JGT914

Far too much of it available to be the result of recurring or persistent QC issues. Seems more like a guerilla marketing strategy to expand the customer base with a more affordable version of the product. Like "Psssst - I know a guy who has 'em for half price. Here's his number but ya can't tell anybody...."

Just an observation. There seems to be a near endless supply of B stock available. Is Hope quality control really that rigid or is product that doesn't sell at retail just being rebranded and sold out of a warehouse somewhere at half price just to move it? I have B stock H3 and I feel fortunate to have gotten it for the price I paid. Given the obvious pressure on Voxx to cut costs while its stock keeps falling - why would you continue a design or manufacturing process that results in oodles of a supposed cosmetically imperfect product?

If I'm not mistaken Klipsch sued Monoprice a few years ago: patent infringement, trade dress infringement, unfair competition and copyright infringement. I assume some sort of amicable resolution was achieved. https://www.cnet.com/news/klipsch-monoprice-settle-patent-dispute-over-speakers/

I would think the Klipsch R-120SW would be plenty with your setup. Seems to work fine for me, but I am not a profligate spender. Subs are about like anything else, you can spend a boat load if you choose. That 12" Klipsch sub has recently been on sale for about $200. Sometimes, you can catch SVS outlet sales and get either a 10 or 12 sub with some minor scratches for good prices and full warranty. SVS has a huge and loyal following.

This would appear to be a textbook instance of Voxx being within its rights to send a VRO infringement notice to the seller, unless there is some unstated business or licensing arrangement between design's owner and the seller.

I got what I thought was a great deal on a set of sealed H3 WO B-stock for $900 and some change. I have owned and used a couple of sets of Promedia at work since 2005 but this was my first Heritage purchase. Six weeks in - I still find myself looking around to see the source of some sounds I hear - to make sure no one is in the other room or I do not have an intrusive large rodent or someone knocking at the front door. I just have never been able to enjoy home audio at that level before. But the kids are grown and I have the time and the means to enjoy it. I already have a standing offer on the H3s and I will be upgrading to CWIII's later this year. But what I have heard out of the H3's, an R-SW120 and a R-52C center driven by a Marantz SR-7012 is just darned impressive. I don't have elite equipment. I don't project hues of red and blue mood lighting on it, or fuss and fret about it all day long, and have not built a shrine around it. I just use it and enjoy it. To each his own.

https://kansascity.craigslist.org/ele/d/shawnee-mission-klipschorn-parts-for/6816445915.html posted yesterday per CL

Used to be you could pick up a local trader or free shopper around military posts in the weeks before extended deployments and find all sorts of deals on Klipsch speakers and stereo equipment. But now, resellers have wised up and using search tempest and other classified ad aggregators, they scarf up the best deals before the ink is dry. I never purchased Klipsch gear that way (I remember seeing it listed) but did get a decent amp and tuner a few years ago for a song from a deploying Fort Campbell soldier. I keep checking and prices for that gear keep rising - maybe there s more competition now that the ad's reach is broader.

Voxx's stock price today is less than half of what it was in 2014 during one of the most robust stock market expansions on record. Who's to say what or where they will cut or how painful it will be? Voxx will be committed to Klipsch and Hope and USA manufacturing and engineering until they are no longer committed. You fear a bean counter somewhere who has never seen sawdust and glue will ask "can't we make this somewhere else pay somebody $2 an hour and save X amount of $$ ..?" Those are the modern corporate and economic realities you have to contend with. Look at what GM just did with some of its legacy plants. I will be buying CWIII's this summer or fall, so I'm all in. But I do follow VOXX stock and news each day and read their SEC filings and conference call transcripts. Pretty interesting insight there about margins and premium audio segment sales. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4232652-voxx-international-corp-voxx-ceo-pat-lavelle-q3-2019-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=1

Can't tell you the years exactly, but around 1967-68 was when I started seeing the rich kids in garage bands gigging with the new Fender sold state gear that was an early disaster. It had a steep raked face. It took Fender years to recover from the brand damage inflicted by the SS failures and tonal defects. Marshall's entry a few years later was much better executed. Vox, another competitor, also had some lamentable early results with solid state. Most working musicians kept a stash of 6L6GC's and 12AX7's handy.

I used to have a mint condition QA-7000 that matched up to that exactly. I gave it away years ago, never thinking it would ever rise in value again. Had the four small quad VU meters across the face.

https://minneapolis.craigslist.org/ank/msg/d/minneapolis-music-studio-items-for-sale/6777554019.html Have to drill down in the descriptions of the studio equip being sold to see them. Way too far away for me.

CV blazed new trails with the use of manufactured wood and wood grain vinyl in the 80's. It seemed more like pressed wood than high grade MDF. I recall how easily they were damaged when my first wife dragged them out of the house one evening and pushed them into a corner on the front porch. She called them trailer speakers. Believe they were D5s or D7s and I still have them somewhere with the foam intact. She, however moved on. At the time I powered them with a Sansui QA 7000. Has it been 33 years? Geez. From memory, they were clean with attenuated highs but would be devoured by an L100. They do seem to be making a comeback of sorts.

If you want to see what opioids did to small rural towns, take time to watch the gritty 2013 documentary film Oxyana. It's free on Youtube. Sean Dunne caught what was happening before it made national news.

I wish I could say we stayed and had an immersive bonding experience, but as I recall my colleague and I were running late and had to make a flight to ORD. He put on some jazz as we were leaving. Don't recall the gear, except it was unobtrusive. Could have been older NAD or Adcom. Just the justaposition of the speakers against the region's poverty was what froze the memory for me. Thinking we were between Boomer and Glen Ferris.

Wife will not like seeing the Hakko on the dining room table again.

NPR in the am and pm before and after work. A 20 year old habit.

Early last year I was nearing the end of a multi-year, multi-state work assignment that had taken me to a very remote area of West Virginia south of Charleston. I had to interview people in their homes for litigation. My partner and I could not find one house. Wasn't on the street map. Then we saw it up at the end of a narrow single lane gravel road with a panoramic view of the Kanawha River. We made it up and were greeted by a rather articulate gent who invited us in. Big city retiree who had moved back home. And the first thing I saw inside were the Khorns in his den. Said he had had them for years and would not move back home without them. We wrapped things up and our project is now over. Delivering those speakers up there without a nick or scratch was a huge undertaking. Now that I'm a new H3WO owner, on a lesser scale, I can understand. We are everywhere.