Editorial November 2024

November 2024

Did I mention time flies when you are having fun? Wow – have the last 6 weeks flashed past or what? It’s been like a slow motion train wreck but at speed and what with new self inflicted electrical gremlins creeping into the time line and delays in shipments of things needed and a Trump MK II elected it’s all been quite the few weeks. Nonetheless time marches on and waits for no person and continue we must into the whacky wild world of audio nirvana.

Local continues to develop and yours truly was chatting to Witelson from Sonor over a completely unrelated matter. The digital age of machinery is nothing new but it is still impressive in that joinery and cabinetry in solidity of foundation for speakers was top of mind as I am currently fashioning cabinetry of a slightly different kind for the kitchen that is spanning many months in development. A bit like the sound room which is being wired slowly as I am doing it and am spending far too much time re doing it as I learn the vagaries of automation. This, be warned, is a rabbit hole from which there is no escape and I think that AI is an inevitable consequence once you are in this hole deep enough.

The comparison with AI in journalism is almost inevitable and increasingly more and more is permeating the field into mainstream media. One of two things is going to happen – being drowned out by the crushing weight of canned content created consistently at pace, or sought out and cherished real person opinions and views. Whilst I love AI and marvel at what it can do since there is bugger all I can do to stop it my personal views are still very much my own and I enjoy experiencing those of others in fields about which they are more knowledgeable than I.

That’s this week of course. Next week it may be different and I am just waiting for the first drop of AI into our listened experience and how it makes things better for us. I’d love to say I have some inkling of what that could be of course, but I don’t have a clue. It will either come through with hindsight as an obvious intervention or it will be a left of centre out of the blue blind side that no-one saw coming.

Being a believer in incremental change I think AI will make an impact on the former and then ramp up the speed of change until we’re all simply plugged into whatever musical performance we want.

I think it’s become just a question of when.

William Kelly

Publisher