I recently did an interview with Andre Marc who has set up a webzine, Fair Hedon, with a similar ethos to what I'm trying to achieve here.
It might be a good starting point for discussions about Audio Innovations as what I touch on in that interview is about how research into auditory perception is revealing aspects of how the brain makes the nerve signals coming from the ear into meaningful information - in other words how we make sense of the auditory world around us. This is highly relevant to this audio hobby as what we are involved in is listening to reproduced audio which hopefully conveys a richer experience than just hearing the right notes.
What I believe is happening in audio reproduction, at the moment, is a realisation that when audio reproduction better satisfies the principles that govern how auditory processing works, then we achieve far more realistic, natural sounding & believable reproduction. We begin to be able to connect with reproduction in the same way as we do with the real event.
The problem is that the full understanding of the principle working of auditory perception are not yet teased out so there are a number of people in this hobby who are discovering elements of this but yet not knowing the auditory principles behind the discovery - only knowing that it does result in improved sound.
This intuitive space where there are no sure answers, only our perceptions, is not a comfortable place for some to inhabit.
Good luck with the forum. I'll be sure to check in. It'll be great if you can even get close to your stated aims for the forum. It would provide some balance to most of the alternatives.
Thanks Clive