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Travis In Austin

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Everything posted by Travis In Austin

  1. Well here's a few more going back to Jan 08 https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/89947-klipsch-spotters/page-1?hl= spotting klipsch I forgot about that post, I wish I had just added photos to that thread and bumbed it back up.
  2. That is very cool, it would be interesting to know the history of that.
  3. I really wasn't going to watch it, but now it looks likeit might live up to expectations.
  4. Regardless of what kind of car deal you score -- you’re the coolest guy on the forum. I’m a HUGE fan of extreme weather and have wanted to storm chase for years.Good luck man, Steve I think you are wrong on that Stew man, I think this is the coolest thing I have ever seen posted: "I did it because i want to quit working and start the proverbial endless road trip -- the Flex has enough room for me to sleep in and to carry a guitar or two." Makes me want to pull out On The However, the storm chasing "on the side" sure did did catch my attention.
  5. How much does it weigh? It costs $10,000 per pound to ship to the ISS.
  6. You asked about California, not Texas. If they aren't critical in Texas, that's no argument against mine. I said they were crucial to California's economy, and they are. We have the largest most productive agricultural area in the country and it will come to a screeching halt without Mexican labor of all kinds. We build houses by the hundreds of thousands and that will also come to a screeching halt without Mexicans. It's not my opinion, it's the considered opinion of all economists who study the California economy. Even Reagan admitted they were indispensible. Remind me, how long have you lived in California? Gee, I'm real sorry your yard costs $120 to service. Mine is only $75. Mark, A lot of us just don't find California's bankrupt economy or water problems a concern for us.... To many Gays and Communists for me to care if the big quake happens and you all drown to be brutally honest with you! I think the book is already written on this Country's economy and it is very capable of collapse in October despite your concerns for illegals or your bankrupt state... Roger You had better care, if California goes BK it will drag the entire country with it. The SDP of CA is larger then the next 3 largest SDP states combined. CA's SDP is five times that if Ohio. If it gets close the the brink, you, and everyone else in the country will pay to bail it out. Ohio keeps slipping in SDP, 7th a few years ago, now below North Carolina at 9th. It will continue to slip because a major portion of the SDP is tied to the auto industry. In other words, it will never go BK, because it will either turn around or it will get bailed out, gays, communists and all. It isn't going to fall in the ocean either, LA and SF keep moving north because they are on a different plate, but nothing is falling off into any ocean. Why do they get bailed out? First, because it is too big to fail. Second, CA has political clout. 10 percent of the House, 10 percent of the electoral college. If they need a bailout the CA deligation can politically demand one, and they will because they will be gone if they don't. It would be greatest bipartisan effort ever seen in this Country. Republicans, Democrats, communists, independents, gays, whites, Hispanics, blacks, Asians, all working together, hand in hand to get a bailoit. Lived in CA first 26 years of my life, only met one communist, Angela Davis, but she had switched to socialist party, so that probably doesn't count. People in the Midwest are just going to have to get over the gay thing. They are in every state, every city, every school, always have been, always will be, it is just a matter of how open they are. There are two types. In open communities the ones you knew were gay anyway will talk about their partner. In closed communities they marry for apperances and sneak around any chance they can like that senator from Wyoming who got caught in the Minneapolis airport bathroom trying to solicit some sort of sexual act from a male UC vice cop. Instead of worrying about gays, communists, conservatives, liberals, the tooth fairy or whatever else, I feel we would have been far better served if that time had been spent in figuring ways for US manufacturing to inovate and stay ahead of the game like we did with chip manufacturing. Travis
  7. The Venetian and MGM are 7K room hotels. LV has about 10 hotels that are in the 4K room class. Mexican nationals will not clean hotels, they consider it beneath them, or at least it was that way when I lived there. They are more established there and can do better. Hotel maids there are primairly from El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, etc. They are, for the most part, documented. They are, for the most part, unionized. They start at 10 an hour with full benefits, and go up to 16 an hour, that is 32K a year. Paid vacation, matching 401K.
  8. Welcome to the forum, and congratulations on your choice of the Cornwall III's. You will not be disappointed in that selection. As to your question about tube amps, we probably going to need some clarification. from you as to how you are using the term "amp" You indicated in your post that you still had the Marantz 4400 "Amp." The 4400, as far as I recall, is a receiver, a Quad one at that.. A receiver has an amplifier, a pre-amplifier and a tuner all in one box. The terminology associated with electronic components is a bit confusing at first, which is not your fault, sales people call different things by different names, and advertising sometimes does the same thing.
  9. It doesn't get any better than that. Did the original owner indicate why they were selling them? Moving and no room, different direction?
  10. Teaching to the Test is a fundamental principle of the "No Child Left Behind Act" of 2001. Opps, I had not read the wholenthreadbyet and didn't realize you answered Roger's question.
  11. Which Libtards? The government program of conditioning federal education funds on school meeting minimum standards is commonly referred to as "No Child Left Behind." The Act required all states to design and implement basic skills assessment tests if they wanted federal funds. The bill was was the "brain" child of W who announced it during the State of the Union address. Shortly thereafter John Boehner officially introduced it into the house as HR 1. It was signed into law by W at a local high school in Hamilton, Ohio. So the official answer is W and Boehner, however, the bill received bipartisan support. The unofficial answer is W and Congress are all to blame. The real answer is that Hamilton, Ohio is to blame, they had a chance to lock them all in one room together and never let them out but they failed us. There have been at least 12 sessions of Congress since then with no changes being made, so I guess to be fair we should blame them too. I am helping to raise a 13-year-old, and I get the joy of helping with math every night. They are a full grade ahead of where we were at that same grade for grade level math, and the advanced students can advance far enough that they can start at either geometry or algebra II their freshman year. They just finished basic statistics which I never saw until college. I am with Richard, I see a lot of problem solving ability in the specific area they are teaching at the time, but there in little ability to visualize how to carry those abilities over to something similar. For example, I ask him "what is half of 26"? "I don't know, we are not doing fractions yet, that is next unit, we are doing percentages and the question asks what is 50% of 26, so whats the answer." I ask him what is 26 divided by 2 and he immediately responds 13. I explain that deviding by 2 is half, and that 50% means the same as a half. He looks at me like I am making this up and asks "why didn't she just ask that"? I am finding that I have to teach him the tricks our teachers taught us to visualize a problem so you can solve it different ways. The teachers do not have the time, they just teach that specific skill, .5 x 26. They are futher along in skills, but they have no concept of what it is those skills can solve.
  12. Here is that night's sunset at the Oasis by the way
  13. Stew, these things really sounded good. It is a typical box store, 20 or 25' cielings, the light fixtures hang down about 15' about the floor, the speakers are another 5' feet above that. Crystal clear vocals, great midrange, I thought I was going to see small commerical 2 ways in enclosures hanging down, but they were in ceiling type, white round metal covers with holes and Klipsch logo. Not sure id Pier One uses local companies to do their build outs or if they are like a lot of national chains that use one contractor nation wide to do it all. Would be interestibg to know if this was just a local fluke, or if they are in other Pier Ones.
  14. I was at a place in Austin on Lake Travis that is pretty much world famous for having a drink and watching the sunset, called The Oasis. I was out on the deck and heard pretty incredible sound, despite being outside in a big open area. Went over to take a look and saw thes EDIT, The picture posted sidewa and I cant seem to fix that from my phone.
  15. I was just in Pier One Imports today and toticed that they had Klipsch speakers installed, the round ones from the pro installation line. I was just getting ready to post a photo but just realized it didn't save for some reason. It caught my attention because it sounded so good and I happened to look up at the ceiling to see what sounded so good. I am beginning to learn that Klipsch is in a lot more locations than I thought.
  16. That is kind of what I surmised, and is actually less then I was guessing. If you take the high end of those numbers, add in Cornwalls and K-Horns, it is less than 5% of their total sales. Fred Klipsch sold the company for 170M, a great deal of that price was attributed to good will. If I recall correctly, about 7M was attributed to actual assets. Heritage remains, I am specilating, because it is an integral part of that goodwill, not because it is a significant source of revenue. No one shoild be surprised by this, or saddened, this was the case going back to the time that Fred bought the company. Professor Hunter, who should know, was quoted as saying: "Unfortunately, the company's sales reps only knew how to sell speakers for the home market, according to Hunter. "We got in and out of the professional market several times," he said. "The only thing that held on was the cinema portion." In 2010, right before Fred sold the company, Klipsch issued a press release about reaching a deal with a major electronics retailer in Mexico, but it mentioned the stronghold Klipsch had in cinema. So in 2010 how many theaters do you think Klipsch was in down in Mexico? (No fair peeking below, what is your honest guess?) Here is the relevant portion of the press release; Klipsch is no stranger to the Mexican market, Klipsch loudspeakers are a staple in Mexico’s cinemas. Installed by the leading cinema professionals throughout Mexico, Klipsch professional loudspeakers continue to power unrivaled sound to over 1,750 cinemas throughout the country. The partnership with Tesco will make it possible for Mexican retailers to offer their consumers a chance to bring Klipsch’s trademark cinema sound into their own homes. “This valued partnership with Klipsch allows us to provide retailers with superior audio solutions,” said Federico Bausone, president of Tecso. “Klipsch is a global icon in the audio industry, and we are delighted to make the company’s products available to the home and personal audio market in Mexico.” So you were way low like I was right? My guess was 300. Does anyone know what the average sales revenue to Klipsch for a single theater? Does anyone know what other countries Klipsch has broken into and is targeting cinema in? I will conclude with this for all of the nostalgia fans. In college I had to do a case study on a company that got started in the late 50s by a guy named Kloss and his teacher, Edgar Kilcher, out in MA. They came out with a speaker called the AR-1. They said it provided big bass in a small package, and very accurate. It was called acoustic suspension. But it was only 88 or so db efficient and power was expensive in those days, so it was very slow going for Dr. Edgar and his former student from MIT.. One choice was Mac, and they were big money. Then a tiny audio transformer company started by a guy named Hafler decided to make a low cost alternative power amp available, 50W or so, in both kit form and eventually assembled. The company was called Dynaco. The market ran to Dynaco amps to power their AR-1 speakers. Henry and Edgar were now starting to sell their speakers and they improved upon it and came out with the AR-3. By the mid 60s Acoustic Research had one-third of the loud speaker market share of loud speakers in the US. Think about that for a minute. One out of evey 3 speakers sold in America were AR, and most of those were AR-3s. It doesn't matter how they sounded, the market thought they were the best thing since sliced bread. So what happened to Acoustic Research? They continued to try to inovate, the IP ran out on the a acoustic suspension system, and they were faced with major competition from companies like Klipsch, Bose, JBL, etc., etc. They faded into oblivion, were purchased by Voxx, the current owner of Klipsch, and the name is relagated to adorn the packaging of such illustrious products as RCA interconnect cables in stores. That didn't happen to Klipsch because Paul found a buyer, his cousin, who allowed him to continue to tinker, and allowed Roy and Hunter to continue on tinkering,joined by Troy, and the host of other bright innovative minds I unfortunately have not had the opportunity to meet. They were bought again, and apparently Voxx has the wisdom to continue to let them tinker and come up with a better mousetrap that Paul originally built, AND, to let them not only reinvent that mousetrap, but to let them dream and innovate new products to kill things no one had thought of before. Travis
  17. I should also remind people a great way to stay up to date on Klipsch things of note would be to sign up on our email list. We send out about an email a week. http://www.klipsch.com/newsletter That is big news.
  18. I have made similar posts myself, and have seen Alex and Chad discuss, in as diplomatic a way as possible, that Heritage is not the direction where the company is headed. I think it is.pretty clear from other threads, about CES, etc., there are a nimber of reasons for this, here are a few that have been discussed previously and posted in other threads. 1. Hope doesn't continue to exist because of Heritage. Hope continues to exist because of Cinema. 2. Heritage has very little, if any, IP protection left. You can spend money on products that are patented or you can spend money trying to increase demand for a product that anyone can copy. It they did increase marketing dollars and somehow tripled their Heritage sales you would get another Shineal popping up to compete for that increased demand. A company that wants to survive moves forward, adjusting to the market. Those that that don't become extinct, Poloriod, Ampex, RCA, etc. 3. As a result, even if Klipsch could get into Starbucks, they would instal Pro, like KIs, not heritage, just like they did at Hardrock. Right now they are all out at CinemaCon, selling cinema speakers worldwide, and they will continue to be in one out of two newly opened theaters. 4. The "market" isn't in high end speakers. The total annual market for "high end audio" is 200 million. As a comparison, headphones are 2 Billion. If Klipsch could get just 10% of of that market they would more than double their annual sales for the entire company. 5. Heritage in a niche, and hopefully it will continue to be for a very, very long time. But it will sit as a niche, a very select product for a very, very select market. It gets the marketing attention and dollars as appropriate to the contribution to the bottom line, which is minimal. 6. The vast majority of people on here don't buy new Heritage, they purchase used. There is no shortage of used Heritage, and that fact isn't lost on Klipsch. They understand that whatever marketing efforts are undertaken for Heritage do not equate to a direct impact on new Heritage, it spills over onto the used market. 7. They did bring the whole Heritage line to CES, maybe that is why they are making all of those H3s? Did anyone ask how many they were building a day, a week, a month, a year? Travis
  19. Doesn't matter if you go on record or not, she has perogative, and she knows it. It is in their code somewhere.
  20. John Hinkley has been out for 17 days a month for some time now. He stays with his mother, who is very old, while he is out of the hospital. He didn't murder anyone so that wouldn't really fit, and he wasn't convicted of anything. So band name suggestions; The Van Gough's NGBRI Foster's Nightmare Jody Foster, Really? Brady and the Billtones Thorazine Electric Shock Treatmemt Wish You Were Here Connecticut Avenue Band mates: Rick Derringer Lorena Bobbitt, also NGBRI
  21. There is a "Comments" section below Lavorgna's blog post and one which I thought had some good thoughts about the methodology of reaching their conclusions was this one: Weighing-a-feather-while-the-kangaroo-is-jumping Submitted by PDQ.Bach on April 22, 2015 - 4:06pm I am not convinced by the Kalia data. Of course, the basic notion as such sounds plausible. Hardly new. The same could be shown with one's vocabulary. There are periods of logistic acquisition of words and idioms in early childhood and youth, followed by what amounts largely to a plateau. So what? It's the clean-slate-effect. Also, does the study take into account progression or retrogression in time? You could start with Joni Mitchell in 1967 and still be adventurous following her three decades later. (Or you could start with Sinead O'Connor in 1990 and, well, that's it, pretty much.) What if your interests expand sideways, from Joni Mitchell to Charles Mingus, then backwards to Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, then sideways again to Sofia Gubaidulina and Alfred Schnittke, while making a quaint ritual of listening to Gershwin or Percy Grainger every morning during your ablutions. Much of this would be pretty adventurous, though not exactly new — except to oneself. How would that play out on the Spotify scale? Regarding this specific study, to the extent that it can be called a study, I like the quip of one of my favourite physicists, Per Bak, in regard to a mystifying, “new and improved” project of a young colleague: “Excuse me, but what is actually non-trivial about what you did?” Methodological questions, doubts and frownings galore: how representative is Spotify clientèle in relation to age, gender, income, education, ethnicity? how representative is Spotify clientèle in relation to musical tastes, listening habits, width and scope of musical appreciation, and average duration and location of daily listening sessions? what does streaming frequency actually tell about real popularity (unless it is a matter of circular definition)? which statistical diagnostics were used? in particular, rank statistics? I could go on and on. But to quote my favourite statistical scientist, Andrew Gelman: “My best analogy is that they are trying to use a bathroom scale to weigh a feather—and the feather is resting loosely in the pouch of a kangaroo that is vigorously jumping up and down. … I like the weighing-a-feather-while-the-kangaroo-is-jumping analogy. It includes measurement accuracy and also the idea that there are huge biases that are larger than the size of the main effect.” Oh, and the graphs should go straight to Dr. Edward Tufte for rehabilitation. Cute, but misguided and deeply misleading. Edit: For typos, etc.
  22. I am really glad you posted Michael Lavorgna's article. It is a great example of what the purpose of a great many blogs are, to sell you on something, whethet it be an idea, product or service. Michael Lavorgna is an audio journalist, and his particular niche is blogging for Audio Stream, Stereophile, Six Moons and others as well as writing articles about streaming services he submits to a variety of magazines such as Men's Health. What Mr, Lavorga did was to prepare a "book report" of sorts on a data report prepared by Ajay Kalia who works over at the streaming service, Spotify. Mr. KKalia's job there is to convince people that the future of music is Spotify. His point is that as we age we listen to less and less "popular" music. He doesn't define popular music in his article, but mentions that Spotify has ranked bands and performers, and uses his "ballsack" graph to show that we are listening to "top 500" acts in our teens and 20s and by the time of our 30s we are listening to acts who are way down at 2500. (Oldtimer, is that an industry term for that graph?). He hyperlinks an article on research that takes you here http://musicmachinery.com/2014/02/13/age-specific-listening/ If you read that article it says that a duplication of songs on a list of a 64-year-old man will 35% of a 13-year-old kid. Their lists will have 35% in common. The author of the research article says that he expects that the 35% overlap is an overestimate due to inaccurate age reporting, that multiple users use one account, and other factors. He acknowledges that his data is suspect and then concludes as follows: "This quick tour through the ages confirms our thinking that the age of a listener plays a significant role in the type of music that they listen to. We can use this information to find music that is distinctive for a particular demographic. We can also use this information to help find artists that may be acceptable to a wide range of listeners. But we should be careful to consider how popularity bias may affect our view of the world. And perhaps most important of all, people don’t like music from the 70s or 80s so much." Age plays a role in the type of music people listen to, what a revelation! This guy is a genius, what a waste of talent. He could be selecting what music could be going with commercials, movies, etc. Figure out the age of the target market of what you are trying to sell, select music that the target market listens to to grab their attention, and combine them. I think he is really on to something here. The guy at Spotify concludes by saying this: "All this is to say that yes, conventional wisdom is 'wisdom' for a reason. So if you’re getting older and can’t find yourself staying as relevant as you used to, have no fear — just wait for your kids to become teenagers, and you’ll get exposed to all the popular music of the day once again!" So research guy is saying people of different ages like different music, and people don’t like 70s or 80s music (without saying how he comes up with that notion). Spotify guy tells you that you are "iirrelevant" if you want to become relevant, have kids and listen to what they listen to. Spotify guy wants you to buy Spotify for your kids and you might as well have a listen too. None of them define what "popular" music is, other than to say that Spotify ranks the popularity of performers based on its users selection data. He gives no hint as to what percentage of users are below 30, below 20, etc. More importantly, he does not say that newer acts are always most popular, nor does he say that older bands and singers are always less pooular, but he tries to infer it because his whole misguided premise rests on this notion. He cannot say it, because in fact it is simply not true, and Spotify and Lavorgna both know that it is not true with music sales. Lovorgna concludes his little book report by saying "I'd also recommend trying avoid "lock-in" by listening to as much new music as you can handle." Stay young, be hip, become relevant again, listen to NEW music as much as possible. Whoops, now it is new music, not popular music. Why is that do you suppose? WIth streaming services their viability depends on getting new artists to list with them so that the demand for the new stuff will increase and more subscribers can be obtained, and it gives this business model more footing. Did you see all of the advertisers Lovorgna had on his blog for hardware used in connection with streaming? So what is popular music, is it really popular? It has to be popular with today's kids right? What else is out there, in terms of genres or classifications, and if I listen to that, how much in the minority am I? At what point am I no longer relevant? Those really are not the right questions, the question should be is streaming relevant, do streamers, specifically Spotify customers, reflect the real musical preferences of the under 20 and under 30 American market? The original blog post, and the "data" it was based on, are trying to sell you a bag of goods. You need to stream because it provides an easy way to stay up to speed with the popular music of today, AND, when you do stream you should do it on Spotify because we are going to be able to tell you who the hot artists are, and their hot tunes. The trouple is, popular music isn't what the teens and twenty-somethings are mainly listening to. AND, what America is buying does not line up with what Spotify claims are the more popular artists. Stay tuned. Edit: For clarity, spelling and grammar of a late night dictated post.
  23. Thank you for taking the time to give a nice detailed response, I really enjoyed reading your response. Travis
  24. What area ofnthe country did you sell them in? What else did you carry speaker wise? In that era, in the bay area there were 3 or 4 Klipsch dealers within a 20 mile radius, one McIntosh dealer, etc. Things have changed a great deal in 40 years.
  25. There are no plans because it is patented. Watch the videos that Mike linked and you will understand why the mumps are critical to the sound. There is a reason why it is so highly regarded. Your best bet is to speak to Roy as he is the patent holder obo Klipsch and can figure out a way, if there is a way to get them to your country. What country are you in? Roy has installed 402s literally all over the world, but I am pretty sure he isn't going to help you clone or copy one of his patents. It is still patent infringement whether you intend to sell them or not and a patent holder can be deemed to abandon a patent if they don't seek to protect a patent when they have kmowledge that it is being infringed. Travis
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