Audio Stories

FMalitz wrote: »

I may have inspired this thread so I will open with an outrageous story. Before I begin, I suppose I should provide a profile:
I'm the founder of Onkyo USA, established Integra here, and just finished 17 years with Yamaha. I'm the only independent representative in history to handle Onkyo, Integra and Denon at the same time.

Despite that mundane background, I have a heavy high-end history so I never got rich! I made a living with mid-fi but my passion was rooted in expensive high-performance products. I participated in the launch or relaunch of the following brands (this is not all): Dahlquist, Apogee, Focal (JM Lab), AR, Sonus Faber, Pro-Ject, REL, Meitner, ELAC, Thorens, Trinnov and too many more to name. I've also represented brands from A to Z-- including Advent to Zenith. I also maintained a rep firm handling around a dozen lines you all know, I maintain a consultation business. I build and sell guitars. I write for guitar magazines. I'm a working professional musician and I'm a partner in the current Bob Carver company. It was through the latter that I was introduced to this forum via a discussion comparing the beautiful McIntosh MC 275, to our own Bob Carver 275. I started to tell stories responding to that thread (like the three Onkyos) so someone started this thread and sent me over. I'm a 50 year veteran of the industry and I love it.

Now, despite my earlier retail experience, which I will tell you about later, on to my first audio story as a factory guy that you might find entertaining:
I had been working with BASF on recording tape. I visited the coating plant in Massachusetts. The machine is like a giant printing press-- putting a slurry of iron oxide on what amounts to rolls of saran wrap! It must be 50 feet long and 20 feet high. It takes some serious fine-tuning to get it right. You need to polish the surface of the tape to improve tape to head contact for best high-frequency performance and the least amount of abrasion. If you polish too much, the tape sticks to the head as it passes and can cause squealing – – mechanical as well as electrical. The lab coat wearing German engineer, with a very thick accent, explained to me that it takes a year to sort out the machine. "A year?" "What exactly does that mean?", I asked. "It means we make defective tape for a full year". Incredulous, I then asked, "this machine runs 24 hours a day: what you do with all that defective tape?" He said, "we sell it to the Americans; you people don't know the difference".

All of the tape was defective, they knew it, they didn't care, and they went down in flames before my very eyes. They went back to producing dyes and chemicals for industry. I hated it there and wanted to return to real audio.

Here's what I did (this could be a lesson for you youngsters working at hi-fi stores). In those days, reps came by to service the accounts. They drove fancy cars, knew more about the products that we did, and they were our heroes. Since I admired them, I made sure they knew that I was enthusiastically supporting their products and, as the months unfolded, friendships were created. Networking is terribly important in any industry, but it's particularly effective if you're sincere. I loved those guys; one of them gave me the very first Empire Scientific gold tonearm for my 14th birthday!

So here I am, desperately wanting to leave the Germans, and I made a list of my 10 favorite guys who might be in a position to help me. This was the early 1976. From this, I had three interviews. One was with Sony who had been trying to recruit me for two years. Serendipitously my Sony contact, a truly great guy named Les Pollock, told me he needed me right then and made an appointment for me to come in. When I showed up for the interview, I was told he was called to Japan suddenly and my interview would be held with a Mr. Pappas. Well, Pappas didn't know me. In an earlier time, I was one of the top retail audio salesman in the state of Illinois. McIntosh took me to their factory and wined and dined me. JBL built special speakers just for me, with my own finish. I was for a well-known here. But the Sony guy, as arrogant as the Germans, told me he didn't like my tie and insist that I shave off my beard. I told my son had never seen me without a beard and I have no intention of shaking it off for Sony, stood up to walk out, shook hands with him, and told him this: "I promise you you will know me down the road".

When I had my Onkyo interview, their managers from Japan foolishly depended on their knowledge of English and did not bring an interpreter. They asked me if I knew any dealers in the United States. I lied of course, desperate for the job, and told them I knew EVERY dealer in the United States, I knew their wives, and I knew the names of their children. Their eyes popped out of their heads and they offered me the job. That turned out to be fortunate for us both. I doubled the business every year. They made posters of me in Japan as kind of a transformer audio monster guy and stuck the posters in the product cartons as if anyone in the United States cared. They paid me more money than I asked for and in one year, I went from being broke to buying my first home and I kicked the living daylights out of Sony in the receiver business by the time Onkyo USA was barely in existence for three years! Those were great times for me. I was 28 years old.

joecoulson wrote: »

That’s it John, I’m out too.

F1nut wrote: »

FMalitz wrote: »

I may have inspired this thread so I will open with an outrageous story. Before I begin, I suppose I should provide a profile:
I'm the founder of Onkyo USA, established Integra here, and just finished 17 years with Yamaha. I'm the only independent representative in history to handle Onkyo, Integra and Denon at the same time.

Despite that mundane background, I have a heavy high-end history so I never got rich! I made a living with mid-fi but my passion was rooted in expensive high-performance products. I participated in the launch or relaunch of the following brands (this is not all): Dahlquist, Apogee, Focal (JM Lab), AR, Sonus Faber, Pro-Ject, REL, Meitner, ELAC, Thorens, Trinnov and too many more to name. I've also represented brands from A to Z-- including Advent to Zenith. I also maintained a rep firm handling around a dozen lines you all know, I maintain a consultation business. I build and sell guitars. I write for guitar magazines. I'm a working professional musician and I'm a partner in the current Bob Carver company. It was through the latter that I was introduced to this forum via a discussion comparing the beautiful McIntosh MC 275, to our own Bob Carver 275. I started to tell stories responding to that thread (like the three Onkyos) so someone started this thread and sent me over. I'm a 50 year veteran of the industry and I love it.

Now, despite my earlier retail experience, which I will tell you about later, on to my first audio story as a factory guy that you might find entertaining:
I had been working with BASF on recording tape. I visited the coating plant in Massachusetts. The machine is like a giant printing press-- putting a slurry of iron oxide on what amounts to rolls of saran wrap! It must be 50 feet long and 20 feet high. It takes some serious fine-tuning to get it right. You need to polish the surface of the tape to improve tape to head contact for best high-frequency performance and the least amount of abrasion. If you polish too much, the tape sticks to the head as it passes and can cause squealing – – mechanical as well as electrical. The lab coat wearing German engineer, with a very thick accent, explained to me that it takes a year to sort out the machine. "A year?" "What exactly does that mean?", I asked. "It means we make defective tape for a full year". Incredulous, I then asked, "this machine runs 24 hours a day: what you do with all that defective tape?" He said, "we sell it to the Americans; you people don't know the difference".

All of the tape was defective, they knew it, they didn't care, and they went down in flames before my very eyes. They went back to producing dyes and chemicals for industry. I hated it there and wanted to return to real audio.

Here's what I did (this could be a lesson for you youngsters working at hi-fi stores). In those days, reps came by to service the accounts. They drove fancy cars, knew more about the products that we did, and they were our heroes. Since I admired them, I made sure they knew that I was enthusiastically supporting their products and, as the months unfolded, friendships were created. Networking is terribly important in any industry, but it's particularly effective if you're sincere. I loved those guys; one of them gave me the very first Empire Scientific gold tonearm for my 14th birthday!

So here I am, desperately wanting to leave the Germans, and I made a list of my 10 favorite guys who might be in a position to help me. This was the early 1976. From this, I had three interviews. One was with Sony who had been trying to recruit me for two years. Serendipitously my Sony contact, a truly great guy named Les Pollock, told me he needed me right then and made an appointment for me to come in. When I showed up for the interview, I was told he was called to Japan suddenly and my interview would be held with a Mr. Pappas. Well, Pappas didn't know me. In an earlier time, I was one of the top retail audio salesman in the state of Illinois. McIntosh took me to their factory and wined and dined me. JBL built special speakers just for me, with my own finish. I was for a well-known here. But the Sony guy, as arrogant as the Germans, told me he didn't like my tie and insist that I shave off my beard. I told my son had never seen me without a beard and I have no intention of shaking it off for Sony, stood up to walk out, shook hands with him, and told him this: "I promise you you will know me down the road".

When I had my Onkyo interview, their managers from Japan foolishly depended on their knowledge of English and did not bring an interpreter. They asked me if I knew any dealers in the United States. I lied of course, desperate for the job, and told them I knew EVERY dealer in the United States, I knew their wives, and I knew the names of their children. Their eyes popped out of their heads and they offered me the job. That turned out to be fortunate for us both. I doubled the business every year. They made posters of me in Japan as kind of a transformer audio monster guy and stuck the posters in the product cartons as if anyone in the United States cared. They paid me more money than I asked for and in one year, I went from being broke to buying my first home and I kicked the living daylights out of Sony in the receiver business by the time Onkyo USA was barely in existence for three years! Those were great times for me. I was 28 years old.

joecoulson wrote: »

That’s it John, I’m out too.

tonyb wrote: »

Now if you turned that contraption around and put a longer arm on it.....

txcoastal1 wrote: »

pitdogg2 wrote: »

joecoulson wrote: »

Come on out. Be glad to take fellow polkies out on Lake Lanier

Concrete shoes included?

leave Tony at the dock and we're good