Who's this guy?

[Thermioniclife]

Who's this guy putting everyone asleep speaking at New Your Noise 1999?
I think the guy in the front row with the ponytail is Bob Danielak, nice guy, had the pleasure of speaking with him on a couple of occasions. Bob did to the 1626 what you guys did to the 6dn7. I built a few Darlings and still have a Dc coupled Double Darling with separate power supply and Lundahl opt's. This amp ran 8 hours a day 5 days a week(or longer if I forgot to shut it off) for 16 years still have it. Went through a couple of 5u4's but it still has the original 1626's and 8532's.

 

[Deke609]

I can't be certain, but I think that's either Eddie Vedder's or Chris Cornell's dad.

Awesome pic, Lee!

 

[pboser]

I remember that day!  At jc morrison's Hoboken loft.  Yes, that's Bob Danielak and his brother Rich next to him.  I don't think that's my balding head next to Rich - I think I was a couple of rows back.

 

[Thermioniclife]

Nice to hear that you were there. Another guy I recognize is Jeremy Epstein.

 

[Thermioniclife]

Here's a link to JE labs archive.
http://jelabsarch.blogspot.com/

 

[Doc B]

This is a fun one. L to R that's Mike LaFevre, Blackie Pagano, our hostess whose name I can't recall, Bob Danielak, jcmorrison, and Jeremy Epstein. That was a very fun event. I was invited a couple of times. It appears I was in my fat unkempt turquoise midlife crisis period. I lost about 30 lbs and a bunch of hair a couple years later.

 

[Thermioniclife]

Bob and Jeremy used to have a lot of links To N.Y.N on their sites I used to spend a lot of time checking them out.

 

[pboser]

Great stuff - thanks for the reminder of how community makes this hobby.  Mostly virtual for now, I suppose.....

 

[Thermioniclife]

I lost the hair but put on 30 Lbs. LOL
What did you bring to show and tell at that event?

 

[Doc B]

Pretty sure this was at VSAC 2003. I had lost 29 lbs or thereabouts. Man, more flashbacks. There was this crazy guy who used to try to sneak into our shows and sell his latest crackpot invention. He was certifiable and he was hostile, would go on about how God sent him a whole new kind of physics, really nutball stuff. He had first shown up at a previous VSAC. When I walked into my exhibit room one afternoon at that show he had disconnected my speakers, set up his speakers in my room and was demoing them! Threw his ass out. I hired a couple of guys for the 2003 show to watch for him. Sure enough he showed up, walked right in like he owned the show and when asked to buy a ticket or leave he refused. They had to escort him back to his car, where there was a bit of a standoff before he finally left. Judging by the vest I'm wearing in that pic I was carrying that day. I think that was the same show where one of the attendees got piss drunk in the bar one night and nearly started a brawl with a sailor. People wonder why we quit doing shows...

 

[Doc B]

More nostalgia - this is literally the night before the first VSAC in 97. That is Eduardo di Lima, founder of Audiopax and one of the sweetest guys I ever met in the industry. We're standing down in my basement lab.

 

[Thermioniclife]

Jeeze maybe it was Ron Welborne, he still owes me a walnut base and a chassis plate. I know he is well liked in the community but I caught him in a bad time and he kinda pissed me off. Is that wrong of me? Actually I have forgotten about that for the longest time so it's no big deal now, I hope all is well with him. Keep on being cool and glad you cut your hair. I've met a couple of other cool cats that you may know of. First being Dick Shahinian Because his wood shop was in  Easthampton NY and I was in the home av buis.
we argued on a few occasions about SS. VS. tube amplification. it was good natured but I will say he was addiment. I used to stop by the wood shop and they were building either Obelisck's or Diapasions. Dick was in love with Bartolini SS amps from Italy.
Another cool guy was Joe Grado and his son, he was super cool and his son was in the process of running the company. Those guys were very cool indeed, glad I had a chance to meet them. People who are into music are interesting and sometimes contentious.
See what i'm saying it's all cool.
Peace, Love and Happiness to all

 

[Doc B]

Ha,ha nope, not Ron. Ron and I got along well. In fact I flew to Colorado in the late 90s on his invitation, to talk about merging our businesses. Neither of us wanted to move closer to the other guy so it was a non-starter. He helped a lot in setting up VSAC 2003 and used some of the knowledge gained to help create the first RMAF the next year. I know that Ron developed a certain rep in later years for delivery issues. I do not know what created the situation, and I have not heard from him for around 16 years. He did have a fairly low tolerance for customers at times and could be pretty abrupt over phone and email. His kits were made with really high quality, expensive components and I would guess there may have been a pretty narrow margin to keep the business afloat with. I always thought his catalog was brilliant. I think the advent of the web and online cataloging probably put a dent in his cash flow too. He sold zillions of those catalogs pre-web.

Funny I can't even remember the name of the nut job who crashed our shows. That was a lot of years ago.

 

[Doc B]

Huh, forum says this posted but I'm not seeing it in my feed so here's a repost-

To answer the what did I bring to Noise question - Judging by the pictures and considering the time frame we probably brought Afterglows or maybe Paraglows that Mike LaFevre had. Seems like we may have had a Foreplay there too. Those aqua T shirts were advertising MagneQuest transformers. By the way that long pair of legs behind me in the first shot must belong to John Tucker, who came with me to the event. In that shot I think I was rattling on about the drivers in the line arrays jc had built, as I had more or less initiated those being made by MCM Electronics - the same drivers were used in the Straight 8s. I remember jc politely telling me to shut up, he wanted to talk about them! ;^)> We stayed at Mike's house in Philly and drove to Hoboken for the meet. I came back - maybe the next year? - with Jon Ver Halen. Recall having a fun breakfast talking to Mikey and Joe Roberts before that one, and later talking with Mike Matthews about his then new Sovtek 2A3 production. That was a looong time ago.

 

[Thermioniclife]

Thanks for the reply Doc. It's said that dwelling in the past is unhealthy but revisiting it from time to time is. I had noticed the MCM drivers on those arrays. Here's another blast from the past, I bought all the drivers and xover parts to build a pair of Super Whamodynes from a member on the forum many moons ago, I have forgotten his name but he was very nice. I never got around to building them and I sold the speakers to a young guy who was a car stereo installer, I don't know what he did with them.
Thanks again for the memories.