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Carolyn: The next year after we started the sponsorship program,
Don wanted something to bind Syn-Aud-Con “grads” together,
so he started a newsletter subscription, free for one year to everyone
who attended a seminar, and then renew for $25, later raised to
$35.
Keith: I understand you had settled in California by this time?
Mr. Davis leading a session. |
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Don: Well, we owned property
there, up in the mountains. It was a place to park the trailer
and basically camp out. We’d be on the road for nine
months out of the year and then go back and spend part of
the winter in California.
Then in the summer, when everyone was busy putting in school
systems, we’d park the trailer out at the (family) farm
in Indiana. The old house hadn’t been rejuvenated at
that point. We were living a gypsy life.
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Keith: So how long did you operate Syn-Aud-Con as a “road
show” concept?
Carolyn: Well, in 1992 we were still doing classes in the U.S.,
Canada, Europe, Japan and Australia. We were in Japan on one of
these trips when Don woke up one morning and said ‘this isn’t
the way I want to spend the rest of my life’. So we canceled
everything at that point. Travel had gotten old.
We had moved to the farm in 1987, so we decided to take the “old
farmhouse” - built in 1883 - and fix it up so we could hold
classes there for 10-12 people at a time. This allowed us to keep
teaching, because we still loved that part of it. We did this through
1995.
A good consultant and/or contractor – someone who worked daily
in the industry - would present the hands-on, and Don would teach
the theory. Now Pat can do both the theory and the practical. Don
has more of an interest in the theory, never quite as interested
in the hands-on side of things.
Keith: So outside of your absolute dedication, why do you think
Syn-Aud-Con thrived?
Don: The fascinating thing is that in the 25 years we ran Syn-Aud-Con,
we hardly had a conflict with any sponsor about anything, and almost
all of them are still with Syn-Aud-Con to this day.
We always tried to have a sense of integrity about our relationships
with sponsors, and this was reciprocal. One time we did have to
“fire” one prominent loudspeaker company as a sponsor,
because they were unfairly attacking another party and presenting
grossly incorrect information. This just couldn’t stand, and
we refunded their money. So we always did our best to have a sense
of integrity about what we were teaching.
Carolyn: We limited sponsorships to 20 and had a waiting list, and
Pat has expanded that.
Don: The point is that you’re out there trying to teach people
about what’s right and wrong from a technical standpoint and
they’re being told so many other things making it that much
harder. We’ve had people accuse us of being prejudiced, and
that’s not the case.
Carolyn: We’ve always had a special appreciation of new ideas
and talent, and have so much enjoyed the promotion of that talent.
So much of the ‘70s was an accumulation of a lot of information,
and then in the ‘80s, all of this began to be focused into
new ideas and products.
Don: We got to the stage when we could recognize talent when it
wasn’t perhaps all that obvious to others -
Carolyn: - - Richard C. Heyser, Peter D. Antonio, V.M.A. Peutz,
Dr. Eugene Patronis, Gerald Stanley, Ed Long, Ron Wickersham, Ken
Wahrenbrock – these were the people that developed the concepts
that were so important to us: TEF, QRD Diffusors, %Alcons, LEDE
control rooms, PZM, signal alignment, etc. They conceived the ideas.
We often brought their concepts to the attention of manufacturers.
I was mentioning this idea recently to a friend, and he said that
the ‘80s was an outpouring of everything we had learned. But
this was more on an individual basis, and now Pat and Brenda are
taking the entire industry upward in the same way.
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