I'm not Brad
BUT I did have to go into Sydney's office (Northridge) once to set up a multimedia demo piece. The first thing I thought when I stepped in there "This is not as lavish I would have expected". No big audio system, no nice paintings.. If it were my office I would have a Monet on the wall, some greek bronzes and top of the line gear from the Synthesis department.I'm not Brad
And all I ever had to do was get his youngest kids tickets to the back to school bash.
I only have a Watfa Midani on my wall and a few other paintings still shelved somewhere. An okay to high end audio reproduction system and most of a recording studio in my office. But the best piece of art is the RCA Type 70-C1 turntable. No bronzes, gotta pay more attention to that detail.
More importantly we now have three working computers per person.
(Turret press, engraver control, AP control, Smaart, Server, Recording, wood shop router, field use network and each of the four folks have a primary personal one.)
The funny thing about the Northridge offices was the giant >100k$ glass door, which ordinary people were not supposed to go through, instead gaining access by a side door.
The glass doors led more directly to Sidney's and Bernie Girod's offices, which included private restrooms.
I doubt Dr. Harman thought of music listening as a valid pursuit at the office, other than evaluation of recent products. About these he was notoriously erratic, usually preferring the competitors if they were demoed in the same audition event. As Brendon once said, anticipating His Sidness coming to listen to some Multimedia product, "There is no upside".
Once he actually had something good to say about some very simple single-driver speakers that were intended to attach to the sides of the monitor (a bad idea due to shadow mask vibrations). They were really pretty poor, but he said something about how amazing it was that such cheap speakers could sound so good.
The glass doors led more directly to Sidney's and Bernie Girod's offices, which included private restrooms.
I doubt Dr. Harman thought of music listening as a valid pursuit at the office, other than evaluation of recent products. About these he was notoriously erratic, usually preferring the competitors if they were demoed in the same audition event. As Brendon once said, anticipating His Sidness coming to listen to some Multimedia product, "There is no upside".
Once he actually had something good to say about some very simple single-driver speakers that were intended to attach to the sides of the monitor (a bad idea due to shadow mask vibrations). They were really pretty poor, but he said something about how amazing it was that such cheap speakers could sound so good.
The outcome was not really surprising
Indeed! But some here might argue it!
I went through the Harman $100K glass doors once! I forgot exactly why but I had a cart of gear that was too big to go through the commomers entrance. I went in the commoners entrance frist and announced I would have to enter through the glass doors. I got the "ok" from the executive secretary. Proper Harman protocol was followed that time.
It is not necessarily surprising that many of the double-blind test advocates worked at HK as well, and have been well supported.
HK a company that glorifies its top brass, lays off people at their pleasure, and is actually very cynical about audio quality, kind of hoping to 'prove' that it is all our imagination. HK and Bose, two of a kind, completely opposite hi end audio in general.
HK a company that glorifies its top brass, lays off people at their pleasure, and is actually very cynical about audio quality, kind of hoping to 'prove' that it is all our imagination. HK and Bose, two of a kind, completely opposite hi end audio in general.
Have you ever seen the fairly terrible movie Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Together Again? There is a scene with the hospital administrator and Mr. Hubert Howes. Howes is the richest man in the world and is in the place to receive a total organ transplant, performed by their star surgeon Dr. Jekyll. See around 2:00 in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hLL3tHS8CY
A month or so ago there was an old article posted somewhere here on the forum. Circa 1972. Sid Harmon talks about their humble beginnings and what it's like to be a small company fighting the giants. My, my. How times have changed.
Beatrice Foods. He sold it so he could be Carter's deputy undersecretary of commerce (and avoid conflicts of interest). He used to say that there were two ways to make money from Beatrice: sell them the company, and buy it back from them.
When the sale was made to begin with, people quipped that JBL now would stand for Jelly Bean Loudspeakers.
It's pretty sophomoric humor, and very dated from the days of disco and a lot of insufflated white powder. However I just ordered the DVD. My tolerance for comedies is very high.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.