Where the hell is...

ND13

that Micah Cohen fellow at??? What, he just drops in every once in a while, stirs the **** and scurries off??? Where you at little angry dude????

Ron-P

His stock went up significantly in Gold Toe's, he probably basking in cotton on some island.

Jstas

You need to understand something. Before you found this wonderful little pit of vipers on the Internet, Micah Cohen was once an employee of the venerable Polk Audio company. He was in the marketing department and this forum was his baby. He was in charge along with a few others that were enlisted to help out.

Micah made great efforts to ensure a well-formed and inviting community for Polk Audio customers to come and even formed the "Polk Audio Fan Club" called Club Polk. Unfortunately for Club Polk and Polk Audio, Micah found that he saw greener pastures and different opportunities in another audio company and decided that his work here was done and it was time to move on. Micah was reluctant to do so but it was understood that a guy has to do what is best for himself. So Micah was wished all the best of luck and sent on his way to find fame and fortune with the admonition that he not forget where he came from and all the wonderful friends he had made here both in Club Polk and Polk Audio the company.

Micah is pretty much allowed to come and go as he pleases here and while there are many here who have not enjoyed the pleasure of his company and/or conversation, there still are quite a few of who have and hold a respect for Micah and his efforts that trancends the name of the company that signs his paycheck.

With that said, I will add this...


...YEAH MICAH! Where'd the hell'd you go????

ND13

Jstas wrote:

You need to understand something. Before you found this wonderful little pit of vipers on the Internet, Micah Cohen was once an employee of the venerable Polk Audio company. He was in the marketing department and this forum was his baby. He was in charge along with a few others that were enlisted to help out.

Micah made great efforts to ensure a well-formed and inviting community for Polk Audio customers to come and even formed teh "Polk Audio Fan Club" called Club Polk. Unfortunatly for Club Polk and Polk Audio, Micah found that he saw greener pastures and different opportunities in another audio company and decided that his work here was done and it was time to move on. Micah was reluctant to do so but it was understood that a guy has to do what is best for himself. So Micah was wished all the best of luck and sent on his way to find fame and fortune with the admonition that he not forget where he came from and all the wonderful friend he had made here both in Club Polk and Polk Audio the company.

Micah is pretty much allowe dto come and go as he pleases and while there are many here who have not enjoyed teh pleasure of his company and/or conversation, there still are quite a few of who have and hold a respect for Micah and his efforts that trancends the name of the company that signs his paycheck.

With that said, I will add this...


...YEAH MICAH! Where'd the hell'd you go????

Yeah John,

I knew all of that already with as much as I'm on here.

I'll admit, at first, he really ticked me off, but after corresponding with him a few times, I got to understanding his type of humor. It's nice to have someone like him around to stir the pot a little.

Jstas

ND13 wrote:

Yeah John,

I knew all of that already with as much as I'm on here.

No harm meant. Given your relativly recent addition to the forums I didn't know if the story had trickled down yet. At least it is here for others who didn't know and may have wondered.

ND13

Jstas wrote:

No harm meant. Given your relativly recent addition to the forums I didn't know if the story had trickled down yet. At least it is here for others who didn't know and may have wondered.

No harm, no foul.

MacLeod

I never knew that. Glad you posted it. We dont get much "grapevine" info over on the CA side!

shack

ND13 wrote:

that Micah Cohen fellow at??? What, he just drops in every once in a while, stirs the **** and scurries off??? Where you at little angry dude????

Nothing new here. He did this when he was still with Polk running the forum.

Started stuff then disappeared. CLAIMED he was busy :rolleyes:

brettw22

MacLeod wrote:

I never knew that. Glad you posted it. We dont get much "grapevine" info over on the CA side!

Pfft.....that's cuz the CA peeps are self absorbed freaks....

Micah Cohen

[sound of alarm clock buzzing...]

Ah, whoops! Hello?

Hi guys. Sorry for being lazy these past coupla weeks... I've been busy, actually, and have not had much to say that was Forum-worthy. So I didn't waste your time with any drivel. I have been trying to save up. But I haven't saved much.

No good movies in my life (altho, I did get blown away by the newish Warner disc of Errol Flynn's great THE SEA HAWK, and last night I watched an interesting documentary about tobacco and growing up in NC, where I was borned, called BRIGHT LEAVES), the books I'm reading are boring me, and I have two vacant props that I'm trying to bring up to speed and get rented so I can once again relax, have a cup of coffee, and fire off some angry nasty forum stuff here.

Plus, I am oppressed by both the recent tropical heatwave here in Baltimore, which made it feel like equatorial Africa (which I didn't mind much, except that you do not feel like being near a computer when it's 110 degrees), and the rising price of gas, which is giving me cabin fever since I don't want to drive anywhere. (And making me thankful that I quit Def Tech, which was a 50-mile-a-day waste of time commute.)

So, I have nothing much going on. "P. Diddy" is changing his name again (is this just a Black thing that I don't understand?), and there I was just getting used to the "P. Diddy" thing... Jews are struggling with the Israeli Gov, even tho pulling out of Gaza is, ultimately, the right thing to do as it will make a HUGE POINT that the palestinians are uncivilized animals and are going to FAIL at governing themselves; obviously Sharon has recently watched LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, which is more than anyone in our government has done (Lawrence: "So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people: greedy, barbarous, and cruel...")... I'm happy that the Space Shuttle came and went safely, and I wish we'd quit fooling around and colonize Mars pronto, so all the sheeple can pile on and leave the Earth to me and a couple of my close friends, thin the herd, as it were... And "system of a down" still suck ****, whatever they are.

So, I got nothing, man. As soon as I have something, I'll chime in. I promise.

You got anything?

MC

ND13

Speak of the devil, and he'll rear his ugly head.

You left DT huh?

Micah Cohen

By the way, I didn't come up with the "Club Polk" thing or anything. I mean, I'd love to take credit for stuff like that, but I think that was something that was floating around before I even got to Polk, but just hadn't been put into play till we could make a serious website and start the Newspaper and etc. I sometimes felt like we were hording all the food, and you all were starving for it, and I was merely able to free some up and get it to you, whether it was the Newspaper, or freebies for Gatherings, or even just getting the logo on a toy or a tool you all could buy up and show off.

I loved working for Polk Audio. It's a great company. I still completely believe in it. I know that within the building there it's much easier to believe that maybe I was a "sour grape," or "disgruntled," or something, but the truth is (that I was not, and) that I have always thought Polk is a fantastic company that makes great products and does a lot of stuff righter than most other companies. (For instance, I am rethinking my attraction to the DT Bipolar Towers in my living room... Missing my LSi9s... And might have to switch them back in.) I was, and remain, a huge fan of Polk Audio. I merely believed that Polk's marketing arm was missing too many opportunies to promote itself in great, inventive and creative ways for reasons that were quite self-defeating. So, I felt like I had struggled enough, and needed to move on to a place I thought would be more creative. (One of my friends described the move as: "Out of the frying pan and into the frying pan.") From what I hear, things may be changing in Polk's Marketing Dept, and I think that bodes well for customer involvement, marketing creativity, and information sharing. Honestly, I wish I was there to see it.

I just don't want to have credit assigned to me for stuff that may have come from other quarters. The majority of people in the Marketing Department were (and are) smart, creative, gung-ho pros.

Just wanted all that on the record, you see.

MC

Micah Cohen

Yeah, left DT about six months ago. Retired, I like to call it.

Not to throw mud around, but this stuff is so much fun to talk about. I sat in my cave at Polk and watched DT do something we never did: advertise. I sat in meetings at Polk and heard muckety mucks say, "We should do what Sandy would do," as you know Sandy was one of the founding partners of Polk, and it was most likely his enthusiasm for promotion that got the company off the ground. So I finally thought, maybe I should be working with Sandy, the promotional genius behind Polk Audio!

Sandy needed me! He needed an editor, someone to par down his verbose, unreadable, long-winded technical speaker-speak so it would be attractive to you and me. Someone to make his manuals actually useful, instead of merely incomprehensible. Good product, good Polk Audio basic idea, bad execution, in need of an editor/writer! Perfect match, thunk I.

Well, if it was my normal experience to find the Polk Audio muckety mucks moribund and calcified -- stuck in bad, antique modes of thinking -- when it comes to marketing and promotions, it was a shock to find Sandy's organization (er, I mean, Sandy, since there was no organization) positively prehistoric. I was often shocked that Polk Audio was so successful, even tho I found them doing their best to get in their own way. It sometimes seemed like Polk Audio didn't want to sell you speakers. And whereas Polk might trip over itself in its processes, DT virtually refused to sell its product in user-friendly ways. You'll buy this product, they seemed to say, when you figure out exactly how I'd like sell it to you. Confusion reigns! The DT sales force is a miracle of master salesmenship, that it manages to sell the product IN SPITE of all the obstacles set in its way. (And, I'm not downing the product. DT is well done, well designed and well made. I like the sound of these towers, spacious and airey and realistic in a bipolar way.)

Anyway, it was quite disheartening to get a glimpse behind the curtain of "the marketing genius" behind Polk's initial success. And when it turned out that I was driving 50 miles a day to sit in yet another cave and surf the goddamn web all day waiting for a guy who thought he needed an editor but in truth didn't want an editor... Well, dude. Time to ditch.

Funny thing, you can still see a bunch of the secret changes I made to the DT website, just stuff I did all day without telling anyone. But other than that, I was not able to impact the solidified, non-user-friendly DT way of communicating with its customers. At least Polk makes some effort, and moreso now, to communicate in serious ways with you, the people who keep the company muckety mucks farting in silk, as we say in the biz.

So, I retired. My mommy gave me a watch for my retirement. A Timex thing, musta set her back twenty bucks. Lights up!

MC

reeltrouble1

Micah Cohen wrote:

So, I retired. My mommy gave me a watch for my retirement. A Timex thing, musta set her back twenty bucks. Lights up!

MC

When you said that 20 buck thing man that hit an old nerve, the day I left home at 17, my Pop pulled a 20 out of his wallet and handed it to me saying
" Here's a double saw-buck to get you going" just funny to remember how bills and coins had different names.

RT1

Micah Cohen

After college my dad said to me, "It costs $100,000 to raise a child to age 18. You gotta ask yourself, is that a gift... Or a loan." And I moved to Arizona.



MC

ND13

I'm a parent and I feel that, to a certain extent, I'm responsible for my children no matter how old they get. Afterall I put them on this earth.

Jstas

I guess I'm lucky. My deal with my parents was that I was permitted to live under thier roof for as long as needed, free of charge, as long as I attended college and helped out around the house. If I didn't go to further my education, I had to pay rent. I chose college. I moved out and I'm STILL helping around thier house.

audiobliss

Great to see you back, Cohen. (And thanks for that brief summary, Jstas. I had gathered most of it, but it was still helpful to read it.) Quite interesting to read of your previous experiences at different places of business, also, Cohen.

VR3

Thanks for the run down on DT. It explains alot of my findings. I wish I didn't like the sound of their speakers so much, as their customer service, although good - is not quite like Polks. And not to mention their fans are really dissapointing.

Sorry your business adventures havn't been the best so far.

Micah Cohen

Hey, don't down DT, either. Especially their Cust Serv. That's Chet Pelkowski, who used to run the Polk Cust Serv Dept before he also got a tad fed up with nonsense (seemed to be happening a lot back then...) and went "from the frying pan into the frying pan." Chet, along with Ken Swauger, are the best Cust Serv Pros in the whole industry. They alone are often the face of their company, the people who interact with the people, as it were, and they know literally everything there is to know about everything you could possibly ask about audio and sound. You -- yes, even you! -- can not stump these guys.

DT is a different kind of speaker, with a different kind of sound. A measure of their difference is that I heard, when I was there, that it was the basic Polk Audio idea from the 70s, alive and well at DT. The one thing they are doing wrong is that they simply don't make it easy to get a handle on their stuff: they are user-UNfriendly. It's a function of marketing, communicating a clear message, and they do it poorly. Believe me, I tried to help. It didn't take.

Funny thing: Chet just emailed me today and asked how I was doing. Weird how that happens, no?

What am I doing these days? Well, at the moment I'm sitting here plinking away with my air-soft pellet gun at the giant rats running up and down my alley. Plink! Plink!

MC

ND13

Micah Cohen wrote:

What am I doing these days? Well, at the moment I'm sitting here plinking away with my air-soft pellet gun at the giant rats running up and down my alley. Plink! Plink!

MC

That must be loads of fun.

Micah Cohen

It was this, or Quizamajig, and I needed a night off.

MC

VR3

Yes, I have put alot of countless hours behind some emails between Chet and I. Great guy, right up there with Ken.

What I meant was they don't quite have the helpfulness of Polk as far as helping their customers. For instance, I had an out-of-warranty Polk speaker come across some problems in the crossover, Polk still replaced the crossover for free. DT would charge me $55 regardless of whos fault it was. They arn't like Polk in that sense.

I like the customer service and the goals of DT, but DT is not for the faint at heart or audio newbies by no means. Their speakers, especially the bipolar towers, are incredibly hard to setup and get to be right. Not to mention very hard to audition in stores.

Not to mention DT fans are incredibly bad... makes Polk fans look like royalty.

I love the brand, I love the sound, I like the people behind the brand - but they arnt exactly up to the task of completely helping their customers by any means possible.

I like the fact that DT is an absolutely no BS company, they try to offer kick ****$ products that don't require upgrades every 2-3 years. The BP line has been on the shelves since 1996 and it has no reason to leave. They are truly a "timeless" speaker line.

Micah Cohen

Their speakers, especially the bipolar towers, are incredibly hard to setup and get to be right.

See? Let me be the first to say, "No, they are not hard to set up." You just are never told how to do it. If I told you how to do it in plain language, you'd slap your forehead and say, "That was easy!" But DT manuals are impossible to read and have little or nothing to do with speaker setup. They have a rep as being difficult because you are left to your own devices. You try to figure this out, they say. What we have here is a failure to communicate.

they don't quite have the helpfulness of Polk as far as helping their customers

You gotta understand: it's just Chet! Just only Chet alone working there! One guy! He does the work of three people. It sucks that DT is not a juggernaut of heedless corporate spending, like Polk. If they were, they'd replace stuff for free the way they should (which would make them build it better) and they'd have four experts working the phones, like Polk. (Kim!) What we have here is a failure to communicate.

I'd love to know what you mean by "their customers are bad."

HEY! A rat! PLINK!

MC

Micah Cohen

I like the fact that DT is an absolutely no BS company

That's funny, too.

I just didn't want to comment on it.

You know?

MC

VR3

Setting up the BP10B in my room... was so tedious and mind numbing and I still don't have it right. Mainly because my room sucks so hard it isnt even funny. But I finally got them...ok. I need a new room.

But after I "figured" it out, it wasn't so bad and it was kind of a duh moment. But I'm sure it could of been better. They really arn't to helpful with setting up - their basic answer was as far apart as you are from them... and they didn't even mention I needed to tilt them up till I mentioned it myself. I dunno, I eventually got there a year later

Yeah, I eventually learned that Chet was the only one manning the fort, but I can't imagine DT being near as busy as Polk - especially since DT is a much smaller brand in the market by comparison...

I have met a large portion of DT fans through other forums, and I have met *very* few that I would ever want to meet in person. They are all over-sensitive HT geeks, with no music in mind. Its mind numbing at the shear lack of knowledge these folks have, I have met very few knowledgeable DT fans that actually know a thing or two about the speakers they listen to everyday. Where as I've taken mine apart, taken pictures inside, rebuilt them, and tried to understand every basic part about them that I could comprehend and Chet would release to me. (They are very secretive BTW)... lol

But, yeah, I wish DT would communicate better - but I also wouldnt want them to sacrifice anything in the process....

PS: Why on gods green earth did they discontinue the BP30? :mad:

EDIT:
What I meant about No BS is they offer real big speakers that sound real good. IE: The BP7000SC - over 100 pounds, four 6.5" midbasses, 14" subwoofer, dual 14" PRs - you don't see that very often. With an enclosure that weighs more than most speakers do with everything in them. I love that...

Big surrounds, big centers, but passive towers like the BP30 which I am sad to see go. No BS, just big speakers, with big sound and big bass without subs. No BS, simple stuff. No power ports, not ARC ports, none of that. They used simple transmission line designs in a bipolar config. I loved that!

Micah Cohen

The idea that they would sacrifice something important by communicating better is ingrained in DT's social fabric. While the Polk guys are secretive, Sandy is positively paranoid.

On one hand, I found that he wanted to tell you everything. These speakers will work any way you want them to, and I will tell you about it until I am blue in the face. On the other hand, that made no sense whatsoever, and just confused consumers who want an easy choice and good performance.

Chet had a chart (a Chet Chart) that showed the simple answers for all situations, and that's what I used when I tried to update the manuals. It was an impossible dream.

Too bad, too, because if you make things simple, you sell more product. But, what do I know? :mad:

MC

Micah Cohen

What I meant about No BS is...

Oh. What I meant was... You don't want to know how they make the sausage, you know?

MC

VR3

DT is beyond paranoid as far being secretive. The amount of information they wont release far out-weighs the amount they will.

And in my adventures of placement, I found that they really could do ANYTHING you wanted them to, you just had to find the type of placement that made them do it. I found a way to make them sound like direct radiating speakers, I found a way to make them sound huge.... dynamic, anything really. They are incredibly fun speakers.

What is the Chet chart? Do you still have it? I want to see it!

Micah Cohen

Almost found my way in that company twice

What do you mean?

MC

audiobliss

+1


I mean to say, 'Yeah, whadya mean?'