We’re just over a week into the New Year so this may be a bit dated. Nonetheless, last year was a significant one and worthy of a retrospective. Further, this new year marks a milestone that is worth noting. I’ll get more into that later.

To start, I want to acknowledge and express my appreciation to all of the members of this forum that have allowed our site to grow into the preeminent site regarding the legacy of the audio industry. When we started, there were less than five such sites, now there are dozens. However, I’m not aware of any that match our level of participation and depth. In the past couple of years, we have received citations in a half dozen international magazines and one book. The first year of our forum, there were maybe 100 members and we averaged 5-10 posts per day. We now have over 1200 members and are averaging around 100 posts per day. Total site visitations are up over 50 percent from the last year with millions of page views per year. Our hit counters on the main pages of the two sites (Audioheritage and Lansingheritage) are over 400,000, yet this significantly understates the number of visitors to the site since many have bookmarked specific pages within the site (particularly this forum) that bypass these counters.

The most significant development of the past year has been Project May. It has become the focal point of our site activities and is in many ways responsible for the remarkable site growth over the past year. I am deeply grateful to all of the members that have joined in this project and have spent countless hours and financial support in its undertaking. The current L100 raffle has expanded financial involvement to dozens of new participants, many outside of this site, to whom I am also grateful. There are a number of specific members I would like to thank for their extensive involvement. Giskard, our technical director, has devoted both considerable time and effort in directing the technical aspects of our work. He personally designed and fabricated the prototype networks and has acted as our liason with JBL. Ian Mackenzie and Robh3606 have had the onerous task of riding heard on us in managing the many twists and turns this project has taken. Rob has also taken on the task of building low pass network prototypes for one of our design options. Mr. Widget has been indispensable in initially measuring, designing and fabricating our mid/hf horn assembly. More recently he and Bo Putnam have been responsible for measuring the performance and modifying our prototype system to investigate a number of different options. TimG was responsible for constructing our first prototype and devoted considerable time and labor to this and the subsequent initial set of measurements. Dennis Leisz has been invaluable in organizing our finances and coordinating the current L100 raffle. Mikebake deserves special notice for being the originator of this project and being the first treasurer for this initiative. Finally, there are dozens of project members that have provided input and advice throughout the project, for which we remain grateful. A list of these participants can be found here:

http://www.audioheritage.org/html/pr...rticipants.htm

I also need to thank JBL since this project would not exist in its current form without their involvement. They have been more than generous in donating a complete complement of K2 drivers. Further, they went beyond just a material donation by providing invaluable technical input into the project’s execution. Specifically, I would like to thank, Paul Bente, Greg Timbers, Doug Button and Jerry Moro.

As I said at the start, this year marks a milestone for Lansing Heritage. The site had its origins five years ago this week (that's like our 50th anniversary in Internet time ). While the site did not officially open until May 25, 2000, the original idea and initial development work on what would become Lansing Heritage began during the first week of 2000. An overview of the background for this site can be found here:

http://audioheritage.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=32551#post32551

I am particularly grateful to the original co-developers of this site, Steve Schell and Steve Lewis. Without their assistance and vision, we would never have achieved our current standing. Mark Gander, John Eargle and Garry Margolis, all current or former management staff at JBL, are critically responsible for the success of our site. Their early involvement allowed us to expand our vision from a simple repository of product literature into a comprehensive history site. They paved the way for us to meet dozens of people directly involved in the legacy of James B. Lansing and document their contributions. Mark and John have also acted as our mentors at JBL, providing us with access and assistance to corporate resources at JBL that have proved indispensable.

I trust that the new year holds even greater opportunities for achievements on our site. However, it all depends on you, and because of this, I have never been more hopeful. Our site would be meaningless without our dedicated forum members and readership at large. Your embracement of this site is the single measure of our success, and for this I remain eternally grateful.

Party On!