Hi theAnonymous1,
I'm very happy it all turned out okay for you. But, you're right you know. It always seems to be the people you try to help that bite you in the end. It's very clear they are not aware of the true value of help you're giving.
Thank god this only happens now and again. For me, the first time in over 15 years, so I have nothing to cry about. Just start the clock at zero again.
Hey George,
It is possible to be successful in the music biz. Don't try to be the best for one. You can't win that way. Just make sure your markup covers the odd idiot and cover him with a smile.
I met Mr. Pete Traynor in my shop once. The guy is funny as hell for one, I enjoyed his visit. His parting comment? "I hate musicians". I can certainly see his point of view, it is a love-hate relationship with the music or audio business.
-Chris
I'm very happy it all turned out okay for you. But, you're right you know. It always seems to be the people you try to help that bite you in the end. It's very clear they are not aware of the true value of help you're giving.
Thank god this only happens now and again. For me, the first time in over 15 years, so I have nothing to cry about. Just start the clock at zero again.
Hey George,
It is possible to be successful in the music biz. Don't try to be the best for one. You can't win that way. Just make sure your markup covers the odd idiot and cover him with a smile.
I met Mr. Pete Traynor in my shop once. The guy is funny as hell for one, I enjoyed his visit. His parting comment? "I hate musicians". I can certainly see his point of view, it is a love-hate relationship with the music or audio business.
-Chris
Substitute the word "audiophile" for "musician" and that would sum up very well how I was feeling by the time my business tanked at the end of 2000.. 😀
In this case I am really only referring to that certain class of well healed but intrinsically cheap mumbo_jumbo_voodoo_mystic_believing_audiophile_ ignorant_of_basic_science types who seem to have no clue how things in the world really work, but have many alarming if quaint theories on the subject. There finally got that off my shoulders.. 🙄
Hello Kevin,
Absolutely!
I've had precisely the same experiences with the same people. Most people involved in the design / manufacture of these products are articulate and knowledgeable, not to mention friendly. Then we have the huge ego types, who actually tend not to have a good understanding of how things work. It's these people and their "white papers" and "equipment reports" that cause so much grief for everyone, technician and consumer alike.
I'm afraid the only fix is education. That ain't likely gonna be successful on a wide scale. That is also one major reason why I sold my audio service company over ten years ago. At least now I do not have to accept work from everyone who walks through my door. Since you did have a good customer base Kevin, I'll bet there are some who are requesting you do some work for them. I can tel you that this type of situation is far more relaxing and enjoyable than "the grind" is.
I'll bet that you are already involved in this.
-Chris
Absolutely!
I've had precisely the same experiences with the same people. Most people involved in the design / manufacture of these products are articulate and knowledgeable, not to mention friendly. Then we have the huge ego types, who actually tend not to have a good understanding of how things work. It's these people and their "white papers" and "equipment reports" that cause so much grief for everyone, technician and consumer alike.
I'm afraid the only fix is education. That ain't likely gonna be successful on a wide scale. That is also one major reason why I sold my audio service company over ten years ago. At least now I do not have to accept work from everyone who walks through my door. Since you did have a good customer base Kevin, I'll bet there are some who are requesting you do some work for them. I can tel you that this type of situation is far more relaxing and enjoyable than "the grind" is.
I'll bet that you are already involved in this.
-Chris
I ran the service department at an Olson Electronics store for about 2 years right after graduating high school. The store was located adjacent to the campus of the University of Miami. Most UM students are working their butts off to keep up at a very expensive school. A significant number are there however for a 4 year party on daddy's money. Those 2 years taught me a lot about life, and convinced me that I didn't want a full time career in the service industry. The 90/10 rule applies here too. 10% of your customers will cause you 90% of your problems. The ones that park daddy's Ferarri right in front of the store are on the top of the list.
The UM school of music is huge (good too) and there are hundreds of budding musicians there to learn music the expensive way. I hung out with lots of them and fixed more than a few amps. Through that connection I got access to the synthesizer lab on campus. I got to play with a monster Moog modular synthesizer that the lab had, but no one could figure out how to "program". It was 1971 and musicians, including instructors, didn't understand oscillators, VCO's, VCA's, envelope generators, ADSR's and so forth. You programmed the thing by plugging it all together with patch cords. I thought it was the coolest thing on the planet at the time and I understood how it worked. Very hard to explain to a musician though.
After about 2 years the customer service thing just got to be too much, and Olson's had begun its slide into obscurity, so I got a real job in the factory of a major electronics company where I still work today (at least for now).
Having spent some time with both, I must say that there is a difference (referring to the normal 90%). The average musician doesn't understand how his amp works, he may or may not understand how the guitar / amp / speakers all work together. He usually has a clue what kind of "tone" he wants, but may not be able to describe it to you. He usually has an interest in learning, if the learning experience helps him get the tone, and he is not just a total stoner. In this case, I used to go with him to a hands on store like Sam Ash or the Guitar Center to crank things up. Find out what amps get his attention, check out what's inside them, and scare up the schematics when you get back. Now you have a place of reference. Often an non technical explanation helps pry things out of his brain.
Explaining impedance matching between the speaker and the amp goes nowhere. Instead explain it like driving a car in the wrong gear. Putting a 16 ohm speaker on a 4 ohm amp is like driving 35 MPH in 1st gear. You can get there but the risk of damage is high from excessive RPM / voltage, and the performance will suck. Putting a 4 ohm speaker on a 16 ohm amp is like going 20 MPH in 5th gear. Again you can get there but the engine may overheat because you are asking for too much torque / current. Again the performance will suck. There are times where driving in the wrong gear (maybe you just like the sound of screaming along at 7000 RPM) is worth the possible risk, but the knowledge it there to understand the risk.
The type of audiophile that Kevin mentions "understands" everything, just ask him. They are usually not open to explanation on any level. They have paid dearly for the magic that they possess, and it can not be explained by mere engineering. Shakti stones, magic beads, cryo treating, $1000 speaker cables and power cords are too much for a simple minded engineer to understand, they are a gift from the guru!
Yes, I don't have much time for him, and fortunately he doesn't have too much time for me. Yes there are quite a few things out there that I can't explain, and I don't try. I have met a few Golden Ears types, and have been amazed by a few feats of hearing though.
I made a couple of expensive amps for a well healed doctor (nice guy too) about 10 years ago. He wanted a custom headphone amp based on a Tubelab SE and I made him one. He brought a rectifier tube (actually 3 of them) that had been blessed by a guru master with magical sound, and demanded that the amp use it. After the amp was done he agreed to some blind tube rolling. He sat in a chair wearing his headphones while I swapped tubes. He could not see what I was doing. I was swapping all of the tubes around not just the rectifier and he would tell me which set he preferred. I would make a swap and then swap back. He would compare the pairs. He did not even know which tubes I was testing. We spent several hours identifying which output tubes he preferred by music type (his CD's), which brand of 5842 / 417A he liked for the driver, and we tested rectifier tubes. I think he correctly chose his magic rectifier tube all but once! Even after he told me exactly what to listen for, I could not hear a difference in rectifier tubes. I could pick out output tubes but my choices did not always correlate with his. How did he do this? After he was happy with his amp, he left me with one of the magic rectifier tubes so that I could learn to appreciate the magic. I still have the tube (an old Mullard 5AR4), but I never found the magic. Maybe I should sell it for $1000 on Ebay!
Today I have very little time. I have come to realize that Tubelab will never make big bucks, but for now it is still something that I enjoy doing. Most of the forum readers seem to appreciate my antics, so If Tubelab makes enough $$ so that the IRS doesn't call it a hobby, it will continue, as long as my job holds out. I don't think that I'll ever go back into service though. I have dozens of stories from that era, including several where I got screwed by trying to help someone out, but anyone who has done this for a long time has plenty of their own.
The UM school of music is huge (good too) and there are hundreds of budding musicians there to learn music the expensive way. I hung out with lots of them and fixed more than a few amps. Through that connection I got access to the synthesizer lab on campus. I got to play with a monster Moog modular synthesizer that the lab had, but no one could figure out how to "program". It was 1971 and musicians, including instructors, didn't understand oscillators, VCO's, VCA's, envelope generators, ADSR's and so forth. You programmed the thing by plugging it all together with patch cords. I thought it was the coolest thing on the planet at the time and I understood how it worked. Very hard to explain to a musician though.
After about 2 years the customer service thing just got to be too much, and Olson's had begun its slide into obscurity, so I got a real job in the factory of a major electronics company where I still work today (at least for now).
Having spent some time with both, I must say that there is a difference (referring to the normal 90%). The average musician doesn't understand how his amp works, he may or may not understand how the guitar / amp / speakers all work together. He usually has a clue what kind of "tone" he wants, but may not be able to describe it to you. He usually has an interest in learning, if the learning experience helps him get the tone, and he is not just a total stoner. In this case, I used to go with him to a hands on store like Sam Ash or the Guitar Center to crank things up. Find out what amps get his attention, check out what's inside them, and scare up the schematics when you get back. Now you have a place of reference. Often an non technical explanation helps pry things out of his brain.
Explaining impedance matching between the speaker and the amp goes nowhere. Instead explain it like driving a car in the wrong gear. Putting a 16 ohm speaker on a 4 ohm amp is like driving 35 MPH in 1st gear. You can get there but the risk of damage is high from excessive RPM / voltage, and the performance will suck. Putting a 4 ohm speaker on a 16 ohm amp is like going 20 MPH in 5th gear. Again you can get there but the engine may overheat because you are asking for too much torque / current. Again the performance will suck. There are times where driving in the wrong gear (maybe you just like the sound of screaming along at 7000 RPM) is worth the possible risk, but the knowledge it there to understand the risk.
The type of audiophile that Kevin mentions "understands" everything, just ask him. They are usually not open to explanation on any level. They have paid dearly for the magic that they possess, and it can not be explained by mere engineering. Shakti stones, magic beads, cryo treating, $1000 speaker cables and power cords are too much for a simple minded engineer to understand, they are a gift from the guru!
Yes, I don't have much time for him, and fortunately he doesn't have too much time for me. Yes there are quite a few things out there that I can't explain, and I don't try. I have met a few Golden Ears types, and have been amazed by a few feats of hearing though.
I made a couple of expensive amps for a well healed doctor (nice guy too) about 10 years ago. He wanted a custom headphone amp based on a Tubelab SE and I made him one. He brought a rectifier tube (actually 3 of them) that had been blessed by a guru master with magical sound, and demanded that the amp use it. After the amp was done he agreed to some blind tube rolling. He sat in a chair wearing his headphones while I swapped tubes. He could not see what I was doing. I was swapping all of the tubes around not just the rectifier and he would tell me which set he preferred. I would make a swap and then swap back. He would compare the pairs. He did not even know which tubes I was testing. We spent several hours identifying which output tubes he preferred by music type (his CD's), which brand of 5842 / 417A he liked for the driver, and we tested rectifier tubes. I think he correctly chose his magic rectifier tube all but once! Even after he told me exactly what to listen for, I could not hear a difference in rectifier tubes. I could pick out output tubes but my choices did not always correlate with his. How did he do this? After he was happy with his amp, he left me with one of the magic rectifier tubes so that I could learn to appreciate the magic. I still have the tube (an old Mullard 5AR4), but I never found the magic. Maybe I should sell it for $1000 on Ebay!
Today I have very little time. I have come to realize that Tubelab will never make big bucks, but for now it is still something that I enjoy doing. Most of the forum readers seem to appreciate my antics, so If Tubelab makes enough $$ so that the IRS doesn't call it a hobby, it will continue, as long as my job holds out. I don't think that I'll ever go back into service though. I have dozens of stories from that era, including several where I got screwed by trying to help someone out, but anyone who has done this for a long time has plenty of their own.
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I can relate. When I worked for Ross Systems I was quality control but I was considered part of the service department. Of course at Ross they use the term "service" lightly.
Interesting comments, and nice to see that I am not the only one.
Actually I have just a very small handful of clients whose KTA gear I maintain on a sporadic basis (It's rather reliable) and a fellow I have built a few items for. My heart's not in it and usually I have very limited personal time with a full time engineering career (Not the case at the moment as I cast about for the next gig) - I generally am happy to consult, but beyond that I've pretty much washed my hands of the business. And as a result I enjoy my tinkering a great deal more and have a much better system as result, partly because I mostly make real money now. Doing this has to be a labor of love, and I fell out of love with it mainly because of the types I mentioned, and a distributor who definitely fell into that category as well. (Running out of money as the bubble burst in the summer/fall of 2000 played a very big role as well. Revenues dropped to zero after mid year..)
I would happily be a design guru for some small audio outfit as long as I did not have to interface often with the customers, and deal with the day to day operation of the business, and provided that they could actually pay me.. Unfortunately I don't think that will ever happen.. 😀
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Wow, we are on the same wavelength.. Pretty much as we have both known for years. 😀
What George enumerates above is the experience all ethical engineering types face when they take this beyond the hobby level.
These days I am honestly more interested in having fun, I design, build, debug, and listen for FUN! I have no particular fascination with rafts of measurements although I am well equipped to do them if so inclined or the necessity of a creation run amok requires it.. Otherwise I just kick back and enjoy. I have not for example measured the noise floor of my new TD-124/II - I could with some effort, but for now I'd just rather listen to it and know in the listening experience that it is more than quiet enough.. (Maybe when I am finally retire a decade and a half hence I will have more inclination.. In the mean time it's too much like what I do for a living..)
😀
"Olson Electronics store" that's a name out of the very distant past! I bought my first hi-fi stuff at Olson's in downtown Cleveland in the mid 1950's. You had to be careful as they sold lot's of junk.
BIG TIME....and I had to fix it!
Our store was a bit different from the rest. We were the #1 Olson store in the country for several years because of the endless supply of new students with plenty of money. The entire customer base turns over every 4 years. What more could you want. The store in Coral Gables was larger than most and only a small area displayed Olson branded products. We sold Fisher, AR, Kenwood, and even Lowther. There was a lot of car stereo (8 track) equipment mostly Craig Pioneer.
The Olson branded stuff was hit or miss. It was contracted out to a low bidder in Japan. Some of it was good, some really sucked, and most was just OK. You could tell which was which just by watching the sales price. If it went down every time a new catalog was printed it was real junk.
Here is an unusual Olson story:
An older guy with long grey hair drives up in a new Corvette and buys the top of the line AR system. The receiver was 65 WPC (big for 1972) and cost $650. He buys a pair of the biggest AR speakers and the AR turntable. It takes him 3 trips to get it all home in the Corvette.
About 3 days later he is back with one of the speakers and its woofer is blown. We give him a new speaker and he leaves. A few days later he is back, blown speaker again. The boss has me go with him to his large house in Coconut Grove to install the new speaker and find out what is going on. I ask him to show me how the speakers are getting blown, so he proceeds place Led Zepelin II on the turntable, cue up Whole Lot of Love and dime the volume control. It was LOUD, the speakers were moving around on the floor.
I explained to him that this was the recipie for more blown speakers and he was dissapointed, what could he do? I suggested that he buy 2 more speakers, add them, and his SS amp would make even more power and the whole system would be even louder and less distorted.
After they were hooked up the old hippie was happy. That system was loud and didn't sound half bad by 1971 standards. Did I get any commision for selling $500 worth od speakers? What do you think?
Note:
At least while I worked there (1971 and 1972) Olson's and AR were owned by Teledyne, the same people who made the Water Pik. They were and still are a component manufacturer selling high end parts to the defense industry.
Hi George,
That's not really a strange story. I also sold audio for a time, and you would get similar people in from now and again. Back in 1972, $500 was a large chunk of change to hand over. People did, but in those days, most equipment was durable and worth repairing. Also, a real 65 wpc was a lot of power for back then. 30 wpc to 50 wpc was a more common power range in our neck of the woods. Anyone with a console stereo (those wooden things with a turntable inside and a large lift up lid) was listening to about 2 to 5 wpc, and they were happy. The real fancy units had 12 ish wpc. The transistor stuff sounded awful, and produced about 2 wpc as a rule. So for most people, that 65 wpc was a monster!
I didn't mind service work. That's when money was kinda okay, but not really. In about 1997, the market really tanked and I was in the process of selling out. I left at exactly the right time, because the service industry collapsed soon after.
The real fun was in designing equipment though. That and performing modifications on equipment to make them operate in a certain way (control logic), or respond to a controller when the machine was not designed to interface with anything.
All I can say is, don't make your hobby into a vocation.You'll make decisions based on things other than business. I do think you can be set up to turn a profit there George, there are so many people doing things wrong that a little effort in the right direction might really get things going for you. How about a guitar amp for headphones so a musician can practice loud for their own person? Tube, so it overdrives similarly to a normal amp? Then a small practice amp in the normal sense. If you get the tone right, you will have addressed the most important thing for most people.
I think you can do it George.
-Chris
That's not really a strange story. I also sold audio for a time, and you would get similar people in from now and again. Back in 1972, $500 was a large chunk of change to hand over. People did, but in those days, most equipment was durable and worth repairing. Also, a real 65 wpc was a lot of power for back then. 30 wpc to 50 wpc was a more common power range in our neck of the woods. Anyone with a console stereo (those wooden things with a turntable inside and a large lift up lid) was listening to about 2 to 5 wpc, and they were happy. The real fancy units had 12 ish wpc. The transistor stuff sounded awful, and produced about 2 wpc as a rule. So for most people, that 65 wpc was a monster!
I didn't mind service work. That's when money was kinda okay, but not really. In about 1997, the market really tanked and I was in the process of selling out. I left at exactly the right time, because the service industry collapsed soon after.
The real fun was in designing equipment though. That and performing modifications on equipment to make them operate in a certain way (control logic), or respond to a controller when the machine was not designed to interface with anything.
All I can say is, don't make your hobby into a vocation.You'll make decisions based on things other than business. I do think you can be set up to turn a profit there George, there are so many people doing things wrong that a little effort in the right direction might really get things going for you. How about a guitar amp for headphones so a musician can practice loud for their own person? Tube, so it overdrives similarly to a normal amp? Then a small practice amp in the normal sense. If you get the tone right, you will have addressed the most important thing for most people.
I think you can do it George.
-Chris
Yes, he is. In fact too much to be an engineer. It didn't make sense to me but then one day he posted something about his early days and suddenly everything fell into place. 😀
Even though today (so he says) he doesn't get toasted anymore, his brain was modeled in the RIGHT way and we know that you can't escape from your past. 😀
There used to be about 1000 engineers at the facility where I work. I guess about half of them are typical engineer / nerds. The other half seem to be scattered across a wide spectrum, but you would never guess that they were engineers.
Its easy to tell which is which. Just blow something up in a most spectaular way (nuking a cell phone in the cafeteria microwave will do) and watch the reaction. 1) Why would you do that.....typical engineer. 2) Why did it blow up.....typical engineer. 3) I'm calling the fire marshall....nerd! 4) that was cool, do it again.....my friends!
I hung around with the stoner / hippie / musician crowd in high school and college. So much so that my academic achievements were non existent and college = get out of Nam free card (2S draft card). I worked at the Olson store then too. Then the draft lottery smiled on me and I got a winning number (2H), so school became an unnecessary pain and was eliminated.
After a few of the typical slacker kid VS parents battles, I decided to leave the slacker / stoner life behind move 40 miles north and get a real job in an electronics factory. It took me 47 minutes of the first day on the job to figure out that a factory with thousands of young workers made public school look like a drug free zone. Hence 20 years of altered states became too easy, even accepted. I was even good at it!
Fast forward .....marriage..divorce..remarrage..kids..!kids! OK, three forces aligned to force a change. First, times had changed, being toasted at work was no longer politically correct, it was now so incorrect that drug testing was implemented and my druggie friends were being fired or laid off. Second, my daughter and her friends were now old enough to understand what that funny smell was. Third, the company was downsizing, and those of us who worked our way up from factory grunt to engineer without enduring engineering school were on the endangered species list. I decided to try college again for real this time at 37 years old. Time to clear out the cob webs and put down the daily joint! I haven't sparked up a single doobie since ....except for the night my daughter married that A$$ H#lE....already divorced....2 kids....no job...she'll be moving home sooner or later......
I got a bachelors degree in computer engineering at age 40 and a masters degree in electrical engineering at 47 from two different schools. I demonstrated proficiency in blowing things up succesfully at both schools, and I also demonstrated one of my vacuum tube guitar amps and my lousy guitar skills in a public speaking class. Maybe it was because of being in engineering programs but I found that the college campuses in the 90's were a bit different than in the 70's and there was none of that funny smell.
The only burning smell in this house is burnt parts....lets see....Allen Bradley 1969...it was a good year......
That is a complement coming from the Mosfet Master! My wife on the other hand has been known to call me boring. She doesn't know what a mosfet is and really couldn't care to see one blown in half by electricity! She would also question the sanity of anyone who would solder hundreds of them all to a single circuit board. My sanity is not under question the answer is known.
Nooowwwwww wuz dat an AB POT???? 😱
Or carbon composite 1/4 watt or 1/2 watt? Gold band tolerance perhaps??
Perhaps from the southern facing wing of the production plant where they got a bit more sun and thus the resistors had a bit of a "warmer" sound?
BTW - cleaning out batteries that were exploded in the microwave is nasty.
But I can't count that high!
When I was younger (about 1972) I wired about 350 RTL logic gates and flip flops together on perf board to make a primitive digital music synthesizer. It worked but the chips died at a rate of one every week or two. PITA to change them so the whole thing wound up in a box, which I recently found.
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