Rodriguez cartoons

Reading Stereo Review during the '70s and'80s, I always enjoyed the Rodriguez cartoons that graced the pages. Always funny and sarcastic, good for a chuckle.

A local retail pioneer passes

My friend Joe asked me the other day if I really hated Paul Heath that much that I would publish an obituary on Amar Bose and not him.  

HUH?!! I didn't even know he died! Granted, I maybe saw him once a year at most and usually at Joe's shop.

   Below is the Obituary:

January 23, 2013 

LIVONIA — Paul Frederick Heath, 82, of Livonia, N.Y. succumbed to Leukemia under his daughters’ care at home on Sunday, January 20, 2013.

Paul served his country in the Air Force during the Korean War, and enjoyed many years of self-employment at Paul Heath Audio.

He is predeceased by his wife, Eileen O’Connell Heath, and survived by his son, Robert Heath of Prunedale, Calif.; daughters, Paula (Christopher) Coughlin and Pamela (Mark) Smith; and grandchildren, Harley, John and Jake of Livonia, N.Y.

At Paul’s request, no service will be held. Arrangements entrusted to the Kevin W. Dougherty Funeral Home Inc., Livonia – Honeoye.

 I was awestruck! He was waaaayy too cagey to die! I have referred to him several times in this blog. I did a fair amount of business over the years, and worked with his son Bob at JB Sound. Always an interesting story, always a hard sales pitch, I remember him as a hell of a salesman! It didn't matter if you were in the business or not, if you walked into his store you got the sales pitch. I'm still stuck with a pair of Acoustic Arts Messenger speakers that I first heard in his store.Every week something new, he generally only got one or two of anything, and it was always better than what he had last week

.He was instrumental during the early years of Merlin music systems,partnering with Bobby and helping him get established.The Orion Blue Book listed him as an importer for many of the brands he carried.I often pull out old issues of Audio magazine that I still have  from the '70s. and see ads for his store in the back classifieds.

 I remember him most for the Hill Type 1/ Plasmatronics speakers he demoed at one of the home shows.

They had plasma/ion tweeters which were emitting ozone and putting people to sleep! They made him stop playing them.



 To the best of my knowledge he started on State St. across from the Kodak office. The execs would walk over at lunchtime to see what was new. I remember Allison One speakers, JR149s,Hartley speakers, SAE,and a few things I had never heard of  the first time I went there. Years later he ended up in Henrietta, then downtown off of Monroe Ave. sharing a store with Mike Stroethers. Mike also passed years ago, I'm beginning to think this is not a healthy hobby to have, we have lost many over the years.
 Paul, Mike, Bill Kelliher (one of my previous bosses the"B" of JB), my good friend Greg Douglas, Glen who was Mike Fenton's technician, Gary another audio friend, and even I myself have been diagnosed with cancer.

  " Momma don't let your babies grow up to play HiFi".........

  Must be some kind of radiation from the power transformers or something.

  Anway, hard as I tried, I can't find a picture of Paul anywhere. If anybody out there has one and can email it to me or post it here I think that would be nice.

 Please don't attempt to pass off one of Jack Nicholson, I know the difference.    


                                               thanks!

Another industry pioneer passes

  Amar Bose died July 12th at 83. He founded the Bose Corporation, and made his billion-dollar fortune transforming the experience of listening to music by attempting to bring concert hall-quality audio into people’s living rooms. Say what you may about him, he was a brilliant man and a marketing genius.

   I say "attempting" because probably no company has been more discriminated against by purist audiophiles and naysayers, some of them who might even admit to owning a Wave radio. I will admit my own mother has one and would never part with it. It is on probably ten hours a day, tuned to the local classical station. 

His earlier products made a splash in my selling days, and the competition (The Sound Chamber) knew how to demonstrate them. 901s in a room by themselves, no A/B comparisons, and their huge over-equalised sound with great slamming bass practically loaded them in customers trunks themselves! The 301, 501, and 601s followed, still reflecting a large portion of the sound but a more conventional design that did not require an equaliser.

 Interesting tidbit- he had a 14-year battle with Consumers Union, the group that publishes Consumer Reports, over a bad  review of his model 901 speaker that he felt was based on bad science. Bose Corporation became the first company to beat CU in court, but the decision was reversed on appeal. Bose then took the case to the Supreme Court of the United States.Over the years Bose Corporation earned a reputation as an aggressive litigator; other targets included JBL, Infinity Systems, Thiel Audio , and the CEDIA organisation. 

       

                                                                         901

                                                                       301



                                            
                                                                         501

601

Bose based his speaker technology on the premise that 80 per cent of the sound in a concert hall reaches listeners indirectly, bouncing off walls and ceilings. 

He  founded his company in 1964. Twenty years later it launched the Wave Radio, which produced a big, rich bass sound from only two tiny speakers.

                                                                     Wave Radio

   Later came the Wave music system, a larger version, attempting to simply peoples lives with no wires.

                                                                    Wave Music System

  Bose also has a professional sound reinforcement division, of which the 802 was one of their first products.

                                     

                                                                            802

Enrolling at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, Bose earned three degrees in Electrical Engineering, including a doctorate. In 1956, invited to join the teaching staff, he accepted with the intention of staying for two years at most. In the event he remained a faculty member until 2001.

In the late 1970s, having established his reputation with audio speakers for home systems, He became intrigued by the challenge of making the inside of a car sound as good as the experience of listening at home. By 2010, Bose technology is in eight out of every 10 new cars offering  premium sound systems (including my own Cadillac CTS).

Bose’s decision to keep the company off the stock market allowed him and his workforce to focus 100% on long-term R&D projects without interference or questions about commercial viability. 

Mastering Dregslist

Ah, yes. Once again one of my favorite subjects. just can't seem to leave it alone, way too much fun to pick on! I have to give it credit, though. I have bought and sold a lot of stuff on him, you just have to know how to sort through the BS. Plus, it's still free!
 Recently sold my beloved Pioneer Elite TZ-F700s on there (obviously not that beloved, or I wouldn't have sold them, right?), I have had them for a while, it was just time.
Listed them about a month or so ago for $850. After all, $3500. new, right? Great deal.
First offer- $400.
Ignore it.
Same guy a week later- $450.
Ignore it.
A month passes, I renew the ad, and the same guy is now $600.
Reasonable enough that I consider it proper to at least respond- "Thank you, but that is less than I am willing to take for them." Reply- "all I can come up with is $650." I reply, "I will take $750." Again, "all I have is $650."
Ignore again.
A couple more days go by and he wants to come hear them and gives his phone number. I call him and remind him that I want $750. He comes over, young Asian guy, Sushi chef at Wegmans, white coat with his name embroidered on it. I decide I like him, he offers $700.
"Cash right now?" "No, Tuesday.
 I had visions of Wimpy- "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today". Anyway, he did live up to it, came and picked up the speakers.
 I always leave the ad up for a few days, just in case. Tonight someone else offered $300.

Ignore it. And deleted the ad.

Probably the biggest complaint with the Dregslist is the amount of spam/scammers that contact you. One projector I was selling a young girl wanted me to bring it to the mall.
"Don't you want to see it work?"
"Why,yes! We can plug it in there!"  Click.
 The latest tactic is all the emails giving you an alternate email to contact them, just so you know they are real. Interesting when you list several items and the same person is interested in all of them.
Or the broken verbiage- "Please let me know item this available still."
 "I am from Luxembourg and my Paypal doesn't work in the US, can you help me?"

This can do a reverse with sellers as well, as evidenced by all the "white van" speakers that appear from time to time. Many dealers masquerade as individuals, and you even hear stories of people getting mugged when they show up to buy things!
 I had to laugh at the guy who gave someone money with the idea that he would "be right back" with the Ipad, he had to go pick it up. Scam alert!

Serves you right for being that stupid!

A few other tips- if someone makes you a ridiculous offer, tempted as you may be, don't respond with
 "OK, but only if you promise to die on your way here",
 "Yes, if you sell me your car for $20.",
"I will trade even for a genuine Rolex President", or other profanities.
 Once you respond, they have your actual email, it is no longer anonymized. They can track you down,or order a subscription to the National Geographic with your info.

  And when placing an ad, don't cut and paste a lengthy manufacturer's description from their website- the simpler the ad the better. Right to the point, enough information that it gets the point across. And POST PICTURES! Especially if it is an unusual piece that doesn't have a lot of exposure on the internet. I've watched one guy post a pair of Eurostat speakers probably eight times. Even suggested to him that he take pictures. His response- "If you don't know Eurostat, you don't know high end speakers". Well, I do, including the guy that designed them, and the rep. Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn't. He still doesn't get it......

  One last trick- if you list something and it doesn't get any response, raise the price. You would be amazed at the psychology of this!

Above all- patience, patience, patience. This is a very specialized hobby. We are a minority, there are several factors in play- the economy, wife acceptance factor (huge speakers), and general mistrust of the Dregslist. But if you learn to read behind the lines, this can work very well!

CROWN

As much as I have mentioned McIntosh in these pages I've overlooked another american icon that has continued to flourish over the years, Crown. Based in Elkhart, Indiana they are mainly doing the professional sound reinforcement thing today. They are one of many divisions of Harman Audio.They have had a couple of innovations over the years, one significant being the invention of the PZM pressure zone microphone.

Like McIntosh (with the exception of Mac tube amps) they did not have the best reputation for sound quality, but the build quality was extremely rugged. They have made numerous models over the years, all solid state, I  am mentioning a few of the more noteworthy here. Their first products were actually open reel machines, a few of which I have pictured below as well.

The D150a amp, 75 watts per channel and basically a smaller version of the 300. 

Probably the most famous, the DC 300, one of the first high powered amps at 150 wpc to appear on the hifi market. Competition for the Phase Linear 400 and the Dynaco 400 at the time.

The IC 150 preamp. Actually had one of these for a short time, really sounded bad! The "IC" in the model number was extolling the virtues of the "integrated circuit " of which this was one of the first products to use them.

PSA/2  SA/2 

Theses behemoths were about 300 wpc, the next series after the DC's. Think they weighed about 80 lbs! They would often blow your circuit breakers in multiple amp situations,  and they also made a 220  volt version as well.

The Powerline/ Straightline series actually sounded good, built more with audiophiles in mind.I still have a Powerline Two in my studio, 50wpc, and I can remember bringing one home from JB back when I had Dahlquist DQ-10s and having it drive them with authority! Popping the top cover on these revealed a complete departure from traditional Crown designs.

There are numerous other Crown amps that I have not mentioned here, Macro Tech, Micro Tech, D60/75 and others. 

As I mentioned at the top of this post, their first products were open reel machines. These truly were built like a shick brithouse! I had the 824 pictured above. These were modular in design, as the brochure above shows. You picked your transport, recording preamp, and options like a counter or wired remote if you wanted them. These were professional decks that competed with Revox and a few others at the time.

  

Lastly, Crown also made hybrid electrostatic speakers, the ES-224. With RTR elements in the top end, dynamic woofers in a separate lower enclosure. Never heard these, always wanted to. I think this is one area where Crown probably had it  over McIntosh, Macs speakers were generally pretty bad.

Thanks again to another local veteran

  Another previous customer from JB sent me this scan of a paper I wrote 30 (!) years ago for JB Sound.  This is comical, as the owner was too cheap to do anything that looked professional, so I was pretty much on my own. Photocopied these and left them on the counter. The verbiage and misspells add to the simplicity of the time. Thanks, Renny!