Polkfest '05 pictures

MacLeod

Just got back in. Fellas this was a freaking blast! Easily one of the, if not THE, coolest thing thats ever happened to me!

We had a few show up from the CA side. John, Bill, Neo and me made it in to represent us 12 Volt fans.

There will be a dedicated, official showcase for pictures but I thought Id post some of the ones I took.

1- The conference room had most of the Polk lineup and the entire car audio lineup sitting out.

2- The soundboard in the car audio lab. Got to A/B the SR's against the Boston Z and MB Quart Q. The SR smoked the Z, no contest and was as good as the $1300 Q! Outstanding for a $750 speaker!

3- A collection of competitors subs they use to figure out how to smoke em!

4- More subs

5- Drawing for the new Momo line of subs. I was threatened with bodily harm if I released these so if anything happens to me you know who dun it.

MacLeod

1- Rack of old Rockford Fosgate Power amps, MTX Thunder and of course Momo amps.

2- What happens when Thom parks his car in the wrong neghborhood.

3- Why Josh isnt allowed to drive the Polk demo cars anymore.

4- The quality assurance department where they torture their gear to see how it holds up.

5- Engineer Sean explaining the Klippel analyzer....and doing a damn good job of it. If I understood it, he was explaining it well!

nadams

Those are my legs in that last picture! I'm famous!

BTW- don't worry about the drawings... i took a picture of the prototype basket, sitting on top of those drawings, and you can see quite a bit of detail...

:rolleyes:

MacLeod

Some pics of Josh's unreal Civic!

The last pic is my favorite. Glass in the shape of the Momo crossover. I just thought this was cool as hell!

MacLeod

1- Demo'ing Mark (the boss of the 12 Volt dept) Subaru. Very classy and stealthy install. Sounded great!

2- Neo demo'ing my truck.

3- Here is Matt talking to all the internet/audio geeks.

4- My personal favorite, Matt signing my MM6! Woohoo!

5- This was the highlight of the tour tho. The SRT's! This is undoubtedly the most amazing and coolest thing I have EVER heard. EVER!! Not only did the stage extend waaaay beyond the left and right speakers but the instruments imaged 10 feet tall! Ive never heard anything like this!

MacLeod

So thats it. It sucked the Cody, Vince and Sweve couldnt be there. We wouldve kicked those HA guys asses!

It also sucked Thom and Josh were on assignment down in Atlanta with all those skantiliy clad chicks running around at Nopi and it REALLY sucks they took the Polk Civic with them!!!!!!!!!!! :mad:

Still this was the best time Ive had in many years. I cant wait til the next one! Hopefully everybody will get to be there. You guys have got to hear those SRT's! I could sit in front of those for hours and hours just listening!

audiobliss

MacLeod wrote:

It sucked the Cody, Vince and Sweve couldnt be there.

What? WHAT? WHAT? No mention of me?!?!?!

:eek:




Mac, is that you in the green shirt? You don't look so tough.....;)



:eek: @ Neo's pic. How old are you, man?! Oh, and how did Mac's system sound?

audiobliss

Oh, and Nadams....nice legs......LOL

nadams

Thanks audiobliss

You know, somehow I totally missed hearing any Club Polk car audio systems.... What happened there?

I wanted to show you guys how it's done w/ my db570's

jtgranby

MacLeod wrote:

1- Demo'ing Mark (the boss of the 12 Volt dept) Subaru. Very classy and stealthy install. Sounded great!

2- Neo demo'ing my truck.

3- Here is Matt talking to all the internet/audio geeks.

4- My personal favorite, Matt signing my MM6! Woohoo!

5- This was the highlight of the tour tho. The SRT's! This is undoubtedly the most amazing and coolest thing I have EVER heard. EVER!! Not only did the stage extend waaaay beyond the left and right speakers but the instruments imaged 10 feet tall! Ive never heard anything like this!

I thought you were talking about Anthony
JT

MacLeod

I dunno, meeting Anthony was pretty cool!

Sorry bliss, wouldve loved to meet you as well!

I wasnt real proud of my system then. I had just experimented with the sub settiing the day before and it had way too much bass in it. This was driven home even more by hearing those SR's on the soundboard. Mine dont sound nearly as good as those! Ive got some work to do!

beardog03

hey Mac..

Mathew Polk said the same thing to me about the 6x9`s that you said...
They should be here by the end of the week..

unrealii

Damn, I wish I was there

aaharvel

MacLeod thanks for the pics. Looks like you guys had a blast!

exalted512

hopefully ill be able to make it to the next one and I'll have my system done by then. If its by this time next year then I should be done...hopefully
-Cody

MacLeod

Yup, we definitely needed more 12 volt representation. Lets see, there were about 40 of us there and 4 were CA guys. We were pretty outnumbered to say the least!

VR3

Macleod...

Just wanted to let you know that you can upload a bazillion photos in one post... You just have to upload 5 at a time (in the same post), upload five, then click manage attachments again.

This may not be something you want or wanted to do - but - just a FWIW...

Man it looks like yall had a GOOD time... Looks like Polk HQ has gotten along quite a bit since my visit 2 or so years ago. The cheeseroom is almost complete.

I hope to make the next gathering by far!

ND13

You guys are soon to lose one of your's to the HA side. :eek:

We hooked up SpWuInMk67 with a HK 3375 receiver and a nice set of Monitor 10Bs. That's a great 2 channel starter rig. :cool:

He's starting the transformation and he doesn't even no it.

Jstas

ND13 wrote:

You guys are soon to lose one of your's to the HA side. :eek:

That's the fundamental problem with this place right there.

There is no "side" here. It is all one forum but so many people refuse to see it that way and discount the entire CA realm of Polk Audio and Club Polk because they think they know but they really don't. I wish they all could have had thier eyes open instead of the 50 or so people who were at the PolkHQ tour. If they bothered to look past petty differences and check out the "kids" on the car audio boards, they would have known that the SR6500's have been out for almost 3 months now and were announced last winter. They would also know that Polk Audio had the original dB series and the MM series which were a couple of the first "high end" speaker lines that were available to the car audio market. Yet they the still gush over it because they finally had a chance to hear them in person.

There is no side and I got to talk to Bill for a good long time at the tour since so many others here decided to ignore me. Bill is a cool dude and he's put alot of work into his setup in his Ranger. He's still working on it and I hope that I was able to help him with some advice. If his school wasn't so far away, I could help him with some install stuff too. He's not "defecting" to the "other side". He's just expanding his interests to include a section of the hobby that was previously unavailable to him. If you folks helped him out by either giving him the HK or letting him steal it from one of you for a small fee then good on you for helping the guy out. But don't take away from the good deed by spoiling the good thing done by planting the seeds of dissent in the name of that good deed. There are already problems here in this small community of internet geeks because of this self-imposed separation. There is no need to further it. Especially since I had a chance to talk to a few CA participants, some of which wanted to attened the CPFest but didn't because they felt that it would be awkward and they would be in a hostile environment of sorts.

That sucks if there are people who are involved in the hobby with good things to share and add and they are reluctant to do so because all they see is this "us vs. them" war going on. Let's lose the "sides" **** and call it what it is, an audio hobby. It's all the same, just different environments.

ND13

What the hell are you talking about!! It's an effing joke. I post on both "sides" and own Polks on both "sides".

I didn't see one CA guy get treated any differently than anyone else, either at PHQ or at Mark's.

MacLeod

Hey Noel, Ill be defecting soon too! I was so amazed by how much I was missing as soon as Stu fired up those SRT's. Hell even the in wall speakers blew me away!

Im not used to images 10 feet tall and that deep! Yessir, Ill be spending a large portion of my future income on HA gear!

CA will always be my first priority but anyone that loves good music cant deny a high quality 2 channel rig!

ND13

Here here!!

danger boy

Jstas wrote:

That's the fundamental problem with this place right there.

There is no "side" here. It is all one forum but so many people refuse to see it that way and discount the entire CA realm of Polk Audio and Club Polk because they think they know but they really don't. I wish they all could have had thier eyes open instead of the 50 or so people who were at the PolkHQ tour. If they bothered to look past petty differences and check out the "kids" on the car audio boards, they would have known that the SR6500's have been out for almost 3 months now and were announced last winter. They would also know that Polk Audio had the original dB series and the MM series which were a couple of the first "high end" speaker lines that were available to the car audio market. Yet they the still gush over it because they finally had a chance to hear them in person.

There is no side and I got to talk to Bill for a good long time at the tour since so many others here decided to ignore me. Bill is a cool dude and he's put alot of work into his setup in his Ranger. He's still working on it and I hope that I was able to help him with some advice. If his school wasn't so far away, I could help him with some install stuff too. He's not "defecting" to the "other side". He's just expanding his interests to include a section of the hobby that was previously unavailable to him. If you folks helped him out by either giving him the HK or letting him steal it from one of you for a small fee then good on you for helping the guy out. But don't take away from the good deed by spoiling the good thing done by planting the seeds of dissent in the name of that good deed. There are already problems here in this small community of internet geeks because of this self-imposed separation. There is no need to further it. Especially since I had a chance to talk to a few CA participants, some of which wanted to attened the CPFest but didn't because they felt that it would be awkward and they would be in a hostile environment of sorts.

That sucks if there are people who are involved in the hobby with good things to share and add and they are reluctant to do so because all they see is this "us vs. them" war going on. Let's lose the "sides" **** and call it what it is, an audio hobby. It's all the same, just different environments.

WOW! John,
I have to disagree with you on several points. of course i won't get into any kind of argument with you. it's your opinon of the Polkfest 2005 gathering.

First off. I didn't feel that you were being ignored at all. From my stand point.. you and i only exchanged words briefly.. mostly because i'm not into CA as much as i would like to be. Therefore, my knowledge is very, very limited of CA. Not that i ignore CA, i have just chosen to put more of my $$ into HA.
I honestly wish i could dedicate more funds to CA, only problem is, i can't. Plus i spend such little time in my car as it is.. just doesn't make sense right now.
The demo Subaru that we were able to listen to was impressive to say the least. I had never heard CA sound so sweet. Never imagined it could sound that sweet. I didn't want to get out of the rig at all...

I don't feel the same way as you do obviously when it appears that there are two camps.. the CA and HA sides. True some people are more interested in CA than HA, and we all know why there weren't more CA folks there.. the CA gathering event taking place out of town. I'm sure it was a tough decision for those people to have to miss Polkfest 2005. Yes it did suck that more CA people weren't there.. but it wasn't for lack of wanting to be present.

Hope that is all makes sense. If that is the way you feel the Polk Audio tour went down... it's cool. I just didn't get the feeling of there being two distinct sides at all. Glad you were there as well as the others representing car audio.
I don't think anyone is "defecting" at all, they're just taking an interest and widening their audio knowledge.. a person can be interested in both CA and HA. It's be expensive as hell, but it's still possible.

Al

Jstas

You are associating my comments with the Polk Audio tour. They are unrelated. I only used everyone's impressions of the SR6500's and thier total lack of knowledge that they exist as an example of how irgnored and discounted car audio is in the overall realm of audio.

Please, don't put words in my mouth.

Noel, I was not naming you specifically and joke or not, there are people here who avoid the home audio forums like the plague because they feel that they are unwelcomed. Mainly because even though a few people joke about there being sides, many aren't and it is difficult for a person not in the know around here to know who is joking.

The point was that this is not the first time this has affected things here. It is a recurring theme and time adn time again, I see people questioning why more "CA guys" didn't show up to something or participate somewhere.

You have to remember, all alot of people here see is the interaction on teh forums here. While many here are most likely fine, upstanding people, they are different on the forums and things go a little farther and are harder to intepret when words on a screen are involved. Personally, I couldn't care less what gets posted and I know that I wouldn't post something here that I would feel uncomfortable with in person. I have no qualms. If you step away from it all and take a look at the interactions here, you can see how a new guy with no knowledge of teh personalities and cliques here would feel incredibly intimidated by this group of people. Especially if they were involved in car audio and teh prevailing thought is that if you have no interest in car audio, then you have no interest in the other human beings that are involved with car audio.

What i am trying to say is that just because you think you don't know anything about car audio doesn't mean that you are taking sides. Lose the taking sides attitude and you'll see more involvement than 4 out of 50-60 poeple at an event like this.

As far as my views on the HQ tour, you have it all wrong. I enjoyed it very much. I noticed that quite a few people felt quite awkward when they saw me and there were looks of consternation and discomfort on faces everywhere I turned. I met a few great people and put names with faces and that was very fun. I was especially pleased to meet you Al, I find you a very interesting person and I felt priviledged that you were one of the few to step up and intoduce yourself. However, I went to the tour at the behest of Doro to put the differences aside. I wasn't planning on attending because I know I am not welcome but I decided to not let the prevailing opinion ruin my fun. I had a great time, met a few people and got to speak to quite a few Polk people that I have had long conversations with. It was a great time. No matter what I did though, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being stared at or not welcome. Maybe it's me, I don't know. My friend noticed a certain amount of animosity towards me too. So i wasn't the only one. It was kind of icing on teh cake though when I came back from the demo tour and someone had taken the XM tuner that my PRs were placed on. It was intentional and I was disheartened to see that someone had done such a thing and no one but the Polk people seemed to care. Kinda puts things in perspective from my unique point of view. However, I did get a chance to meet people I have done business with and right a wrong with RuSsMaN. I had a great time and so did my friend. Doro was excellent and I am glad he convinced me to put aside the BS and come down. I had no differences with anyone but I felt and still do feel that others have differences with me and I still harbor no ill will towards anyone. I went with the intnt to bury the hatchet. Many people spoke to my friend who thought he was with teh forum and when they found out that he was with me, they all looked dissappointed. Oh well. I came in good faith, I had a great time and I'm kind of glad I was left alone because it gave me a chances to ask questions and get involved without fear of ruining any reputation.

None of that however, factored into my comments about the "sides" thing. If my remarks offended anyone or anyone took them personally then I apologize because that is not what I intended. The few who did post here are not examples of the behavior that I was ranting about and that is evident. So please accept my apologies that my remarks were not intened in a malacious way. I would write more to explain my position but I am late for job number two and have to go. I will grab my fire hose and put out the ensuing flame war later on. Hopefully it doesn't get too bad.

MacLeod

I think youre reading too much into this bro. I for one talked to several guys from the HA side, Troy, Noel, Noah, Al, Jesse and good ole Beardog (who looks exactly like I thought he would! ) and while I didnt get to talk to I did meet Mark, Russ, Brett and a few others and all were great. I noticed no animosity or condescension toward me or CA in general at all.

You and I were in the same demo group and I was glad to finally meet you in person and enjoyed the tour.

I was under the impression that tuner thing was an honest mistake. I dont think anyone wouldve taken it on purpose.

I know youve gone a few rounds with some of the regulars on the HA side but I doubt they are holding any grudges. We all go a few rounds with each other from time to time. I wouldnt sweat it.

nadams

Jstas- I think the only reason people would've had a problem with you is if you did something while at the HQ to piss them off. You've said plenty on the forums to piss people off, but I think that we're all pretty close to adults and can realise that people don't always act the same online as they do in real life.

I, for one, tried to be friendly to everyone, and I was having a helluva time keeping everyone straight in my head (as I didn't want to get caught looking too closely at nametags, and my memory SUCKS).

I would like to point out, that when I walked out to my truck at lunchtime, there was a group of car audio guys standing out in the parking lot shooting the ****. That's fine and all, but if you're not going to join the huge group of people by the tent, then don't whine about being ignored!

btw- everyone I met on Friday seemed nice and overall happy to be there. I had no problems with anyone I met, and that includes any car audio guys (especially MacLeod, since I talked to him the most)

audiobliss

MacLeod wrote:

I noticed no animosity or condescension toward me or CA in general at all.

Duh!! You're huge!! LOL

beardog03

Jstas,
I met so many good people on all levels, that I`m trying to remember what screen-name goes with what face...pm me your mug shot , and I will make a point of spending more time discussing mobile audio (as I like to put it) next time around...

I`m usually not the walk up and start talking to folks I don`t know type...but felt comfortable talking with every , and I mean every polk nut that I saw..

Since I have a house full of polks, and three cars, a truck, a motorhome, and a boat with polk speakers in it...I would say that the fence between the "sides" as it was put, has been knocked down...

I personaly didn`t notice anyone that felt left out , or uncomfortable, the whole time I was there...
If I didn`t talk to you much, that just means you didn`t start a conversation with me...
or...I`m a just a dick...

both probably apply.......but I`m good with that..

MacLeod

Yo bear! I thought your old lady was tagging along. Hell I thought there were going to be several wives there. My poor wife was bored to tears which means next trip we have to go where she wants to!

hoosier21

Jstas you are right about one thing, you where ignored by me, but it had NOTHING to do with car audio.

Nice little ending to a GREAT weekend, please don't ruin it with this B.S.

exalted512

maybe they were in the parking lot shooting the **** because thats where their cars were?? Maybe they were listening to each other's cars?? Now I wasnt there so i dont really know, but its always a possibility.

The reality of this forum is there IS two sides, a home audio and a car audio. We all show a common love for Polk, but car and home are very different. Some people, like John, have a passion for both. Others do not justify the cost, money, or have their priorities set to where they can do both. I am a great example. I have more than just a couple grand into my truck. I have no money invested in HA. My priorities are set right now to have my truck's audio done, then my truck's performance done, then in a couple years i want to have my HA done. Right now, I dont have the time to utilize a great HA system so I'm not going to put any money into, thats all. When the time comes to start putting money into, I will start researching it more. For now, I see no reason to know anything about HA.

Same with people on the HA side, they dont care to have a system in their car, so what? More power to them if they didnt even know polk made car audio speakers. No sweat off my back.
-Cody