If one wants to suggest that a "true" music lover should be prepared to have a very thick skin and deal with a certain amount of unfriendly and provocative "dialogue" just for the sake of participating in a thread about music, then I may be willing to concede the "touch and go" point....maybe. However, as I have expressed before, I simply don’t agree that the reason that other posters don’t stick around is lack of love for the music. I hope there is room in the discussion of this subject for a different opinion without things sinking to unpleasantries. I care about this subject since I would love to see many more posters here and, if we can agree on one thing related to this, it ahould be that, as with all issues, if it doesn’t get discussed nothing changes.
In my opinion, based on my observations about thread participation here and, by participation in other music threads by those very same "touch and go" posters, the reason that most of those posters don’t stick around is not lack of love for this music nor because they are "extreme audiophiles". One only needs to revisit some ot the series of posts that the "touch and go" posters participated in and what was going on re the style of interaction taking place between other posters or involving themselves. I also hope that we can agree that there has been a whole lot of stupid and unpleasant squabbling. Moreover, and most importantly, there have been several instances when new posters felt demeaned or insulted for their taste in music. Personally, I don’t see just what is so difficult to understand about the reality that this can’t possibly be an incentive to stick around; love of music or not. Who wants to deal with or be around that nonsense? I would strongly suggest that every participant here be less "exclusive" and more inclusive in general attitude when interacting with others; not to mention inclusive about the music itself. Sure, there a lot of boneheaded audiophiles who have no feel for music; but, there are far more who are music lovers. This shouldn’t be an exclusive "club" for the "hip" and "knowledgeable" Jazz heads who are all too eager to proclaim what is jazz and what is not in a way that turns others off to participation. The potential of this thread is not even close to being fully tapped. My two cents.