I was under impression that the site in its new format was kicked off on June 6 of last yeas but then I realized that it was May 27. So, these days we have one year since the new “audio” version of site was up and running.

Generally, I’m glad with the way in which my site is shaping up. I did not make any efforts to promote the site or to yield traffic within the site – it is not really the intentions of mine. Yes, I would like to see more divert spectra of posters but my primary intention is quality and honesty of content that I am not wiling to sacrifice for volume. Well, my objectives are not exactly “more divert spectra of posters” but rather better quality of the visitors and a higher concentration of usefulness.  I made in past even some attempts to scope down the “social posting”, preventing the posters to use the site as a “community crowding” (no personal offences meant). My objective were that each post should have a value, worth to be mapped to the “Knowledge Tree”; it means that a post should contain an informative data. Many people out there feel with a “forum” everyone talk about anything. Not on my site. The articles on this site and the consequential and positional replies or juts the follow-ups on the specific interest-driven subjects. This is how I would like to maintain the site…

There is a small commerce section on my site that did not really meant to be a commerce and was designed by a request for a friend of mine with his far reaching intentions. This section did not go anywhere due to my friend’s further luck of interest. I do not particularly care about commerce part and nowadays the commerce section is what it is. Ironically the commerce section has the largest exposure to the search engines sand 6 of the listed items in there were sold.

Over the last 365 days 94 members jointed the site, which uploaded 821 articles. No one request for a membership was rejected. One member was suspended due to his impersonation. There was one poster on “public” forum (permitted to post anonymously) that was kicked out the site and his 2 posts were deleted. The person was juts an ordinary Internet idiot.  Over the last year 2 threads were deleted from the forums due to a complete lack of visitors over those threads and any lack of interest to the subjects from me or from the visitors. No other administrative actions were taken within the site.

Here is some statistical data. From here and on: when I mention a visitor I mean an individual human session even if the person used multiple browsers to explore the site. 

Over the last year the site was visited by 37930 visitors from 121 countries. The most visitors come form:

 United States
 Russian Federation
 United Kingdom
 Czech Republic
 Canada
 Germany
 France
 Australia
 Sweden
 Italy

The fewer visitors came from:

 Saint Lucia
 Oman
 Yemen
 Belize
 Bahrain
 Benin
 Macau
 Pakistan
 Guatemala
 Trinidad and Tobago

An average visitor had 37% probability to be a returned visitor and s/he spent on site an average 3.2 minutes. A return visitor averagely spends on the site 5,3 minutes. A returned visitor averagely view 4 pages, a new visitor 6 pages. Averagely the site has 2-3 concurrent visitors, with a maximum of 28 concurrent visitors. The site was bookmarked 2021 times.

The most read (duration) section of the site is ShowPost page with average visitor spends 4.2 minutes to browse the page. The most read threads (duration) in the site’s forums are: “Vitavox’s S2 Survival Guide” and “Denon 103: myths and the reality”.  The most read (duration) pages of the entire site are: “My Playback” section with an average visitor spending their 8.1 minutes and “Selected Links” - 6.0 minutes. The site dally visited by average 85 spiders, all pages that have a valuable identifiable content are indexable. The search engine’s spiders brought 89% of the new site visitor, 11% of them returned to visit the site again.

The site has 94 register members; 40 of them uploaded content to the site’s forum. 48% of the posts within this site’s forums are mine; the rest is from the site’s members.

The GoodSoundClub is one year old. Thanks for all visitors and should you have any issues, wishes or ideas regarding of the site then let me know.

As a little celebration of the Site’s Anniversary I would like to announce that 10 most active posters are granted with a free copy of “The Cat’s Good Music 2005” CD. The CD contains 16 selected cuts that the mentioned member might receive if they wish.

10 most active posters
(Listed in descending order sorted by the posts number)

1.   Antonio J.
2.   Brian Clark
3.   cv
4.   guy sergeant
5.   slowmotion
6.   Thorsten
7.   AOK_Farmer
8.   Chirag
9.   skushino
10. Alex Yakovlev

The named individuals might send me your shipping address and I will dispatched the CD to them within a week.

Rgs,
Romy the cat

OK, Guys.

After 10 days of accumulating the requests for the Pussy’s Cuts CD I declare the cut off. I have 6 ‘winners” clamed the CD and provided me with thier address. The CD will be burned and shipped this coming week.

Thanks…
The caT

OK, Guys.

I have sent the “winner’s CDs” to you. I do not remember to whom but for some of the Brits I put 2 CDs. So, who get the second CD then, please, pass a copy to Thorsten Loesch.

I hope you enjoy the Music and thanks for visiting on my site.
The Cat

Guys,

You really misunderstood this CD. This is just a compilation of GOOD MUSIC well performed and interpreted and it has nothing to do with audio. For instance now of my compilations CDs I ever played on my playback. Those CDs are good enough for cars or wherever….

You were under impression that if I we sometimes talk about audio quality within this site then it meant that the CD that I sent would be some kind of next “to due for” sonic blockbuster. I told before and I am saying again that I do not know any good ways to record CD and therefore all how I use CDR is juts to record MUSIC and do not pay any attention to the sonic results I would get. Some people try to convince me that some “better” method and better programs (like EAC for instance) do better job I sincerely feel that it all crap.

Anyhow: the CD that you go was made on Alexis Masterlink (incredibly horrible recorder) and the copies were burned on my development machine with a stock consumer CD-writer at 16X speed. I also used the first CDs that I found in my lab. Really, there is not need to think of to discuss any aspects of quality on this CD, as it never meant to deliver it. I am kind of surprised to hear you comment how do or bad transfer was.

The Content of the sent DISC:


The Romy the Cat’s selected fragments
of the best performances (Disc #6)

1. First Act finale of Mozart’s “Cosi Fan Tutte”
(Bohm/Philharmonia with Kraus, Berry, Schwarzkopf, Ludwig, Taddei, 1963)
2. Fragment of Saint-Saens Symphony #3, first movement
(Myung-Whun Chung/ Orchestra of Bastille, 1993)
3. Fragment of Tchaikovsky String Quartet #2, first movement
(“Belcanto Strings”, 1993)
4. Fragment of Tchaikovsky Symphony #5, first movement
(Georgiev/Weiner Philharmoniker, 1998) 
5. A cadenza from first movement of Rachmaninoff’s Third concerto, the alternative version 
(Volodos, 1999)
6. Fragment from first movement of Mahler’s Second
(Ozawa/Saito Kinen Orchestra, 2000)
7. Fragment of Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto, first movement
(Abbado/Berlin Philharmoniker with Martha Argerich)
8. Fragment of Tchaikovsky Symphony #5, second movement, Japanese re-mastering
(Mravinsky/Leningrad 1961, Japanese re-mastering)
9. Pavel Chesnokov (1877-1944) Psalm #120
(Russian Patriarchate Chorus, 1998)
10. Fragment of broadcast of Shostakovich V Symphony, IV movement
(Kurt Masur /Chicago, 1987-88)
11. A fragment from Kalman’s “Die Csardasfustin”
(Frank Fox/Berlin Symphony with Rudolph Schock and Barabas, 1962)
12. Fragment of Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, first movement
(Walter Goehr/London with Tossy Spivakovsky, 1960)
13. Opening of Emmerich Kalman’s “Die Csardasfustin”
(Wilhelm Schuchter/Orchesterbegleitung with Sari Barabas, 1954)
14. Complete First movement of Kodaly’s Sonata for unaccompanied cello Op.8
(Janos Starker, Version 1956)
15. Opining of Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on the Thyme of Paganini”
(Horenstein/Royal Philharmonic with Erld Wild)
16. Sonata in C sharp minor by Antonio Soler
(1729-1783) played by Rafael Puyana

*  The so-called Audio Quality isn’t necessary fine everywhere on this disc; the compilation is made paying attention strictly at the musical-performing values.
** The cuts 13-16 are my own transfer from analog using the  "Aulasaulalaraula" (two stages 7788-7721, MC->64dB, air-caps) phonocorrector
*** The cuts meant to be faded in and out but it turned out to be imposable due to the DSP application completely ruined sound, that is have already been ruined by the CD copping.
**** The “quality” of the “CD transfers” is also very- very bad. I really do not know how to do the CDRs to sound adequate. The Masterlink on which I graded the cuts and did A/D was unspeakable garbage and the copes sound WAY worst then the originals … The sound quality generally within this disk has a HUGE dynamic compression and color-wise is superbly grayish. So, you get what you get.

So, I hope you would enjoy THE music.
Romy the Cat

Antonio J. wrote:

I knew that my asking about the cart used would make you to write the kind of comment you've done. What I've enjoyed most and exclusively of the disc has been the music, all are terrific pieces and some, like the Kodaly, Kalman and Saint Saens' have been quite a musical discovery (I knew the Saint Saens 3rd Symphony but that rendition seems really great and different from what I knew). But the audio-moron in me can't help asking about certain things, which I understand you'd rather not to speak about. In spite of the Masterlink and all the limitations of the media, I've perceived on the vinyl transfers a quite different bass quality and dynamics than I'm used to with my vinyl rig, so I just wanted to know more about it. Sorry if I disturbed you.

if you hear the Kodaly and the Kalman played on my playback right from the records player then it would live within you a very permanent damage regarding, I am not kidding. Certainly on digital that all “magic” was long gone, although the level of the performances at that disk so high that the “magic” breaching through the digital crapolla. Anyhow, the transfer was done on my TT with Shelter 901 sitting in 3012+16g, then Dominus and into my two stages air-cap phonocorrector.

Rgs,
The Pussy

cv wrote:

I'd wondered why the posts count on the site was creeping upwards with no new mentions of kit, gear, componentry, Melquiades or the like.

The caT