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[zenmonkey]

What are you interested in? Some of the material that they sell is in the public domain and you can get it legally for free elsewhere.

[zenmonkey]

The material I'm interested in seems to be published by the same company that owns the Audio Forum website.

I was in their area 10 days ago! Sorry, I can't speak for the quality of their material or service. But it's a legitimate business - the owner is on LinkedIn and referenced. The “No Adware or Spy-ware; Virus-Free!” on each product page comes from the fact that they also edit and sell software.

good luck.

[Speakeasy]

Audio-Forum: 1970’s - 2011
My understanding is that Audio-Forum was created circa 1970 as the sales arm of Jeffrey Norton Publishers, a small publisher of language-learning materials which, apparently, was also a subcontractor to the Foreign Service Institute for many of their courses. This might help explain why, during much of the period, the company’s catalogue included virtually all of the FSI Basic courses which had been published during the 1960’s through the 1970’s and which accounted for most of its revenues. Although other products were available, these were primarily low-volume speciality products. I recall responding to an Audio-Forum advertisement in Time magazine in the early 1980’s before the age of the Internet. Up until the company’s demise, in the early 2010’s, prices for a complete set of the FSI Basic courses were in the order of 1,100 $US. Although this might seem excessive by today’s standards, we should bear in mind that most people were quite unaware that the U.S. Government offered original versions at a fraction of the price. For a variety of reasons, perhaps most notably the free availability of the FSI Basic courses on the Internet (the FSI-Languages-courses website which was subsequently renamed the Yojik website as well as others), Audio-Forum was unable to sustains its operations and the company ceased operations in 2011.

Café Lango: 2011 - 2012
Not long after Audio-Forum ceased operations, a new actor, Café Lango, appeared offering essentially the same product line at somewhat reduced prices. I do not know who the owners were, they might have been former employees of Audio-Forum, but this is just speculation on my part. Understandably, even with significantly reduced prices for the FSI Basic courses, it was very difficult to compete with “freely available” versions on the Internet and the company soon disappeared. At the time, Chung remarked as follows: "Cafe Lango has picked up where Audio Forum has left off, right down to the same URL (http://audioforum.com) and the same hefty prices as shown here for the offerings of Modern Russian I & II.. "

Audio-Forum: 2012 – 2016
In 2012, the operations, website, inventory, and legal rights of Audio-Forum were purchased and relaunched under Select Publishing Group, an MPS Multimedia Company, the owners of which were two siblings who were living in California at the time. The company’s catalogue and website were, for all practical purposes, those of the previous incarnation of Audio-Forum. The prices for the FSI Basic courses were but a fraction of what they had once been. PDF/MP3 versions became available and the exterior packaging changed. Subsequently, a few low-volume speciality products were added.

During the above period, I made a few purchases from the “new” Audio-Forum and was quite pleased with the service. I was left with the impression that the company was still drawing down on the inventories that they had purchased from the previous owners.

Audio-Forum: 2017 to the present
The Audio-Forum website is still operational. While the FSI Basic courses still seem to form the major part of the company’s catalogue, there have been a few additions. A few weeks ago, member David1917 asked me a question concerning the FSI German Basic course and provided a link to an offer on eBay which, when I followed it, led to a vendor who was selling what-seemed-to-be the entire FSI Basic product line as repacked by the new Audio-Forum. It is possible that the owners of the latter are conscious that many people are simply unaware of their website and of the company’s once-glorious history and that they are now offering their wares on eBay, but that would be pure speculation on my part.

Although it has been a couple of years since I last ordered products from the Audio-Forum website, based on my previous experiences, I believe that they are still a reliable commercial operation. Anyone having doubts could simply send them a message via their “Contact” portal at the bottom of the Homepage: http://audioforum.com/contact_us/

As a final comment, should visitors to Audio-Forum's website find that it seems a little “clunky”, I suggest that we bear in mind that it is the “original” from almost two decades ago and that the problem is most likely related to its age … I’m showing my age, as well!

EDITED:
Typos.
More typos.

[Speakeasy]

Audio-Forum Website
Morgana, thank you very much for sharing your disappointing experience with the Audio-Forum website with the rest of us. Forewarned is Forearmed! Although I did not mention it at the time, subsequent to my own post above, I sent a message to the company via their “Contact Us” portal but, like you, never received a reply. A business model based on selling a main product line (FSI courses) that many prospective buyers know is freely available elsewhere is a tough row to hoe. It is quite possible that the owners “closed up shop” and slid the key under the doormat as they were leaving.

Audio-Forum Inventories (Partial)
In my post above, I commented: “A few weeks ago, member David1917 asked me a question concerning the FSI German Basic course and provided a link to an offer on eBay which, when I followed it, led to a vendor who was selling what-seemed-to-be the entire FSI Basic product line as repacked by the new Audio-Forum. It is possible that the owners of the latter are conscious that many people are simply unaware of their website and of the company’s once-glorious history and that they are now offering their wares on eBay, but that would be pure speculation on my part.”

In the event that you, or anyone else, might be interested, here is the LINK to eBay.com vendor, “planet-deals”, whom I suspect may have acquired a portion of Audio-Forum’s inventories: https://www.ebay.com/sch/planet-deals/m.html?%20item=141551613266&hash=item20f5223552%3Ag%3Am6wAAOSw0e9U0Vt5%3Ark%3A1%3Apf%3A0&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562