1971 - Purchased my first stereo system at Chester Electronics in Kenosha, WI. The system consisted of a pair of AR 7 speakers and a Marantz 2435 receiver. I later purchased a Benjamin Mirachord turntable from Gill's Custom House in Palos Heights, IL.
1972 - Purchased my first "audiophile" stereo system from Pro Musica, Champaign, IL . This system consisted of a Dynaco PAT5 and Stereo 70, both custom modified by Pro Musica. A pair of Fulton FMI 100 speakers and a Connoisseur turntable. I later added a Nakamichi cassette deck again from Gills Custom House.
1974 - Employed at Audio Systems in Kenosha, WI - the first esoteric audio salon in Kenosha. Our product lines included Audio Research Corporation, Linn Sondeck, Naim, Rotel, Harmon Kardon, Onkyo, NAD, Fulton Musical Industries, Hafler, Carver, Grado, Sumiko, SME, Shure, Ariston, Strathclyde, Dynavector, Grafyx, RTR, AR, B&W, Rogers, Visonik, Jamo, Mordaunt Short, and Connoisseur.
1980 - Purchased first "audiophile" car audio system. Custom installation was performed by Al's Stereo in Racine, WI.
1982 - Employed at Music Center in Kenosha, WI. - designed custom sound systems for schools, factories, bands, churches, recording studios, and offices. Sold musical instruments - drums, keyboards, guitars, brass instruments, stringed instruments, recording equipment, pro audio equipment and lighting equipment. Earned reputation of saving people money who wanted to purchase quality musical products.
1983 - Judged car audio contest.
1984 - Recording engineer for the Kenosha Symphony.
1985 - Judged another car audio contest.
1988 - Recording engineer for the Kenosha Unified School System's Fine Arts Department.
February 1, 2000 - Developed "Q Pod" - product for improving the performance of audio equipment.
August 2000 - Performing modifications on audio equipment to improve performance.
October 2001 - Sonigistix, owner of Monsoon multimedia speakers utilized two of my three suggestions to them about improving their IM-700 speaker and introduced the MM-702.
Allen Vissutti
Arturo Sandoval
Ed Braun's Trio
Forecast - with Dave Kochanski
Opus - with Brian Ford
Cornerstone
A month prior to Thanksgiving, I set up this year's Audio Challenge. Again, I offered to give this system away to anyone who could come within not 10%, but 25% of this year's system cost. People who had listened to my systems before would not qualify. The one exception was a audiophile friend of mine.
This year's results:
Highest Bid - $20,000.00
Lowest Bid - $1,200.00
My Audiophile friend's bid - $5,000.00
The actual cost of this year's system was under $250.00
At Christmas 1999, I issued a Challenge to individual who claimed to have knowledge about audio and a few who did not. I set up a new audio system in my home and offered to give this system away to anyone who could guess within 10% of what the actual cost was. Whomever was interested could come and listen to the system blind-folded. The cost of this system was based on the price that anyone could purchase this equipment for.
Here are the results:
Audiophiles: $12,000.00
Pro Audio people: $26,500.00
One of my brother-in-laws: $10,000.00
The actual cost of the entire system was under $300.00