What's everybody doing?

Bench is all back together, sounds great and is rattling things off the wall like it used to again lol.

I got one of my old photo albums out from the last World CES (Consumer Electronics Show) we had an exhibit (or what we call booth) in before I quit the electronics stuff in end of Sept 1994, it was usually in Berlin, Germany. I took a lot of pics at that show because I knew it was my last one outside the US. I went out to dinner with Helmut (Hifonics owner) and the International Sales Manager for Precision Power one night and took a pic of Helmut and the PP sales manager (his back anyway) on the way back to the table because I knew it would prob be the last time I would see him. He was good at that "what you looking at" look lol. He was one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet and had a real passion for electronics, sadly he passed away in 2017. You can tell we loved our deserts too, just look at all the deserts on the table, but that's from back when my metabolism was a lot better than it is now so I don't do that much as I used to... The guy in the background with the glasses was the International Sales Manager for Rockford Fosgate if I remember right. After the show ended every night a lot of us car audio gurus that were exhibiting or had a booth there would usually all go out for a nice dinner and hang out somewhere because the days were hectic and we usually hadn't eaten all day while the show was on.

I have a lot of pics of the Berlin Wall, Germany, and peeps in general in that album from that show but the 2 in the pics below I always thought were the funniest, the one with the car coming through was funny but it still doesn't compare to the working door someone put in there. Sorry the pics aren't that great from the pic I took of them. I didn't get them out because after 27+ years everything in there is pretty permanent and will prob ruin them trying to get them out...

Geno wrote: Bench is all back together, sounds great and is rattling things off the wall like it used to again lol.

I got one of my old photo albums out from the last World CES (Consumer Electronics Show) we had an exhibit (or what we call booth) in before I quit the electronics stuff in end of Sept 1994, it was usually in Berlin, Germany. I took a lot of pics at that show because I knew it was my last one outside the US. I went out to dinner with Helmut (Hifonics owner) and the International Sales Manager for Precision Power one night and took a pic of Helmut and the PP sales manager (his back anyway) on the way back to the table because I knew it would prob be the last time I would see him. He was good at that "what you looking at" look lol. He was one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet and had a real passion for electronics, sadly he passed away in 2017. You can tell we loved our deserts too, just look at all the deserts on the table, but that's from back when my metabolism was a lot better than it is now so I don't do that much as I used to... The guy in the background with the glasses was the International Sales Manager for Rockford Fosgate if I remember right. After the show ended every night a lot of us car audio gurus that were exhibiting or had a booth there would usually all go out for a nice dinner and hang out somewhere because the days were hectic and we usually hadn't eaten all day while the show was on.

I have a lot of pics of the Berlin Wall, Germany, and peeps in general in that album from that show but the 2 in the pics below I always thought were the funniest, the one with the car coming through was funny but it still doesn't compare to the working door someone put in there. Sorry the pics aren't that great from the pic I took of them. I didn't get them out because after 27+ years everything in there is pretty permanent and will prob ruin them trying to get them out...

I was born in Germany and still have family there....................................

Geno wrote: I've been patching and keeping my test bench going when I have time for almost 30 years but today is the time to get it fixed back up the way it should be. My old Rockford Fosgate Power 300 finally has some noise in the right channels that has to be fixed so for now my old HiFonics Gemini is going to take it's place for awhile. My old Rockford is almost 40 years old so it's done really good but you can't buy amps like that any more so it will be fixed when I get time. My Gemini is about the same age, they were in different vehicles back in the day when I did the car audio shops thing. The test bench isn't just for testing, it runs the sound system and subs in the shop and I like my music lol.

The Gemini used to be in the bench until a battery exploded in there about 20 years ago so I just put the Rockford in there. 20 years (yes 20 years) of needing to fix that amp has me thinking more and more about getting my priorities a little more in order now... One evening last month I got it back out, soaked it in baking soda (it neutralizes battery acid) and washed it out with hot water, let it dry out for a week and it was back up and running again. Saying they don't make things like they used to is a real understatement... It's been sitting on the bench running for the past 3 weeks or so, so today is the day for tidying things back up, getting things hooked back up right that were patched or bypassed for troubleshooting it, and getting it all back together so I have room to work there again.

Jim Fosgate was a smart guy that started Rockford Fosgate that I had a pleasure to know back in the day. He was one of those self taught repair guys that invented the car amplifier in 1973, invented and received an Emmy Award in 2003 for the development of surround sound for tv, he ran Fosgate Laboratories and lead the team that created Dolby Pro Logic II among other things. He did a lot of things not many peeps have common knowledge about that should be on Wiki but no one has put them on there. Some more on him here - Wiki on Jim Fosgate
More here
More here including his Museum pics

I was just thinking how blessed I am to have known people like him, Bernie Boland and Sam Taylor (Orion founders) Frank and his son Mark Pyle (Pyle Driver), Paul Klipsch (Klipsch Speakers and inventor of the Horn for speakers) Helmut Stieglitz (Founder and designer of HiFonics) and many many others who were pioneers in the audio and electronics fields, they are and were real inventors much like Cecil Pond.

WOW... you meet some heavy weight people in the audio world....me old school audio with a pioneer 747 which is in the shop getting a new speaker relay and now using my jvc 5445 for my quad setup.
Its all old but works very good for listening to quad 8 track tapes and quad reel to reel tapes........... ..

WOW... you meet some heavy weight people in the audio world....me old school audio with a pioneer 747 which is in the shop getting a new speaker relay and now using my jvc 5445 for my quad setup.
Its all old but works very good for listening to quad 8 track tapes and quad reel to reel tapes...........:

Rock on Nappy

nappypappy wrote: WOW... you meet some heavy weight people in the audio world....me old school audio with a pioneer 747 which is in the shop getting a new speaker relay and now using my jvc 5445 for my quad setup.
Its all old but works very good for listening to quad 8 track tapes and quad reel to reel tapes........... ..

The old stuff is still the best for sound, that's some nice equipment Nappy. Nothing in the world has the dynamic range or the sweet sound of an old tube amplifier either...

I spent the first 13 years of my life in that business and had the honor of meeting a lot of peeps back then. They thought I was a heavy hitter (crazy is more like it) because I took their inventions changed them around and/or applied them in ways and places that had never been done lol. The last 5 years I was in the business and at the time that the pics were taken I was also the Director of Sales and Marketing, and Car Audio Product Developer for the 2nd largest speaker company in the world so they sent me to all these places to run the shows and I got to hang out with them.

Now I have the whole bench back and I'm gonna do better at keeping it from being a little rats nest from now on lol. I cleaned out the wall cabinet next to it and can keep things in there now instead of all over the bench. It's really amazing the stuff I keep around that should have been thrown away 2, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, or even 40 years ago... I've been thinking about GT for the past few days and his FOCUS thing.

I don't have any build in's, but this set up gets me through.
I know certain OCD folks will not be able to look at it for long

Hey hey

You sure have a lot of batteries.

Are you saying I am Re vol-ting??

I have 2 electric bikes and Dewalt hedge trimmer, and chain saw. Plus an RV, so I end up with a battery maintenance bench.