young adults created by scientist and higher-education instructor May Anwar, is offered free of charge at many luxury high-fidelity audio events. Through the support of Enjoy the Music.com, this initiative reflects our decades-long commitment to giving back to the music-loving community.

Please allow me the honor of once again thanking you, and everyone who has worked along side of us, for their many years of supporting our ongoing efforts to spread our love for music. For it is in service of music that we dedicate....

Thank you, thank you, and once again thank you. 

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

 

Enjoy the Music,

Steven R. Rochlin