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Check out the Father's Day stuff I received. My older son sent Griffin Claw glasses. GC is a local craft brewer. My wife gave me the gift basket for relaxin' on the deck. Note the Coke bottle with Post-It notes and the BTO song referenced. The card is a hoot. Can you imagine being permitted to stand on beer cases at a major league park today? Note the beers represented. Strohs and Altes were Detroit beers. I was a sophomore at MSU during the '68 World Series. When St. Louis went up 3-1, a kid from St. Louis said he'd toss his TV out his window if the Cardinals lost the Series. They did and he did. That small black & white CRT made a hell of a mess hitting the sidewalk from the fifth floor of the dorm. Happy Father's Day!

Morning/Afternoon all.... Thank you all for your support..... Really makes me feel better.... Today is a new day and I have good customers to take care of. Enough with this I'm moving on... Well yes it's fathers day...... and I would like to wish all the farther's here a GREAT day ....... and if your not a farther have a GREAT day also The BOSS got me a few things for this farther's day......she will also enjoy what she got me.... She got me some new coffee..... I can't remember the last time she got a "new" coffee blend. It's been DD whole bean for years and years. This morning we tried the Kona Coffee Hawaiian gourmet blend mmmmmmmm quite tasty.... I guess we'll check out a new blend every few days.. Ben.... glad you got the Dodge Caravan all wrapped up and best of luck to you.... Let me throw this out there..... I don't want anybody to send my wife (The BOSS) a taser..... there's no telling what she would do with it OK.... gonna put on another movie and kick back with my better half unit.... We just watched Ant Man... I liked it... Check-in later... again a GREAT day to all MKP :-)

Everybody who sells an item wants to get the most they can out of it. Everybody who buys wants the least price. It is always a delicate subject here because we have people who follow prices and know what items typically sell for. It is always dependent upon condition, location, and of course supply and demand. Some items are more rare than others. And even the "experts" here are surprised upon occasion that an item might sell higher or lower than what is typical. OTOH if you really want to sell an item the people who post here are a great targeted audience because you don't have to educate them on how great Klipsch speakers are. You can try to sell your Belles for $8K per pair and if you can get that, great. But if you get no responses to your ad at that price, you might want to find out from these experts here how they would value them. I would suggest you ask for forum members to send you a Private Message with their valuation, and reasons for their opinions. You will find people here very honest and it will be helpful to you so you can move the speakers in a reasonable amount of time. Good luck.

first thing this morning i saw the email from our website "contact us" tab from our late customer's son. scathing comments. as i am drafting a factual logistical timeline of events, i decide to look at the yelp and google ratings. GREAT. the son and the daughter. and a few other bad reviews that i have no idea who the people are. the man himself has a long review on google. what i find funny is -- if the service was that bad, why does he have to lie about things? the son posted 2 separate reviews with different lies in each, when i am upset over service - i have my facts, and they are indeed facts. this guy is head of the athletic department of mcdonogh high school in baltimore county MD. his wife's facebook is full of charitable associations and celebrations. his son is/was athletic director at gerstell academy in carroll county MD - his yelp says he lives in nevada. apparently he does some sports commentary somewhere. the daughter is grown - was miss maryland - and apparently advertises herself on yelp as model, singer, songwriter. sounds like a real nice family. goes to show -- you never know. i cannot find a way to respond on yelp officially. you can send messages. what i did find are the rules -- cannot post if it is not your personal experience in/at the business. i reported them so i am hoping they will disappear. ALTHOUGH... i have spent all day individually emailing and facebook messaging customers. we don't believe in 'coaxing' our customers to 'like' our page or to solicit feedback. it is more valuable to us if it is voluntarily given. i communicated that after 18 years serving our community, we are getting slammed on the internet. I asked if they could post an honest review of their experience with us to help combat the bad reviews from this man and his minions. the response from our customers was immediate and overwhelming. one guy (who never swears) emailed "I'm glad you threw that a@@hole out. you don't need that kind of stress." it would truly be awesome if yelp removed their reviews, and we wound up with a ton of great ones!! our facebook has exploded with likes and reviews. this is fathers day weekend, and i am sure most are busy and not accessing their messages, so they will continue to pour in. mkp works hard and he is truly the good cop. he deserves the good stuff. not this crapp. i guess sometimes you gotta dig through the shitt to find the magic mushrooms... this started as a bad thing, but i think in the end, i think i will email this fool and thank him. my customers did not like what he said - they believe in mark and in the shop. hahahaha

Happy Father's Day guys! Off to a friends for a nice dinner of Red Snapper. Cheers.

Happy Dad's Day guys. MKP (Mark) and Boss ...... Skrew the on-line 'reviewer'. Your real customers will support you. Unfortunately every malicious jerk with internet access has an opportunity to engage in character assassination. Fortunately most of us know that and can spot the liars and nut jobs. Hang in there. Cheers folks..

Happy Fathers Day! After some coffee and a light workout, I'll spend Fathers Day on the deck working on the playlist for the Class of '67 mentioned in another thread. While I'm doing that, my younger son will come over to try his hand at furniture repair for his new apartment. I'll be available with tools, such as a router, and advice. Seems an appropriate way to spend Fathers Day. However you spend yours, enjoy.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yes. Happy Father's day to all that it applies to. Slow day here. Opened up some cards and got a bottle of Blantons this morning (yay!). Most likely not open is as its national martini day and I'll just stick to those today. I then took my daughter out in her Jeep and attempted to teach her how to parallel park. We'll see if any of the lesson sunk in as her driving test is Tuesday. Mark, glad you moved on. You'll never win an argument with an idiot. What color taser do you think the Boss would like?

Yeah, I had read that, but it would have been nice if she had been in the picture too. The BOSS needs a selfie stick. Or another one that isn't battery operated, if you know what I'm saying :lol: Mark What I really need is a Taser for a$$holes

Be kind to our new friend. He will soon learn that the "file" might not be the only thing that is too large. Pilar- Welcome. Please post photos. Good luck with the sale.

How about we review "Yelp" ???

I'm sure Mill Creek Motor Works is a great shop! Who cares about Yelp reviews. Your regular customers and word of mouth are everything. It's all about repeat business. These folks will get there cum-up-ins some day.

I get more of those than you could imagine. Lady comes in with transmission issues. We sell her a valve body and send her on her way. 10,000 miles later transmission issue again. She says we didn't fix it right the first time. We check the vehicle, it's low on fluid due to a split in the cooler by the radiator. Fluid was all over the underside of the vehicle and it was fresh. We sell her a cooler and send her on her way. 10,000 miles later, transmission issues. The wheel speed sensor we tried to sell her last visit (and documented on her receipt) for an ABS light finally quit working all together. Trans doesn't know when to shift. She says we're bugging her car to break down every 10,000 miles. Vehicle has 150k miles. After we fix the speed sensor and give it back to her, she says we broke a pressure sensor in one of her tires. I explained to her that we didn't dismount her tire or even take the tire off the vehicle and it was on the opposite end of the car we were working on. I then said if she'd buy the sensor, we'd put it on and program it for her at no charge. She basically said we were POS's and left in a huff. What sucks is that there are mechanics that do this and spoil it for the rest of us. Every industry has it's crooks which spoil it for the moral. Back when I was in the moving industry, I saw a 60 minutes that was an exposé on how moving companies are basically criminal. That was the last straw for me, and very soon after that I decided I didn't want to walk around town with my head down. Movers aren't low life crooks, but there are low life's who are movers. The same is true for mechanics. Most women and some less than mechanically inclined men feel vulnerable when they walk into a shop. It really isn't their fault. Once the switch is flipped that they might be getting ripped off, things spiral out of control and they start getting really agitated. Many times the mechanic just gets pissed and hands them back all their money and boots them with some choice words. It's very sad and it is a serious problem in just about every industry and profession I can think of. How about this one. "All businesses are evil." We've been hearing that crap for decades. It is true that some are, but for the most part businesses just want to survive until next year. Real Crappy day.... I just read my YELP review from this guy. Not only did he post a REALLY BAD review he got his two adult kids to slam my shop... The BOSS and I are really upset... Really makes me wish I did something else for a living... MKP :-) As they say F*CK 'EM :D UP Mark

If the whiners get their children to whine then they're probably just that whiners and expect everybody to do everything for them. Your real customers will know the true story. edit: I did not read this thread real thoroughly but from all y'all's posts here I'd recommend y'all in a heartbeat. Good mechanics aren't cheap and you get what you pay for and given my limited automotive knowledge, it's a lot of work and requires a lot of knowledge and a boatload of tools and equipment.

I'm just happy the drivers are all OK...

nope... In excellent, near perfect condition with refreshed crossovers around $3K for the pair (give or take) -IMO-

And now for something completely different

Good job Ben….it's rewarding to finish a project like that.

p.s. as Gregg aka Fini once suggested, do LP's actually work well for shingles? I think people have done so but now sure how successful. Got some losers. Local record store has a lot of losers... No more shingles if I can help it. Need barn / shed metal roof.... but cost 3 times as much or so every body says. But will last 50+ years. As long as anchored down correctly. Straight line winds of 60 - 70+ mph gusts are extremely common in these parts.

Now you know why some people pay to have it done Yep. Me included but been putting it off for months. Been unemployed for over a year. Trying to keep everything caught up on unemployment was difficult enough. Really difficult once unemployment ran out. A bit of breathing room once my lovely bride got second job ... but both part time. Baby 2 ton floor jack and toy ish jack stands don't cut it. Neighbor helped a lot with full size jack stands, but had baby 2 ton jack, vehicles' , scissor jack, and 6 ton bottle jack and just not enough clearance. Both wear bifocals, mine dark (still to replace normal glasses. Jim has a bad back and my neck bends like a 4x4 due to Ankylosing Spondylitis with crabby knees. Yep. Would have rather paid for it. Seems like a pain in the arse if you know what you're doing. Had a job.... Signed contract for mainframe z/OS DB2 performance "tuning" (they're in the toilet... to start April 18th.... Still working on statement of work etc... finally, after 6 weeks, they tell me, oh, the client does not use sub contractors. UGH! So I sent them a nasty but nice you screwed me over as I turned down applying for other opportunities and could've put more effort into other things. A couple of good prospects... but probably July at the earliest to start. My lawyer is looking over contract to see if I have any recourse. I need to view it as an opportunity to pimp out myself. End client great company to work for. (sigh) In any case, I'm incorporated as BenSam LLC for BenSam Consulting for IT and any consulting, D&B's Collactables & More (Dawn's Collecables & Ben's Chit), and Audionatics ... audio for fanatics, plan to be full line Klipsch Custom Integrator, 'phones through Pro Cinema and pro sound, U-turn for turntables, Rolls/Bellari for affordable Bellari tube phone preamps and rolls for all kinds of useful things, and hope for Indy Audio Labe (Accuras and Mondial). Focus is on Indiana designed and made (a few things) and made in USA. Grado Labs another target. I do have long time acquaintance who has 25 x 40 feet for home theater in his downsized house who i snot quite ready so I need to be ready. No funds so will be slow to start. Have a storage unit that's a flea market Sat and Sun spring through early fall so start from there. Now I need to get a white van. lol Goals is also to make audio (and video) fun and affordable. Maybe even through in some DIY. Finally have tax ID numbers so need to get to bank and open business account. Other ideas also in progress including for a not for profit to assist local working musicians ... but that's another beast but need to talk to realtors with like minded ideas for that and maybe find some cheap space for Audionatics.... or convince Jeff his electrical contracting company maybe consider a HT division.... they wire business for everything else including conference rooms and I'm sure PA 70 volt lines so HT would be an easy addition I'd think. I also have gotten to know a kind of retired but getting back into work EE here in town and a car audio nut who knows an Alpine EE ... But it feels like I can't even buy a job for the last few weeks. Close but no digar. Rant over. For now. The good news is, after supporting the (Nat at all) ACA aka Obama Care for the state of IN as a subcontractor, I know qualify for HIP 2.0 extension, but keep denying it for various reasons ... It's a very screwed up system (and the central client eligibility old MF system interfacing to new, was the most poorly written SQL I've ever seen in over 25 hears working in IT and DB2 ... seriously BAD wasting untold resources... ugh...)P. So they had trouble with my citizenship... got that cleared up or so I thought, so after talking to the case worker, sent in my statement in writing that as I've been told I'm fine, I waive my "fair" hearing.... so, case get's dismissed as I didn't show up for hearing.... WTF... well, the notice wasn't printed for right to appeal..... rant deleted about seriously bad, wasteful IT system..... case pretty much ended in 666 before check digit and IMS DB partition before IMS DB could be partitioned.... Need to work on house. Need a new roof and other things. Wind storm in April blew off half the roof. Insurance adjuster to come out next week so hopefully get enough to get started. And cable business internet and phone, well, getting phone, NEC requires grounding to house ground. Doh! House ground location requires cable to be pre buried. Gas on other end is marked, electric still not marked. I thought one company did all. Installer was like, those idiots... so I get another month of old wireless internet. UGH! And when I did sell something on eBay... get funds to PayPal, so "instant" tranfer to bank... with disclaimer bank may not process for 3 to 5 business days!?! Yep. Transferred on 26th, did not post to bank until after Memorial day .. did not even show up as pending. What the HELL is going on with that? Cost me a NSF charge... I thin kit's time to find a new bank. More regional we have a dormant account at at least orders deposits first, ours doesn't anymore..... and 3 to 5 days for an EFT!!?! Legall loophole I'm sure but morally seems overly greedy... Flea market after church tomorrow. Maybe somebody will buy some of our stuff and kids' old stuff. A few panel fasteners and water pump project is finished... need some new front tires and alignment. one is pretty much racing slick on outside with steel wires poking through. May have to get a $20 special that at least appears to have a bit of tread. Really shouldn't complain. We do eat pretty well. And roof doesn't leak except with strong high wind rains which we've had very few so far this spring. Didn't make the damned flea market today.

MKP, What's your FB page and Yelp page? I'm sure we could boost you up a little :) Mark

Now you know why some people pay to have it done

Success! Finally! In changing out the water filter on my Dodge 2005 Grand Caravan. With neighbor Jim's help a lot of grunting, groaning, and swearing, finally got it all put back together. Now to clean the bugs out of the coolant and put it back in and go get some panel fasteners to complete reinstall of the wheel well guard and re-install the belt guard. Definitely get me some real jack stands and a bigger floor jack before I try anything like this again. whew

Mark and The Boss, I wouldn't worry too much about having a bad review from someone. Your core customers know how you operate, and their referrals are what drives your business. Good luck.

I thought everyone might like some pics of my new Power Sound Audio V3600I.

I'm fine, just pissed off. we have a new category to add to the bad women and Senior drivers. F*cking Father's Day drivers. I was going to maybe flip them and try and find walnut, now they will replace the KG2s in the garage. Post on the KG2s coming to the garage sale soon Mark

My wife tells me that I'm deserving of the day's praises. I have no children of my own (never will) but there are 5-grandkids from her first husband that all call me Grandpapa.

We are driving back to Superdave's to pick up the vehicle we left behind. Then headed to Shaun's to load up the cabinet. We were going to load up tomorrow, relax and drive back on Tuesday but if we can leave tomorrow morning, it will give us an extra day to work.

Interesting that ALL the local reviews are 5 stars, and the 2 @ 1 star reviews are from LA and LV with near identical language. That in itself should be a red flag for Yelp.

Wrong "Word of mouth," which predated the internet by centuries. OTOH - The savvy customer will be the type that can identify noise, hype, or shilling in those reviews when they see it.

I love mine! Its a beast of a sub, heavy as hell though! Tom was great to deal with, congrats on your new toy! Here's a little size comparison next to an RB-81 and an RSW-15

Mark What is your business name and where are you located? I think I need some work done. ;-)

I also think that you should keep after Yelp. Many people rely on social media when making decisions. This is the case especially if they are new in an area or are looking for a business for which none of their friends can make a recommendation. Don't underestimate the damage these aholes can do to your reputation. That is why internet business such as Reputation.Com have been so successful. They specialize in pushing down sites like Yelp and other sites that contain damaging comments about individual businesses.

nope... They would be worth 4000 each IF he can find someone to pay it. Stranger things have happened Mark

You never know....

Holy crap, that transformer is bigger than most tube amps. Carver is to tubes what Carol Shelby is to Mustangs. I just had to throw that out there. After all, I am Mustang Guy.

Totally agree with Mr. Cepterman ^^^. As a former business owner I can sympathize with your frustrations, trying to run a business the right way by taking care of customer's needs, then being held hostage by "social media" reviews over which you have no control. That has got to be frustrating and maddening. I hope Yelp or whatever "review site" allows you respond to the critical reviews. I would NOT have people who have not done business with you post fake positive reviews. As a consumer that is the reputation you don't want your business to have. +++ To answer your question, I have NEVER read a site like Yelp or Google whatever. I really could care less about what people say on those sites because satisfied people rarely post stuff, it's only for unhappy customers with a complaint, real or not. Word-of-mouth is my preferred way of finding people with whom to do business.

I'm sorry to hear this Mark. I know it bothers you to get bad reviews, but try not to dwell on it too much. Like mungkiman said, you get most of your work by word of mouth, your business won't feel a thing from this bad review. I would follow through with your investigation with yelp though, they need to make this right. Let us know if you need a bunch of positive reviews through yelp…Bill

Yes I had to clean it up a bit. I'm going to paint it black and put another piece of metal behind it and paint it copper.

Update on our rebuild. Made facsimile labels to preserve the serial numbers as the refinishing / painting will make the stamped numbers even more difficult (if not impossible) to see...this will be the only label on one of the cabinets, on the other three they will be sandwiched between the original labels and the plexi covers (none of our labels still show any numbers). Had good success with removing the badges. Citristrip seemed a pretty safe product to use around kids (following the precautions). After removing what looked like three layers of paint, heat was applied to soften the adhesive (a tip from a friend who rebuilds bicycles) and a tape measure "floss" was used to release. Note: acetone was used to remove residual adhesive from the back and it didn't damage the logo surface, Thanks to everyone for the ongoing advise, making the process really interesting...

I get more of those than you could imagine. Lady comes in with transmission issues. We sell her a valve body and send her on her way. 10,000 miles later transmission issue again. She says we didn't fix it right the first time. We check the vehicle, it's low on fluid due to a split in the cooler by the radiator. Fluid was all over the underside of the vehicle and it was fresh. We sell her a cooler and send her on her way. 10,000 miles later, transmission issues. The wheel speed sensor we tried to sell her last visit (and documented on her receipt) for an ABS light finally quit working all together. Trans doesn't know when to shift. She says we're bugging her car to break down every 10,000 miles. Vehicle has 150k miles. After we fix the speed sensor and give it back to her, she says we broke a pressure sensor in one of her tires. I explained to her that we didn't dismount her tire or even take the tire off the vehicle and it was on the opposite end of the car we were working on. I then said if she'd buy the sensor, we'd put it on and program it for her at no charge. She basically said we were POS's and left in a huff. What sucks is that there are mechanics that do this and spoil it for the rest of us. Every industry has it's crooks which spoil it for the moral. Back when I was in the moving industry, I saw a 60 minutes that was an exposé on how moving companies are basically criminal. That was the last straw for me, and very soon after that I decided I didn't want to walk around town with my head down. Movers aren't low life crooks, but there are low life's who are movers. The same is true for mechanics. Most women and some less than mechanically inclined men feel vulnerable when they walk into a shop. It really isn't their fault. Once the switch is flipped that they might be getting ripped off, things spiral out of control and they start getting really agitated. Many times the mechanic just gets pissed and hands them back all their money and boots them with some choice words. It's very sad and it is a serious problem in just about every industry and profession I can think of. How about this one. "All businesses are evil." We've been hearing that crap for decades. It is true that some are, but for the most part businesses just want to survive until next year.

YOUR dealer needs to replace them no questions asked. Or just get your money back and tell him see ya!!!!

Thanks man. This literally has been an AWESOME trip so far! I forgot to mention W.C. Took us out to the Triple Tree Aerodrome. http://www.tripletreeaerodrome.com What a treat that was! We saw some spectacular WWII trainer planes like the P51 Mustang. I'll share pics of it later as well.

Of course mine is from Rochester, NY. Nonetheless, every word is true. Mark is great at identifying "mysterious sounds."

I think that is why Angie's list has been such a successful model. I couldn't see it at first, a pay site for reviews when there were so many "free" review sites? The pay model weeds out the nuts.

Once you mention that you have no choice but to return the defective merchandise, they will come up with ways to rectify the situation. BTW, where are you located?

How's about denatured alcohol?

Arrived in the post today. TSA undercover Matching covers for the blocks. Custom dust covers made by http://radiodustcovers.com/ Stan does some AWESOME work. Highly recommended !!! Matt ♪ ♫ ♪