Lasting Impressions - August 2023

There are some people in your life that leave a lasting impression despite it not being an important event. I want to share one of mine.

Many, and I do mean many years ago, when I was in the 4th grade my school had, what was traditional then (we were naive to realities), a black janitor. His name was Mr. Kelly. Mr. Kelly was a good soul and would allow some of us to help him clean the rooms in exchange for some basketball time in the gymnasium. Looking back, I am sure that was probably not permitted but for us kids and Mr. Kelly, it was a fine mutually satisfying relationship and, apparently, effective for the school.

One day, when it was really hot, Mr. Kelly said something that I will share: "It's so hot, corn is popping. My mule thought it was snowing and froze to death." Now, this was a sort of cheerful insight provided during an undesirable event. (It was a sort of Song of the South moment, not having seen that movie until a year ago.) It made me admire him all the more as we were all suffering the heat. I suppose it was a defining moment for what would become my sense of humor.

A year later Mr. Kelly was in a terrible automobile accident and did not come back to work for nearly a year. But when he did, all of us were happy to see him back, not because of the gymnasium, but for who he was. So, Mr. Kelly, while nature has reclaimed you, a bit of you still lives forward and I am proud to share it.

Thank you, again, Mr. Kelly.

An Open Letter To Bryston - July 2023

The conversation started over a Bryston CD Player in a basic email thread.

A very short and humble response from Bryston Ltd. (just below) prompted the follow open letter response that we're sharing for this month's blog: Subject: Bryston BCD-3 CD Player Lou, My days of image status componentry are behind me. Bryston Ltd. www.bryston.com

From: Lou Hamilton Subject: Re: Bryston BCD-3 CD Player

Dear Mr. Tanner, As a 40 years veteran of the Audio business, and starting out with Bryston under John Russell, who was a critical mentor, I have watched our industry turn into a tragic run for egos. Gone is the race for performance at the lowest price. It has been replaced with the race for price and status around "I have one of these and you don't." Glorification of greed has become the call best symbolized by programs like Storage Wars where people's greed is portrayed as good while the poor person who could not get back what was theirs in a storage locker goes poorer. It's like the call "Greed is Good" in the movie The Wolf of Wall Street has become not only a national motto but the basis of manufacturing to it. I just was presented with an opportunity to sell from another company a 50th Anniversary 15 watt integrated amplifier for the sum of $3600. I sold those originally for $750. It was a lovely little piece in its day and a stepping stone into Naim Audio by Julian Vereker. As the 2nd longest Naim dealer in the United States, I about spit out my coffee when I saw the price. Oh, but it's value must be based on limited edition. Really? It is just one of many examples that I see today. The other is where terribly expensive parts are used but the end result does not merit it. I call it putting a gold steering wheel on a Hyundai to get the price of a Ferrari. Under today's logic in audio, it would be justified if it was a limited edition. So, what does that mean about Bryston and Audible Elegance? Well, your stuff is a lot more expensive than when I first started to sell it. However, that cost also reflects a vastly superior product with the traditional Bryston build quality and superior reliability. Indeed, there is more expensive equipment out there which leaves Bryston somewhat out of the ego race. But Bryston was not founded for ego, it was founded for music and audio. Audible Elegance was founded upon the same goals as Bryston and remains dedicated to that mission. Frankly, I find it a bit silly that people can wrap their ego around something that few get to see in their house. Want to display your ego like a peacock? Buy a sportscar. What I ultimately find sad is that people find "importance" in possessions. To me, if you have excess money to burn, go to one of those storage places and pay someone's bill so they can get their stuff back. In the end, it makes for a better world. I can't afford that but I have been known to go to truck stops on a holiday, sit down with a trucker and buy his meal. He doesn't really want to be there but that is what he must do in support of his family and keep his job. I can, at least, say thank you in a very small way. So it is. Keep doing what you do and, in the end, I am sure you will be proven right. Lou Hamilton, President Audible Elegance

Finding Faults - June 2023

Today, it is more confusing than ever to find a fault when something does not work at all or in the way you expected. All of us have had this experience, particularly with anything that relies upon software and, sometimes, firmware. I'm not going to go to that level because there is little I can teach you to fix that. Trust me, if I could, I'd have a few lessons for Subaru. Even one of my good friends turned to me after buying a new Toyota to express his utter horror that the owner's manual is over 700 pages long. I am also going to leave out networking, routers, and the internet. That's another whole can of worms.

Let's talk about audio or video products and the human interaction. What brings this up is a recent experience where I sold a consigned piece of audio after we tested it. All seemed fine until the buyer attempted to use it. Within hours of receiving it, I received a rather terse message questioning our reputation, our ethics, and a direct threat to blast us on social media unless we took it back. Well, there was no problem in doing that but, having tested it, we wanted to resolve the apparent fault. After several emails trying to understand what was happening and making a couple of suggestions of how to test it, I said to bring it in for a refund. No problem. When the customer arrived, my staff was immediately put on the defensive with the mannerisms of the customer not even aware that there was a problem.

The problem: The remote control was not working the product. It took me a couple of minutes to get to him and upon inspecting way the remote worked, I switched it from controlling satellite to controlling audio. It worked just fine. The purchaser was silent. All was good. Meanwhile, he had purchased another unit from someplace else and wanted to return it anyway. Ok, done.

What this points out to me, is the gap between understanding a product (and even the remote control) and expectations. It was the very thing that Steve Jobs was a monster over. He understood very well what he called the intuitive approach. Sadly, most products fail miserably at this. Thus, connect a printer to an Apple system and there it is. Connect a printer to a Windows system and you have to tell the system to find a printer connected to the system. Anyway, I digress. Most systems, today, are not intuitive. So, before scaling the walls with swords and ladders, make sure you understand how the product works. There are a great number of YouTube videos out there chocked full of useful tips and guides. Heck, I just used YouTube to get my wife's phone working again and, ironically, it is an Apple. But let's move on with the simple ones.

First, have you recently lost power? Kitchen appliances like stoves and microwaves are great sources for the answer. If their clocks are flashing, you've lost power. It may have been a short burst while you were away or sleeping, maybe longer. Well, power outages have the tendency to confuse audio and video products. They may turn on but nothing seems to work. Simply unplug the unit and let it set for a few minutes. I said a few minutes and I mean it. Not 10 seconds to suit your patience at the moment. Plug it back in. Often times, this clears the problem. (Now, remember, and this is the bane of automation, if power is lost, you may also need to turn the switch back on.) This is also, by the way, a common thing to do if your internet seemingly fails. Power failures are gremlins to most modern products.

Second, is the remote control even working? An easy test for this, for those of us who own Android phones, is to simply point the remote at the camera on the phone, press any button, and see if it is flashing. If it is, the remote is transmitting IR. (Most remotes use infrared to transmit signals. This will not work if you have some sort of radio transmitter like what is used on Sony PlayStations.) If it is not flashing, replace the batteries making sure that the batteries both inserted in the right direction as well as actually making contact with the spring and tabs inside. I say this because some off brand batteries have a body that keeps the button portion of the battery from actually making contact with the tab. Try again. IR remotes will flash. Sorry iPhone owners, your camera typically will not pick up IR flashes. Solution: Borrow an Android phone or have an IR test panel handy. I carried one of those in my wallet for years.

Third, is everything mechanically connected as it should be? Sometimes, there are life's intervening events which results in things becoming unplugged. Animals, children, housekeepers, you name it. Sometimes, I swear, some people's houses are haunted. So, you may be trying to control something but it is not responding with either sound or video or maybe both. This also reminds me that sometimes it may be connected properly but to a different input or output. Thus, telling it to go to A when it is connected to B can be the issue. Sometimes, service people accidently cause a cable to fall out and they guess at where it was. Of course, I am no fan of the HDMI cable connectors as they are often loose fitting and by the shear weight of the cable, fall out. Move the TV set for a better angle, they fall out. I can hear the groans now when that happens and it falls behind a cabinet of stuff.

If all else fails, then before seeking support from your local dealer (I can not help you with foreign help center calls), map out your system as best you can, note when the problem started (and any special event) and note what has happened and what you tried to resolve the problem. This will speed up the resolution process.

I would love to share more but it's hard to cram 50 years of troubleshooting experience into single blog. It's simply not possible. And that, kiddies, is why it's important to have a local dealer.

Lou