A Visit to the Klipsch House of Madness

[Deang]

Well, maybe it is for him, but to me it's more like the House of Sanity. To go from a house with three wound up kids to a house packed full of Klipsch speakers and occupied by the perfect host is pure unmitigated bliss. Don't get me wrong, I love my kids and I've learned to embrace and enjoy the chaos -- but hanging out at Michael's place this past weekend provided a much needed break.

Michael knows he doesn't get much out of me until he stuffs me full of pizza from Some Guys. This time he made me suffer a bit first, and the pizza didn't come until after he took me on a tour of his project out back. I had no idea his "garage" was that big and was struck by the high quality work. He talked about the boat and truck being in there, while I'm thinking of the snow job he's putting on me -- having visions of multiple sets of MCM stacks and a 1000 pairs of everything else running floor to ceiling.

We ordered and picked up the pizza, and spent the rest of the night zoning out. He had worked with his brother Steve on the garage all day, and I was in my natural wiped out state, so neither of us had energy for much else. Michael has a boat load of DVD concerts, and he popped in David Gilmour's "Remember that Night" -- which I found out is a must own. His Yamaha based system with LaScalas, a KLF-C7 center, Cornwall rears, and a pair of KW-120 subs -- can really get the room moving without sounding obnoxious or overbearing. It was the first good Klipsch I'd heard since moving to the Definitive stuff and it was really enjoyable. Next we put in Deep Purple Live at Montreux -- and I made the mistake of showing my ignorance about the different incarnations of the band. I got schooled -- Colter is a freaking walking encyclopedia. Half way through the concert I look over at Michael ...

...he's out. Out out. The system is cranking away at close to 95dB -- and he visits dreamland. Well, it is getting late -- it's ten after 9.

I turned the system down and decided to drink a cup of coffee and jump on the computer. Colterphoto1 is up and running -- and I thought I would add to his post count. I made several inane posts and then found myself having to resist the temptation to go around and poke a few people in the eye.

I decide to visit the Gallery. I love the Gallery. I'd like to one day see the Gallery with less speakers and more photographs. I go in to check out the speakers and gear -- which changes a bit every time I go over. It's dark, and I can't find the light switch. Yeesh. Flipping my lighter a half dozen times doesn't help me any. I remember the lamp on the other side of the room -- it's anything but a straight shot. I risk the trip with no map or GPS. I start by running my knee into a Jubilee cabinet. I veer to the left and my foot finds what I later see is small cabinet housing some PA gear. There is now the feeling of mischief in the air -- if the loon wakes up he's gonna wonder what the hell I'm doing in here. Being the model of brilliance that I am, I pull my lighter back out and make it to the lamp.

The Jubilees dominate the room. Man those suckers are big when they're not in the corners. I look around the room and it looks pretty much the same as the last time I saw it. I see a new collection of parts by the window. Interesting, smart buy -- K-510's attached to another pair of K-69-A's for his Jubilees. I went over to take a close look at the oiled oak Heresy's with cane grills he has up for sale. After checking them out I decide I might take them home. I stand up to survey the room and come eye level with something new: a pair of nice Jamo bookshelf monitors. I'm a sucker for small, well made boxes. I pull one of the grills off -- whoa, what have we here? The apparent quality of the drivers, fit and finish of the build, and condition of the speakers tells me that these are probably not on his for sale list, and even if they were -- would be way out of my price range.

Time to go.

More coffee. Back on the computer.

I decide to check out Michael's Garage Sale thread to see just exactly what he is selling. I scroll down -- there they are at the bottom of the list -- Jamo C803's. $300! I shouldn't have been surprised, the rest of the deals are equally outstanding. Anyone within driving distance of Michael's needs to make a road trip.

Michael stumbles by and babbles something in Colterspeak while I'm on the computer, it's almost 1:30. Definitely time for bed. I lay in bed feeling like I dropped a hit of speed -- waaay too much coffee.

I wake up to the sound of ... nothing. I'm not used to that. Michael hears me get up and we're up and going by 9:30. He's refreshed after his almost freaking 12 hour nap, and wants to play with drivers while I'm still trying to shake the sleep out of my head. He wants to solder in a new diaphragm on a K-55.

"I need coffee and a cigarette first."

"Well, go do that and I'll get the stuff ready."

...

"Ready?"

"I need another cup of coffee, another cigarette, BEC's website, and a REAL soldering iron."

By acting stupid, I tricked Michael into giving me a long lesson on Klipsch Cornwall drivers and horns -- until just as I planned -- we ran out of time to actually do any work. I'm kind of glad I did -- I learned a few things!

Time for food and a movie. A quick run to Subway and we're back in our chairs. We get a call from Indyklipschfan who says he's coming over after he does a few things. Michael runs down the list of things Roger must do first, factors in my time of departure, and calculates that when Roger makes it -- I will get to see him for 17 minutes.

The rest of the day is spent relaxing, talking, and watching The Dirty Dozen in HD -- Michael manages to find several things in the movie to have a good laugh about. Roger finally shows up and adds his commentary, which is equally hilarious. I notice the time and I realize that I need to get going. I also notice that Roger has been at the house -- for 17 minutes.

I had a great time Michael, thanks for your hospitality.

I've been playing with the Jamo C803's -- I'm really pleased with the addition.

[SilverSport]

nice story...thanks for sharing...

Bill

[colterphoto1]

Perhaps it's the committee in my head, but I never think of The House of Klipsch as so peaceful, until a friend with multiple 'fruits of their loins' shows up and marvels at the quietude I enjoy. Dean showed precisely at the agreed upon time and I'm playing.... nothing. We just sit there in serenity for a while, catching up on old times. For me a lot of the enjoyment of the hobby isn't playing the gear, not tweaking the gear, not even talking about the gear, just enjoying good old friendships. Kind of like normal people, except if you're a friend of mine, you're probably anything but normal.

I showed him the shop and how things would be 'organized'. His mouth dropped open.

Dean pretty much laid the visit out as it happened. Due to their constant caterwalling, I lock the three cats in the back porch for the duration so we are unbothered. We really enjoyed the David Gilmour concert. When I first saw this show I thought it a bit slow paced, but that was compared to the acid-flashback action in Pulse. Gilmour and friends put on a really fine show and I'm always struck by what I call his 'workmanlike' attitude. No personal flash, barely an impish grin, but just laying it all out there. The power of his guitar nearly pales to the majesty that his voice has gained with age. Imagine standing on stage, Strat in hand, bending those long sustained notes, feeling the power as its belted out of a bagillion watt sound system at the audience. WOW. And yes, my system does really do justice to concert DVD's. I think it no accident as my TV watching is basically Simpsons and NFL, and half of my DVD's are concerts. I find that with limited budget that I only purchase titles that I can enjoy over and over again and concerts fit the bill.

The Some Guys pizza (finest in Indy) was fab as usual and we polished off most of it. I didn't realize that Dean hadn't eaten for so long and he was famished. Speak up man!

I'd been working with bro Steve all day and he's a workhorse. Basically Steve mudded the entire 1500 ft2 of the shop, while I prepped the mud, pushed his scaffolding around, and moved every single thing in the shop from one end to the other. Pooped doesnt' even touch it. So when Dean allowed me to gently drift off in the arms of Morpheus (ok, not quite, but some really sweet muscle relaxers), I didn't complain.Did I really fall asleep during a Deep Purple concert!

I do recall awakening a couple times to gunfire thanks to Dirty Dozen in HD, mumbling something slightly incoherent in ColterSpeak (a dialect not unlike Ozzish), and knock back over. Awakening around midnight I stumbled past the office, gnight to Deano, and off for a few more hours of slumber.

Meanwhile the ungrateful guest commandeers my computer, posts rabid untruths... no, he didn't do that. But Dean knows his way around the house and the systems (took a while to get to the HD button,eh?) and helps himself. I'm always flattered when guests can make themselvs so at home here. He told me the next day about his adventures in the Gallery. Yeah the lighting sucks. He apparently went on a shopping spree of sorts and I'm glad he found something that he could use from the House of Klipsch collection. The Jamo 803 two way bookshelf speakers have a similar 'boat' shape and curved high gloss top as his new Def Techs and he thought they'd make a better surround speaker than the Def Tech BP2 bipolar speakers in white. He badgered me to charge him a higher price as he'd looked them up online, but a deal is a deal. I did make him give a quick test listen which demonstrated that my Sansui AU9900A is on the fritz with one channel giving horrible distortion. Great. Another piece of gear that I never use is down....

[Cut-Throat]

Dean,

you really really need to quit smoking. Yuck!

[colterphoto1]

Not wanting to retype that entire diatribe, I conclude on this page.

Next morning I'm ready to go. Dean's sucking down nicotine and some slightly girly coffee (sorry, that's all I have) that I make purposely too strong. I'd wanted his opinion of some drivers and diaphragms I'd collected so we inspected a disassembled K55 solder (dual phase plug) design, some KSM2 horn/motors that are not much more than Cornwall K601 horns (no longer available) and K53 drivers of some sort. I have some K53Ti drivers and K52PH diaphragms which we disassemble and test fit. Yup, everything fits everything.

Dean makes fun of my Radio Shack soldering iron, wrong gauge solder, and numberous other bits of hardware lying about and pronounces that he can't work with such ghastly tools so we put it all up. D- you forgot the K55 you were going to experiment with! But I manage to give a bit of lecture (sorry) on the CW history of drivers, sources, and networks. It's always nice when you can give back some knowledge to someone who has taught you so much. Dean is my hero in the network arena and I really look up to him. He also has a great set of ears and the finest compliment he ever gave me was 'Those are a really sweet set of LaScalas' to my home LSBR units with BEC networks. Dean subsequently made me a tweakable set of custom pseudo-ALKjr networks that he gave me when I photographed his daughter's wedding.. I love the networks and haven't made any further adjustment, just hooked them up out of the box. Bob's A/AA serve me well in my 72 KBWO's in the gallery.

Not wanting to tax our grey matter too much, we make another call to Roger, who has a pretty busy day, but we know will plan to stop by. I joke that we will get to see Roger for precisely 17 minutes. Starting the HD version of Dirty Dozen again, we marvel at the deep cast, the fabulous 5.1 mix and wide sound stage of the orchestral score, and fairly cheesy acting in parts. It's a great time, soon joined by Roger who enlivens our rapidly diminishing banter with some of his own. Of course he's all hyped up about the opportunity to add Blu-Ray to his system via 5 ch analog outputs and I think he's already got this purchased. Dean had made plans with Mrs. Dean and I had to run also, so I felt like we cheated Roger a bit with a truncated visit.

We loaded up the Jamo C803, swapped RB5's with Dean from a previous purchase (he'd gotten one slighly non-minty unit and I wanted to make good on his purchase) and we were off.

It was a great visit. Dean didn't know it at the time but he helped take my mind off the annual pre-Christmas funk I get the week before. Sunday marked the 10th anniversary of my Mother's passing and having friends over helped take the sting out of the anniversary.

Thanks again Dean and Roger, you guys are some great friends!

Michael

[Deang]

Darn, I forgot the K-55. Uhg -- I always forget something!

"Great. Another piece of gear that I never use is down..."

LOL -- put that Crown K2 in there.

I didn't know about your Mom until I read about her in the other thread -- I'm glad I could provide for some hopefully pleasant distraction. I gotta say though, seeing the work you put into that tree, and with the plethora of Christmas music you had around and played -- I would never have guessed. A lesser person would avoid all things Christmas. I'm guessing your Mom loved Christmas? It's far better to honor her by elevating her favorite things than to curse and live in the single bad memory she left you through no fault of her own. You're a good man.

[thebes]

That does it. I'm giving up tryng to write entertaining stuff around here. Seems like everybody else knows how to do it better than me (or is it I).

Great read guys, and sounds like a great time also (or is that also a great time).

[Arky]

I was thinking similar thebes. Enjoyed the read guys.

[bhendrix]

Great stories, Michael and Dean!! I would love to have been there with you . . . . .

[Soundthought]

Now that's what the Klipsch forum is truly all about.....friendship.


Merry Christmas, fellas.


Regards,
John

[Chicago_Pete]

That was awesome guys!

Klipsch, pizza, smoking, and the Dirty Dozen, Im at home:)

[jt1stcav]

Reading the day's events was fun...I imagine actually being there would've been way better! Thanks for the thread.

[dtel]

Sounds like a good visit, when we were up their for the Pilgrimage a couple years ago I needed sleep after that week. Michael's HOK is always a fun place to tour, you never know what your going to see or hear, but you will always have a good host.

[skonopa]

I still so need to get there and visit. Sad that I had a couple of oppurtunities over the past year, but as luck would have it, seems the planets just wern't aligned for me. We'll see, as it appears that I may be heading out that way again this summer for yet ANOTHER family reunion (which will probably be taking place there in Indiana this time, not way the hell up in Northern Wisconsin like the last one). Have not gotten any details, yet - just a mailing from one of my cousins that is in the early stages of planning and fishing for what may be a good month and type of area to do it (i.e., one of the state parks, there in Indy itself, or what have ya). So, looks like another oppurtunity may be in the cards - we'll have to see as I find out more.

[IndyKlipschFan]

One nice thing about true friendships is it can be yesterday, last week, month, or year.... Yet it seems like when you do visit, it seems not that long ago and you pick up from where you were, because you just enjoy each others company.

Deans got a cool beard.. Always great to see you too!

Michael has his shop and is slowely getting that in order.

Life is good. At least I keep telling myself that.

I am happy to be ok health wise, and alive with a great family. It sure beats the alternative!

[colterphoto1]

Steve K, yeah mang you've got to get over here sometime. I'll have some PA's set up in the workshop in the upcoming months, so we can really blow you away.

Peace on Earth to everybody out there in Forum Land!

Michael

[colterphoto1]

Man it's great having Klipsch friends in town. Steve P and Trey just stopped in to inspect the shop and I'm out to Roger's for a bit this weekend.

I hope everyone has an adventure packed weekend planned with lots of music and friends!

Michael

[tigerwoodKhorns]

Cool new avitar Michael! It reminds me of a photo that you would see of a band in the gatefold of their album.

Have a great Christmas.