|
Keith: What are the roots of Syn-Aud-Con?
Carolyn: By 1972, we could see that things at Altec were not going
so well due to some management problems. About that time, Don was
asked to establish the European market for them, and he said we’d
go over and check things out before agreeing to do it. But at that
time, the economy was under some dramatic changes and it just wasn’t
feasible -
Don: - well, we had an acquaintance named Mr. Vorwig who had been
in charge of truck production during the war (World War II), on
the German side, and who also had been the engineer that originally
tested the Volkswagen for Hitler. Mr. Vorwig had a party that we
attended, and he and some of the guests, including a banker in Frankfort,
laid out for us what exactly was going to happen with the economy,
the deflation of the U.S. dollar that would occur. I had to tell
Altec that I wouldn’t take their offer.
Carolyn: Don and I used to work for a few years and then take time
off and go to Europe and travel for months at a time – we didn’t
have children so we could do that. Through the ‘50s, the economy
was great, but by ’72, we found that prices were already 10
times more than in the ‘50s. And, things had changed with Altec
–
Don: - when a company is being torn apart by bad management, the
talent leaves first. The ones that hang in there may be great workers,
but that’s not where the talent lies and where the future and
insight is. There were a lot of strange contracts coming across
my desk that I didn’t want to sign, and this is what happens...
I’ve often sworn I was going to write a book on mismanagement
with all of it I’ve seen over the years. I resigned from Altec
in December 1972.
Carolyn: Altec offered Don a year’s salary if he would not
go to work for the competition -
Don: – Which I had no intention of doing anyway –
Carolyn providing TEF guidance. |
 |
Carolyn: – we took six months
to write our book, Sound System Engineering, because we had
an income from Altec. Sams
Publishing printed it at no cost and allowed us to buy
it at $10 a copy. It was loose leaf at that time, and about
three years later they decided to publish it as a book. Then
a few years later, we revised it.
Don: We had a lot of lovely people help us with this, just
like Pat does now with Syn-Aud-Con.
Carolyn: GenRad and HP loaned us thousands of dollars worth
of equipment for our seminars. |
Carolyn: In 1973, the oil crisis started and things were not good
in terms of starting a business, but we decided to anyway.
Don: We set out on the road with a Dodge three-quarter ton truck
and a camper shell to house all the gear, towing a trailer behind
it to live in. We toured the country and taught audio.
Carolyn: Don could see that the only way we would really be able
to make it in doing this tour would be to set up a sponsorship program.
He went to Shure
- or they came to him, I can’t recall – and they were
great in terms of support. That first year, Shure, UREI and Sun
Music were our first sponsors.
Don: The point is that there were several of these engineering folks
and their companies who were very supportive, who understood what
we had and wanted to give.
Carolyn: Another interesting and critical thing at this point in
time is that Altec pretty much owned the contracting business. RCA
had a service company and could still do some things at that point.
And, some other names that aren’t even around anymore were
the big entities. At the time, companies like Electro-Voice,
Shure, JBL
and so forth were really still just independent gadget makers.
What we did that was unique at the time was to put together all
of the elements offered by these companies into proper systems.
These pioneer sponsors of Syn-Aud-Con could provide the quality
components, individually, and then that equipment could be formed
into quality systems.
Don: UREI, for example, was one of the first to make the equalizer,
and they were a sponsor. Emilar would make the drivers that were
needed. So we “filled the chain” with sponsors so that
people would know where to go to fill out an entire system. That
was a piece of serendipity that worked out well for both us and
the sponsors. It wasn’t really a deliberate thought-out thing,
but just something that happened.
|
|
You
may also want to read these related stories:
|
|
|
