Another local Craigslist idiot

 Maybe I am old fashioned, but when I contact someone in a classified ad I am fairly serious, have done some research, know what I want, what it should be worth, blah blah blah.


             This dude emails me about a nice little pair of KEF monitors I have listed,  wants to come see and hear them. My response is usually pretty generic, if you are coming to buy them, I will pull them out and hook them up.

  Too many times in the past I have been treated like a dealer's showroom. No, I am not here for your evaluations. Not interested in what you  don't like about it/them.

 No, you can't bring your amp over to hook up to see how it sounds. Much as I love this hobby, I price things to sell, and resent all the extra work. If I buy something and later decide I don't like it, I resell it.I research it carefully enough that I am willing to take that risk. I never abuse the seller.


  So the dude shows up, (mind you I am a little under the weather  from meds and didn't want to do this today anyway) , listens, hems, haws, and makes me a ridiculous offer. After stating that I have lowered the price on these twice on CL, we strike a deal for $140. for the pair . Cheap, but as I mentioned earlier I am clearing stuff out I don't use anymore. He hands me the money, takes the speakers, and calls me a couple of hours later. "Can I bring these back?" What??  All of a sudden he is critical of the midrange and says they smell like cat, he is allergic. Now, mind you the cats walked in front of him about 8 times when he was here! All of a sudden he mentions he is allergic! My stuff is generally not in the same room as the cats anyway.

                 DUDE! THESE WERE $140!  What is wrong with people? Guessing he wasted about $20. in gas.So petty! Gave him his money back,he apparently needs it, even though he pulled up in a brand new loaded Nissan.

He should go to Best Buy and see what he gets for $140.

   As I have said here in the past, anything over $100. on Craigslist I generally end up shipping out of state. A few exceptions, but for the most part I am extremely wary of the locals.

Room treatments

 I guess I would have to give the most credit here to Mr. Michael Green of Room Tunes fame for popularizing room acoustic panels for the masses. These were mentioned in the same breath as Monster Cable back in the mid '80s. I still have a pair of Room Tunes (above) and Corner Tunes in my studio. He is still in business today :

                                                  http://www.michaelgreenaudio.com/

                                        The competition  followed, ASC with their Tube traps,

     Aurulex and numerous other companies with their sculpted foam sheets and corner pieces, and Echo Busters which are very similar to Michael's designs. There are literally hundreds of these companies making this sort of thing today, mainly for recording studios, but they can cure significant problems in your room (echos,delays,boomy bass, etc). Try before you buy applies here, and many tend to overdo things by using them to excess.

All in all, it's just another (VPI) brick in the wall.....

Other resonance tuning devices besides feet- this has had quite a following and a reasonable bit of demand- the magic VPI brick. When placed strategically on a component , this eliminates hum and stray magnetic fields from a component that otherwise might hum- probably because it doesn't know the words. (Bad joke, I know, I have used it before). Since the advent of the toroidal transformers in power supplies this has not been as much of an issue,they used to be mainly constructed from iron plates.

The Tekna Sonic vibration dampers that you attach to the backs of your speakers, Totem Beaks (which look like tiptoes but are actually placed on top of the speakers),  Mpingo dots, Shakti Stones, and several other offerings.

The Magic Brick is the only classic one so far that has truly endured the test of time. It helped establish VPI, which is now a huge analog company.

More tears

Almost everybody who is into this hobby gets at least a little emotional occasionally when they play a certain special piece of music.

  I mentioned this when Donna Summers passed a few months ago.

 Tonight it was Dan Fogelberg,  (I know, I am showing my age).

Between the Leader of the Band and Another Old Lang Syne  it got to me, all teary eyed.

 Not sure if it was the memories of my father or a previous girlfriend, spent some time  dialing it  in right, and the emotions set in.

System sounds good, good reference recording, great engineering, and a great set of production values!


When things are right, they are right..... you know it when you get emotional.........

Other feats (feets?)

With the advent of the spikes and Tiptoes came other methods of coupling/isolating components. Sorbothane   became somewhat common with companies like Audioquest, and a myriad of options appeared. The Q foot, Big Feet, Discwasher Footers, and Vibapods, to name a few. Some people were setting their speakers on cinder blocks, all kinds of tweeks were born. A more elaborate measure would be the isolation bases, shelves that were placed under a component to ward off all sorts of bad karma. Bright Star, Black Diamond Racing, and numerous other companies charged as much or more than you would pay for an actual component!

Speaking of speaker spikes

Or had I spoke, spat, spit, in spades?

 In the early eighties a guy by the name of Steve McCormick of Mod Squad invented an aluminum cone known as the "Tip Toe". These were quite radical in their day, causing many an audiophile to scratch their head. At $5 each, these were not cheap in early eighties dollars, I must confess to being an early adopter based on the way they looked under components. Tip Toes went rampant, there were dedicated threaded versions for specific components like Sota turntables, and of course the other Mod Squad components like the Phono Drive, Line Drive, etc.  The imitators soon came, Sumiko Counter Feet (joke intended? A blatant attempt by a Japanese company to rip off an American one?) Today, just about everyone including Parts Express offers their own version of these. They have been placed under everything from turntables to speakers, not convinced they make anything sound better, but again I like the way they look.

 Some of the companies that actually made some headway in improving the original Tip Toe design would include Black Diamond Racing (high tech carbon fibre resonance analysis with all of their products) and German Physics tone cones , a combination cone/spike used on many high end speakers throughout the '80s. as oem equipment. I could probaly mention 100 other cone/spike manufacturers in existence today, but I won't. Need to hold your attention span. But anyway, official credit goes to Steve McCormick  for starting it all with the Tip Toe.

Tweaks Tweaks and more Tweaks

I have referred to various tweaks and enhancements on and off over the past year, and have promised to elaborate. The following few entries will describe some of the classic and famous (or infamous) enhancements and band aids that have made audio history. I will try to maintain an unbiased description of each, I am definitely not the snake oil type. While some of these admittedly invoke sarcasm, others have passed the test of time and have become very commonplace. Speaker spikes, for example have appeared on just about every currently offered high quality floor standing speaker or speaker stand from your favorite hifi salon to Best Buy. Power conditioners are also an accepted enhancement that defines a new(ish) component category, and I won't discuss these here. Anyway, here we go!