Shopping Tips for a New Reality
/in Audio Tips, Interesting News & Technology, PDF - NewslettersShopping Tips for a New Reality – perspective from our shop floor
Written by Geoff Woods, a consultant and programmer here for over 20 years.
I’ve just got used to writing “2021” and we’re already talking about Christmas shopping. Well. . . Okay, to be fair, my wife is already doing her Christmas shopping. Like most guys I know, I was probably going to procrastinate until December 17th at least, like every year. But this year it looks like that strategy would be a mistake.
Disruption
You don’t exactly have to have your ear to the ground to know that supply chains have been disrupted lately. Every industry from automobiles to snack foods has been affected. Items that used to come in 7-10 days are now 10 weeks out if we’re lucky, and some items literally have “no ETA.”
We don’t need to hash out the 107 converging causal factors that have contributed to this. Suffice it to say that no one person, policy, germ, or weather phenomena is solely responsible. Even if we could point the funky finger of blame in one direction, assigning fault won’t solve anything in the here and now. So really, it doesn’t matter whose fault it is, it’s still everybody’s problem.
So how much is K&W affected? More importantly, what can we do to help K&W’s valued customer mitigate how you are affected by this unfolding disaster?
Here’s some good news and some straight-up, unvarnished bad news.
First the good news:
- We live in Canada! Aside from having a lot more freedom than what is being experienced in many other places, one of the best things about Canada is we manufacture some of THE BEST speakers in the whole world. I’m not making this up. Canadian loudspeakers are like Italian sports cars. We are world renowned for the quality and value of our speakers. As well, because we don’t have to cross borders and pay duties and tariffs on them, we get them for the best prices. K&W is proud to represent the best selection of Canadian speaker brands available ANYWHERE. As a bonus, lead times on most of these products are not nearly as terrible as items coming across the ocean. So if somebody has speakers on their Christmas list, they’re in luck.
- We saw this coming! It hasn’t been easy, but we’ve been working double time to buy more stock, earlier than we ever have going into the Christmas season. Obviously there are still shortfalls and will continue to be. But we’ve managed to get ahead of this crunch on quite a few high demand items and, provided you don’t procrastinate too long (like me), we can probably get your wish list fulfilled, but I do recommend you DON’T put it off too long.
- Music is COOL. I highly recommend you turn off the news and listen to music more often. It WILL make you a happier person, I promise. And fortunately there aren’t as many shortages on classic stereo gear as there is on A/V receivers and other items that require digital chips. Dust off your old vinyl and dig out your CD collection, we can get you fixed up with a great playback system in time for the holidays.
Now for the bad news:
- Prices are going up. Many already have, but the trend is not stopping. With skyrocketing shipping costs and labour shortages galore, hardly a day goes by without us receiving a new price list from a supplier and none of the numbers on those lists are getting smaller, except maybe in the column showing quantity available. It’s a hard reality, but it is reality. If you know what you want, don’t wait, cuz chances are it will NOT be cheaper later.
- Some key items simply aren’t available. Digital music streamers and entry level Surround Sound receivers have suffered the hardest impact, and while stock is trickling in, demand has also been higher than anyone expected. We are taking deposits for back orders on these items and are running on a first come, first served basis. But we aren’t the ones off-loading the ships or driving the trucks, so we just are not able to make promises.
- Our installers are BUSY! This is good news for us, but for those who are waiting to get a system installed, it means you need to plan a bit further ahead and exercise a bit more patience. Because of the unpredictability of supply chains, we simply can NOT book an install until we have ALL the system components IN STOCK. By the time all those items are in stock, the waiting list can be weeks out. So the window of time for getting a complete system and getting it installed by Christmas is already very quickly closing. Alternatively, maybe think about that one extra special upgrade component to take an existing system to the next level—a simple install like that is much more likely to get shoe-horned into the schedule.
Finally, one last thought regarding this year’s holiday shopping:
We really do appreciate your loyalty and patronage. For 43 years, we have striven to be your chosen Hi-Fi and Home Theatre destination shop in Calgary, and hope to keep it going for decades more to come. What often makes the difference between a mediocre sound system and a great one is expertise in selection and a personal touch… neither of which is an Amazon hallmark.
There. I said it. With hundreds of ships carrying thousands of containers filled with millions of products languishing off shore waiting for ports to catch up, you can’t be completely sure that the item you order on line will get here in time. Even if it does, it might not actually be exactly the right item for YOU too.
So please come and talk to one of our system designers. We have over a century of combined experience in this field, and since we work at a bricks and mortar (literally) store front in your neighborhood, you always know where to find us. As a result, we have an ongoing, vested interest in making sure you are happy with your purchase.
Thanks to you for your ongoing support of our local business. I invite personally you to come down and meet a fellow Calgarian, maybe go home with something cool that day. Or at the very least, be assured that you’ll get straight answers about what you need, and when you can have it.
Looking forward to seeing you soon!
Your Home Simplified
/in Automation & Integration, Interesting News & Technology, PDF - NewslettersAnother Renaissance?
/in Audio Tips, Interesting News & TechnologyHow About Another Renaissance?
By Geoff Woods
How many times have we heard the expression, “Everything old is new again,” or “There’s nothing new under the sun”? How about this one, “I’m so far behind, I think I’m in the lead.” Maybe that one’s just me.
Now, as I approach the half century mark on this planet, it’s become easier for me to see things that have come and gone do often come around again. We call that “retro”. Unfortunately, not everything comes back though. In fact, just the other day at the shop, the boys and I were waxing poetic about our misspent youth in the video arcades, and the vitally important role the local video rental shop played in our social development. Of course, there are many things that SHOULDN’T ever come back – like mullets, huge shoulder pads, and an embarrassingly large number of the bands that I’m slightly ashamed to say I did listen to in the 80’s.
But whether it be pure nostalgia, or a realization that maybe we’ve thrown the baby out with the bathwater a few times (and we should make an effort to get that baby back again), there are some things that give “Retro” a really good name. The Camaro, Mustang, and the Challenger – for a good first example. They are all doing a great job of teaching young North American men all about proper muscle car envy. Post Modern architecture, furniture design, and even some clothes can all remind us of the cyclical nature of great style too. TV shows like The Goldbergs, or Stranger Things capitalize on our tendency to look back with fondness and that’s good. And obviously music. I recently took in a Sheepdogs concert, and that totally pushed all my happy sense-memory buttons. If you’ve never heard the Sheepdogs, give them a listen. I bet you’ll get it.
What about Vinyl! Nobody is happier than myself about the rebirth and rejuvenation of vinyl and the record store. When I was in my late teens, the record store was one of those special places where I didn’t feel like a stranger from another planet. Now 30 years – and a number of formats later, the venerable turntable has once again achieved its deserved place of honor in the style-conscious living rooms of music lovers. In fact, some of the turntables available these days not only deliver an exquisite musical experience, but are easily as beautiful as any sculpture or art object that you could otherwise clutter up a flat surface with.
So now, I would like to propose another retro revolution. Perhaps more accurately, recognize it. This time it’s with speakers. Are you ready for it? Here goes. . . They need to get big again, and we need to embrace it.
Now, not DOMINATE THE ROOM big, just “This is a space for music and I belong here” big. I will admit that many of the big speakers of old were, well UG-LY. Forty years ago, the equation was simple: bigger box equals bigger bass, and pretty much every speaker manufacturer had us dancing to that tune. As a result, there were a lot of big ugly speakers out there. Then came the advent of mini-subwoofer-micro-satellite speaker systems back in the late 80’s, and we threw the baby out with the bathwater again.
Remember the demonstration where the smooth talking, mullet sporting, shoulder padded salesman played music through what looked like a pair of tower speakers, then he’d remove the tower speaker façade to reveal tiny little cube shaped boxes perched on poles to the surprised oohs and aaahs of his captive audience? What was unfortunately missing from that demo was a decent pair of tower speakers that one could compare to, but let’s not dwell on that now. It was a revolution. Almost every interior designer on the planet, and much of the female population immediately got on board with the idea of eliminating big speakers from the home. Almost to a point of religious fervor. Interior designers and significant others developed a vehement bias against the concept that a device that brings music into our home, (and thus enriches our life), should be in any way visible.
Now, before I alienate every interior designer and spouse (including my own), let me just clarify my thoughts by saying that some of you do understand that speakers don’t get big just for the sake of taking up more space in the living room. My point is, I think we need to officially take the next step and acknowledge that the space taken up by a full-sized quality speaker in the home, rightfully belongs to the speaker, and that is good. Why? Because the speaker serves a great and noble purpose, and that purpose is important in our lives. Spiritually, artistically, and aesthetically – they have great value.
Go with me here. Aesthetically speaking, interior design doesn’t begrudge the existence of a sink in a kitchen. You can’t have a kitchen without a sink, but let’s be honest, as a rule, sinks are not “pretty”. Yes, you might be able to find some inordinately high priced artistic blend of sculpture and plumbing by Blanco that your interior designer will effusively gush over, but at the end of the day, whether it’s made of stone, steel, or porcelain, it’s still a spokes model for the sewer that has been built into a counter top. It has a pipe sticking up out of it and a hole at the bottom.
By comparison, let’s look at a speaker: not a gateway to the sewer, but a window to a beautiful view of the world. It can soothe us when we’re anxious, it can inform us of current issues and events, it can motivate us to dance or call us to action, or simply put a smile on our face and a bounce in our step. Every day. In the same way that a kitchen cannot be a kitchen without a sink, I would argue that a living room has no life worth living without great music, and that comes from great sounding, proudly full-size speakers.
Today, we embrace the easy availability of music that modern life affords us. If we go back 150 years, the only way to get any music in your house was to bring musicians into your house; as a result, it was something that was only enjoyed by the super-rich and only on special occasions. They took up some space too. Then came the gramophone (talk about ugly! They have a kind of antique charm now, to be sure, but . . . no, scratch that. They were just ugly). Then in the early half of the 20th century we started to see big console radios arrive in the home. Roughly the size of a refrigerator on it’s side, but styled to fit in with the living room decor of that era. A meaningful piece of attractive furniture for the day (perhaps some still a bit ugly by today’s standards) – nobody was judged harshly or looked down upon for having one. It was a sign of success in fact, ushering in another new benefit of a modern society. People were now able to enjoy the luxury of music and information on demand in their home for the first time, and they understood that modern equipment that occupied space was required to make it happen.
These days it can seem that the very idea that you would allow a music reproduction device to occupy space in your room is something to be ridiculed. But often it’s because people have an image in their head of what that old console, or speakers looked like half a century ago. Nowadays, there are so many beautiful and different styles of speakers out there, that anybody who takes the time to look should be able to find something to suit their taste and appeal to their sense of visual design.
But again, to get there we first need to acknowledge that the full-size speaker DESERVES to have a dedicated place in our homes. The amount of space they occupy—and the amount of investment that they represent—are a direct reflection of how important music is in your life.
I used the term Renaissance in the title of this article as a direct reference to my current favorite speaker – made by the Electrostatic Speaker company Martin Logan. Big, and worth giving a listen to for no other reason than to remind us how lucky we are to live in this day and age where an incredible level of music reproduction in the home is so easily attainable. They are simply amazing. I opted for these full-size speakers in my home because they are brilliant sounding, and that is a function of their design/size. I couldn’t be happier with the sound or looks. I have no qualms about dedicating the requisite floor space they assume, to be rewarded with the enthralling musical experience they always deliver, on a daily basis.
There will always be those that will argue that a speaker need not be large, or even visible. While it is true that speakers can be built into walls or ceilings or minimized into something the size and shape of a water glass sitting on a counter, it’s nowhere near the same experience. If you could, honestly get the same performance out of a $199 Bluetooth enabled stocking stuffer that’s wedged between the vase and a lamp, I’d shut my mouth, pack up my shingle, go buy a squeegee and make my living on the corner of 17th Avenue, but the cold hard truth is that the level of the experience is fundamentally different.
To illustrate, let me go back to the plumbing analogy: As Charlize Theron showed us in the film “Monster,” all you need to get clean is a small sink in a gas station rest room, but that’s not what we WANT! We want a luxurious soaker tub or a glass walled shower with an 8-way adjustable massaging nozzle, and no self-respecting interior designer would ever try to talk us out of it. By way of comparison, a little Bluetooth widget simply can’t do what a free-standing pair of full size speakers can do – both visually and sonically. In the same way that trying to fill a giant soaker tub with an eyedropper would ultimately prove futile, trying to fill an 1800 cubic foot or larger living room with rich warm sound from something the size of a can of coke will leave you just as cold.
Let me wrap my call to arms up by addressing if there are any decent custom install solutions for those that still feel speakers should be heard and not seen. To that, I do have to answer a qualified yes. Qualified by three very important caveats:
1) Preparation. We need to think about it when the room is being built. Wires need to be run to the exact right locations before the drywall goes up,
2) Placement. Careful thought needs to go into where the speakers will be and how they will project sound toward the finished listening area – without restriction. Arranging the furniture in the space later is not a good plan, it’s a lack of one. And finally,
3) Price. High quality speakers cost what they cost. So, good in-wall or in-ceiling speakers are also not cheap. If the floor standing speakers that you like the sound of are $3,500 for the pair, you simply can’t expect to find an in-wall solution you will like for $800. And even then, the very best built-in speakers still won’t match the imaging and performance capabilities of a free-standing tower speakers, because a speaker’s sound is so massively affected by its cabinet, and no high-quality speakers are made out of drywall for very good reasons. Besides, you won’t be able to take those great sounding speakers with you if you move.
So, for all of these reasons I say, let us embrace the Renaissance of bringing breathtaking music via properly large speaker into our home again. A beautiful, stylish pair of speakers needs to be warmly embraced in our living rooms again, the same way we happily welcome a beautiful piece of art, Persian rug or a remarkably comfortable, yet inexplicably expensive chair.
The Control4 EA1 Sale
/in Automation & Integration, Events, Interesting News & TechnologyGet your Control4 EA1 Entertainment Controller Delivered today !
It’s a well known issue. The TV Entertainment system is central to any home, but controlling even the simplest system is needlessly complex. Add in the growing number of interconnected devices in the home and it’s clear that you need an EA1 Smart Controller with the automation horsepower Control4 and K&W can provide.
We want to make it easy for you. So, for the great sale price of only $999.00 (tax, delivery and installation included!) let’s get the most important room in your home running simply now. We will end that pain of multiple remotes – or even worse, poor universal remotes that don’t actually do it all. With the powerful new Control4 EA1 controller and sleek SR260 remote delivered and installed by us, it’s easier and more affordable than ever to get a simple to use actual smart system.
The powerful new EA 1 smart home controller easily operates the typical TV area. Included in the sale price package is the ability to simply control 4 devices, your TV, Cable box, Surround Amplifier, and Blu-ray/ streaming box from the Control4 SR 260 remote control. Other items can be added any time too, at a very low additional cost.
Along with simple total control of your home’s media system comes the bonus of a world of great new streaming music choices for you, built right into your new Control4 EA-1. They include Deezer, Napster, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and Tidal – supporting full rich 24-bit high resolution audio. Your easy to use and great sounding new system has an on screen display that is beautiful and intuitive. It can also be controlled via an app on your iPad, smart Phone (IOS or Android), or PC too, and all that music and functionality is included, at no extra cost.
Banish your coffee table covered in remotes forever, we know you will love your simple system makeover! Another great benefit of adding this Control4 platform is, now you can expand the system to automate and control as much of your home as you want, any time you want. Control all your entertainment equipment in every room of the house, add in lighting control, climate control, door locks, cameras, fans, blinds and so much more. Control4 inter-operates with over 9500 digital products, so the sky is the limit.
This offer is only for a limited time, and ends May 15th, so call to arrange for delivery and installation of your Smart Home controller today!
On Saturday April 25th we revealed Neolith for the first time in Canada!
/in Audio Tips, Events, Interesting News & Technology, PDF - NewslettersExperience Neolith.
Martin Logan had the first say. “Our Truth in Sound Tour came to Canada with exclusive demos of our newest flagship speaker, Neolith, starting at one of the finest audio dealers in the country, K&W Audio. Experience sound reproduction like you’ve never heard from a bold new loudspeaker—the product of an ambitious 3-year-long development process. Martin Logan representatives will be there to answer questions, give intimate demos and provide you with a glimpse into the exciting and unique world of electrostatic speaker technology.”
The gathering was a big success. Guests to these free events are always encouraged to bring their own music, and in this case to personally experience their favorite music again, for the first time, as performed on Martin Logans Flagship $110,000.00 Neolith loudspeakers. This was a once in a lifetime chance to experience something very special!
Please accept our thanks for having accepted this personal invitation to you.
See you at the next event!
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