Wanted to get some advice about starting reconing at my amp shop. Good idea?

[Ronsonic]

1)The popularity of 3 gun projectors faded. Most customers were keeping their $5000.00 projectors running until HD, Flat Panel Big Screens and LCD projector technology evolved. As it did my customer base dissolved. I knew I wanted to work more in computers so I didn’t even try to keep up with the technology.
Thanks!

Here's one for a disappearing customer base - the shop I work in had a couple guys who got into repairing plasma TVs. That lasted about 6 months. Good Lord did some people pay a lot of money for a crappy picture.

[Prairie Dawg]

Here's one for a disappearing customer base - the shop I work in had a couple guys who got into repairing plasma TVs. That lasted about 6 months. Good Lord did some people pay a lot of money for a crappy picture.

I went to an auction one time, all the ad said was 'electronics and parts' . I get there and I find out that the guy had had a TV repair shop and when that went down the loo he decided that the "next coming thing" was VCRs so went and bought a buttload of repair parts and special purpose test equipment to fix the things. There was a garage full of parts next to his house.
I've made some bum choices in life but that one took the cake.

I ended up with three Tek scopes for about forty bucks for the lot.

As a point of information the last place that repaired CRTs shut down here last year.

[Enzo]

We all know DVDs, but remember "Laser Discs"? They were basically the same thing as a DVD but they were 12" discs. Much nicer picture than the VCRs made at the time. I bring up Laser Discs only to contrast the "other" competing format - the RCA disc. Your disc actually had a groove, like a vinyl record, and a very long thin light stylus played that groove making video. The disc stayed in a plastic shell, like a huge floppy. You stick the whole thing into the slot, flipped the lever and pulled the now empty plastic casing back out. You never saw nor could touch the actual disc. It worked, but never caught on even as well as Laser Discs. SO what? Well I have one of those players.

COme to think of it, I also have a Beta VCR next to my VHS one. The basic difference is that the VHS deck blinks "12:00" all the time, while the Beta deck blinks "88:88" all the time.

And yes, you could easily spend hundreds of dollars on take-up reel torque meters and such for VCR service.

[Prairie Dawg]

My old man allus said I was studying for my doctorate in obsolete technology, and I see I am not the only one.

[olddawg]

We all know DVDs, but remember "Laser Discs"? They were basically the same thing as a DVD but they were 12" discs. Much nicer picture than the VCRs made at the time. I bring up Laser Discs only to contrast the "other" competing format - the RCA disc. Your disc actually had a groove, like a vinyl record, and a very long thin light stylus played that groove making video. The disc stayed in a plastic shell, like a huge floppy. You stick the whole thing into the slot, flipped the lever and pulled the now empty plastic casing back out. You never saw nor could touch the actual disc. It worked, but never caught on even as well as Laser Discs. SO what? Well I have one of those players.

COme to think of it, I also have a Beta VCR next to my VHS one. The basic difference is that the VHS deck blinks "12:00" all the time, while the Beta deck blinks "88:88" all the time.

And yes, you could easily spend hundreds of dollars on take-up reel torque meters and such for VCR service.

Worked on them all, even gas laser Pioneer units for the Dragon's Lair games in the early 80s. (I still have dreams with Dirk in it) Still have the test discs. Even worked on the all in one units unit that played both sides of a laser discs AND DVDs. I still have my Beta head excentricity guage. Even reel torque guages for R to Rs. There was also the Zenith "Time Machine" format, the Akai black and white R to Rs, and of course Umatics (which I think could be converted to garage door openers). C format, mini disc, mini dv, etc

[jrfrond]

Worked on them all, even gas laser Pioneer units for the Dragon's Lair games in the early 80s. (I still have dreams with Dirk in it) Still have the test discs. Even worked on the all in one units unit that played both sides of a laser discs AND DVDs. I still have my Beta head excentricity guage. Even reel torque guages for R to Rs. There was also the Zenith "Time Machine" format, the Akai black and white R to Rs, and of course Umatics (which I think could be converted to garage door openers). C format, mini disc, mini dv, etc

I guess I'm another OLDDAWG!

I remember ALL of that and more dude! Tension gauges,whether they were fish scale types, Tentelometers or cassettes, those Pioneer gas laser units, LaserDiscs, laser power meter (still have my Leader), wow & flutter meters (ditto for Leader; have two of 'em in the shop), dummy cassettes, and how about the Akai MG1212 12-track cassette mixer/multitrack. Remember THAT debacle? I also remember when CD's were new and going to Sony training school for the CD-101, and later on, their 8mm tape format. Oh yes, and we STILL have a closet full of ADAT parts!

Been a lot of years, hasn't it?

[olddawg]

I guess I'm another OLDDAWG!

I remember ALL of that and more dude! Tension gauges,whether they were fish scale types, Tentelometers or cassettes, those Pioneer gas laser units, LaserDiscs, laser power meter (still have my Leader), wow & flutter meters (ditto for Leader; have two of 'em in the shop), dummy cassettes, and how about the Akai MG1212 12-track cassette mixer/multitrack. Remember THAT debacle? I also remember when CD's were new and going to Sony training school for the CD-101, and later on, their 8mm tape format. Oh yes, and we STILL have a closet full of ADAT parts!

Been a lot of years, hasn't it?

Yeah...I've been off a shop bench for a few years but could wall paper my house with certificates. A good tech could make lots of money back in the 80s. The wierdest Akai I remember was the Rotomatic that flipped an audio cassette over rather than reversing the tape direction. 8mm was my bread and butter for years. I also went to those early CD training seminars. Sony seminars used to be great. The used to take us all out and get us wasted. Yamaha schools were pretty good too. People used to avoid Yamaha because they actually gave you a test to be certified every 2 years. I never had any trouble, but it sorted out the parts changers real quick. The last seminars I attended were teleconferenced on my bench computer. My home bench kind of spans the whole period with an old tube HP signal generator next to my laptop.

[Gibsonman63]

Thanks, guys. I don't feel so bad about keeping my 8-track tape player now.

[km6xz]

I spent some time last night reading this entire thread which had morphed between several topics. The idea of a forum for shops to compare notes and resources would be of interest to me. I am just starting again with a new shop in a new country after 7 years of absence and some products have changed, mostly recording and home recording in place of ADAT and 8mm format but everything else I've seen are variations of what went before, like the greater reliance on digital amps with the advent of cheap controllers. Regardless of the technology, a shop needs to stay current and be involved or the market will evolve away from them.
That is not always easy to do however because of the lack of techs. There really is a lack of good techs if you are looking for one, but overall the market does not need techs at all, things are just fine when nothing gets repaired, since costs are so low for most gear. Tech schools are the last place to find pro audio techs, or AA tech programs in community colleges. The pro audio tech is a dying breed because there really is not real need for the skills. Where else is a competent tech expected to be fully experienced with 1930's-2010's technology and make systems work that integrate pieces from that whole range? No engineering program would prepare for that, there is no commercial reason for it.
Mastery over such a wide range of technologies is not going to come from dabbling, but serious study and application during the relevant times.
Another essential ingredient that is in short supply is plain old diagnostic thinking skills. Maybe it is the lack of interest in science or logic, or the easy-answer-no-thinking characteristic of the internet but the reality is that few people can take appropriate data and come up with an accurate description of causes that fit the results. It is happening in all fields in our society, and surely is seen here where the first suggestion is often replace parts because "I've seen this happen and it was fixed by doing xxx" regardless of the evidence. It was a problem 10 years ago when I was trying to find good trainees. Trainees were those who had an aptitude, energy, and education to become a tech, even if they had been working in the field for a few years, seldom were they tech material. My problem with tech schools is related to motivation. A mid or low level school teaching current industry practice might be good for training assembly line workers but never a competent tech. It does not bode well when someone waited until going to a tech school to develop a career. I remember back when home recording was the hot business, there were hundreds if not thousands school turning out 100,000 grads a year but I never remembered one who was employable in the industry. There is no job openings for assembly line recording engineers, the only ones who can justify a paycheck, counting in the dozens not thousands, were those who were so involved and creative that every session was a series of inventive novel solutions to problems never encountered in any school. If it was routine, anyone could do it. High level performance is not an assembly line journeyman task. Everyone who was successful was a different breed, they would have found a tech school holding them back and would have quite due to boredom. That, because if they were motivated enough, they would have already devoured every book in the library by age 14 and would be decades further along by tech school age. Same with techs. The good ones keep up because they have a solid grounding in theory and math that applies to all technologies. Any one who says they are a tech and only know tube amps is lying, they are not a tech or they not that limited, they can't be both.
Engineers on the other hand primarily work with the contemporary technology. There is no commercial reason for anything else.
My shop, in two cities, near San Francisco and Las Vegas had 15 techs in the Cal shop and 2 in the Nevada shop plus about 10 support personnel and I ended up assessing their skill set and created their work load based on it, and the only techs I did not have to do most of the diagnosing for were a couple where as old or older than me. The shop grew very fast in an area that had a lot of competition. The growth from just me and my GF in our home as a consulting business for studios, to a dedicated building and 4 techs in 12 months and then a 5000 square foot modern carpeted R&D type facility with 5,000 Sq ft warehouse next door with dock and fork lift in another 12 months. We were in a very expensive area were the median house price was well over $1,000,000 but kept our top rate at $65/hour because the musician and small studio clients were barely making it themselves. To grow where there was already established shops we had to create new business and take market share away from others. Decades before I entered the studio business in a similar situation, surrounded by established studios with gold and platinum hanging on their walls. Luck and creative thinking made us top dog in the region and around the country within a year. We had to create new business and take market share which we did by just being different and more in line with the customer experience. For me, it was a long road, my first paying business in electronics was at 14 when I conned a small strip mall manager into renting a space to me, thinking I was doing it for my father...who knew nothing about it. It was an after school shop of repairing hi-fi and ham radios. When I graduated from HS midterm, I sold the shop to the parents of my only employee, a brilliant math whiz who was even nerdier than I was and now is a PhD in math on the faculty of UC Berkeley. We still laugh at the daring nerds can be found doing when they do not know there are limits.
Selling the shop was a pretty good pay off, allowed me to move to San Francisco in 1967 as an independent 17 year old with enough money to live frugally for a couple years if I wanted to. As it turns out, that freedom did not last long, and resulted in accidental involvement in music and recording,
A break to return to school for a EE followed the next year, which was the biggest waste of time for me, it held me back since I never worked for anyone and was already designing my own gear at a high level, including 2 patents in electronics before going to university. Concurrently started a small manufacturing company that built line amps and eq for studios and broadcast. Within days of landing in SF at 17, bands found that I could fix their amps, although I had never seen guitar amps nor was interested in music. Some of those ties that developed 44 years ago as a kid kludging amps back together, for kids in bands about the same age, are still there. Later I recorded many of those players for well known records. I was a nerd before the word was known but so was everyone else. No one seemed concerned about money, just the passion for what we all did. Since age 10, I doubt there has been more than a 2 week period during which I did not hold a hot soldering iron.

The current conditions are bad news for normalcy in a tech shop but in every change, the ones that embrace instead of resist it, become early winners. There are lots of opportunities out there but few in the traditional shops. Shops just are not needed so much despite how much we protest. Customer expectations are different, they are much more likely to replace something on whim than keep something for decades and maintaining it. There are more tube amp mechanics out there trying to eek out a living than old gear to keep working now, and more and more of it is getting maintained or ruined by hobbyists. When two of my biggest corporate clients filed for bankruptcy, leaving me with several hundred thousand in unpaid invoices I knew my heart just was not in a large shop anymore and wanted a change in life style and moved from the country, after giving everything to friends and employees except 1 car, 2 house and a storage unit full of personal items. What a change! and I've loved it, but I find that I enjoy fixing things too much to stay away this long and this city, and country really needs the business and technical skills I have to mold what is a still-born industry into a real support resource. I am going back to California next month for 2 weeks and will look up some old friends and ship some more gear here and have what is really missing here, a great Margarita, NY style pastrami on rye, and cheap quality wine prices.

So to get back the original question..expand in to a new field or not? Market research will be easy, you can count the number of shops where steady work might come from so contact them and see if they will agree to your prices and turn around time for switching. Find out what your business client needs are first, that will dictate investment and risk. Why would anyone switch or come to you? If it takes more than 2 seconds to spell it out to someone, no, don't do it. If you can specify why you will solve problems that customers think are as valuable to have go away as you do, you are onto something. If you do not know specifically who about 1/3 of your regular customers will be, names, phone numbers etc, really know they will be customers, it is a risk. Do the market research and design the business around the results of the research. You have some beliefs now, but no real facts. Most small businesses start with the owner believing they know what the market needs but only find out later what the reality is. Find out the reality of what is needed before you design the service. Most small businesses do not do well because of this disconnect between what they want to do versus what the customers value as problems that they will pay to go away. You might be the best hotdog vendor on the planet and you really have skill and desire to make the best but if your potential customers are vegans....you lose.
Same with service, go where the demonstrated problems are, ones the customers value. The more they value the problem, the more you can make for making the problem go away. 75% of small businesses fail because the own does not know who their customers are before designing the service to meet the needs. They figure, "if I am the best, customers will come". No, that is not true, it never has been.

[jrfrond]

Stan, I just did a "resume run" looking for techs. I specifically stated in the ad (you can find it on NY Craigslist in "Jobs"), that I wanted a PRO AUDIO TECH, and would not answer any other responses. Well, wouldn't ya know that I got MANY other kinds of techs responding as well, even though the ad was crystal-clear.

I'm sorry, but if you can't even read an ad, you aren't welcome as a tech in my shop either, because you cannot take basic instructions!

Yes, pro audio techs, REAL ones, are a dying breed, but ALSO a dying breed is just anyone who can actually THINK! That's what I am looking for... thinkers. Good troubleshooters are good thinkers. I don't want would-be techs who use the internet for solutions, or apply boilerplate problem/solution methods of repair. I can TRAIN people who THINK. Non-thinkers are untrainable.

Olddawg- Yeah, those multi-day Sony courses with their three-martini lunches were a cool thing back in the day. I was working as a tech in the old Crazy Eddie chain, and we used to get sent to Sony, Sharp, Panasonic (ALSO good lunches!), JVC, RCA... all of the companies were in NJ, so it was easy.

There were some wild products along the way. I do remember the Akai tape-flipper. I also remember the BIC record changer that used the reverse-drive Archimedes-screw system to gently move the next disc down to the turntable. Speaking of turntables, there was the gaggle of linear-drives out there. All of that consumer stuff! I thought it was crap back then, and now the stuff is REAL sh*t! Just went I thought it was safe, I went to work for Tandberg, and got a lesson in dealing with idiophiles (sorry, that's AUDIOPHILE'S) and some of the most idiosyncratic audio gear I'd ever worked on, and built like poop, to boot!

[Prairie Dawg]

A fried of mine has a marketing business that he started after being involved in the music industry with several manufacturers. He explains his principle this way. You've got to be able to explain what you do to the prospect in the elevator ride to the meeting. If you can't you need to rework your message or rethink what your plan is.

that's in line with what you're talking about.

I do know of one industry that integrates 70 years of technology in one consinuous stream and that is the aircraft engine service business, which I worked in for a number of years.

I also think I know what you're talking about in the realm of trouble shooting problem solving, which is something I've been trying to articulate for a long time. It is composed of equal parts of Venn diagram thinking, knowledge of the product, and a dedication to getting to the bottom of a problem. For lack of a better word I've called it 'economical thinking'.
In my former trade as an engine mechanic I often faced obscure operational problems and found that turning my subconscious loose would often solve a problem or give me a lead. I used to keep a notepad and a pencil on my night table for just such moments of inspiration.

My old crew chief always told me to 'think system', meaning, you can't see things in isolation but as part of a system or subsystem. The idea being, of course, that when something misbehaves, if you understand what its place is in the overall system it's easier to identify and remediate.

[olddawg]

Stan, I just did a "resume run" looking for techs. I specifically stated in the ad (you can find it on NY Craigslist in "Jobs"), that I wanted a PRO AUDIO TECH, and would not answer any other responses. Well, wouldn't ya know that I got MANY other kinds of techs responding as well, even though the ad was crystal-clear.

I'm sorry, but if you can't even read an ad, you aren't welcome as a tech in my shop either, because you cannot take basic instructions!

Yes, pro audio techs, REAL ones, are a dying breed, but ALSO a dying breed is just anyone who can actually THINK! That's what I am looking for... thinkers. Good troubleshooters are good thinkers. I don't want would-be techs who use the internet for solutions, or apply boilerplate problem/solution methods of repair. I can TRAIN people who THINK. Non-thinkers are untrainable.

Olddawg- Yeah, those multi-day Sony courses with their three-martini lunches were a cool thing back in the day. I was working as a tech in the old Crazy Eddie chain, and we used to get sent to Sony, Sharp, Panasonic (ALSO good lunches!), JVC, RCA... all of the companies were in NJ, so it was easy.

There were some wild products along the way. I do remember the Akai tape-flipper. I also remember the BIC record changer that used the reverse-drive Archimedes-screw system to gently move the next disc down to the turntable. Speaking of turntables, there was the gaggle of linear-drives out there. All of that consumer stuff! I thought it was crap back then, and now the stuff is REAL sh*t! Just went I thought it was safe, I went to work for Tandberg, and got a lesson in dealing with idiophiles (sorry, that's AUDIOPHILE'S) and some of the most idiosyncratic audio gear I'd ever worked on, and built like poop, to boot!

Yeah..I was an authorized tech from Akai to Zenith for consumer and professional stuff, audio and video. I never did a lot of TV work unless it had a VCR or DVD in it unless someone got stuck. (There was always some knucklehead popping HO transistors left and right) Things have really changed. I was in San Diego and all the manufacturers had their training facilities in the LA area with the budgets to party. Back in 1983 a shop could charge $165 (in 1983 dollars) labor for a major repair and that was during a recession. I could turn out 10 to 14 repairs a day and got 50% of that, more if I fixed someone else's dog. I took summers off and when I was in a touring band I would just leave. They always wanted me back when the band bombed.
In the end I found myself changing 250 pin chips with a binocular microscope. The young guys couldn't do it. The days when I could splice the voice coil leads on a horn diaphram at a gig with pecil iron and clear fingernail polish are now gone with my vision. Chemical exposure and stress have killed a lot of my peers. That's one thing I would stress to those wanting to open a shop. Daily exposure to all of the various solvents, lead, etc, are constant and cumulative. And shop owners could give a crap if you are an employee if you are being dosed. I remember my first day on the job at one shop. The owner showed my my coffee cup and my ashtray (every bench had them) and asked if I could repair big amps. I said sure, an amp is an amp. He dragged over a Pioneer 1980 on a cart already completely apart that had ben under a bench for 6 months, so and so had orderd a PT for it that it didn't need.

[Ronsonic]

Stan, I just did a "resume run" looking for techs. I specifically stated in the ad (you can find it on NY Craigslist in "Jobs"), that I wanted a PRO AUDIO TECH, and would not answer any other responses. Well, wouldn't ya know that I got MANY other kinds of techs responding as well, even though the ad was crystal-clear.

Mike J keeps trying CL and always gets a bunch of computer guys responding. So when he emails them to tell them what a moron they are and how they probably aren't real good with computers either if they auto-respond like that they flag his ad and it all starts over.

About 2005 went to a Yamaha keyboard and related seminar. Classes in the morning and the afternoon was spent rotating among ten stations made up of broke gear. That was excellent. Lots of good tasty failure modes harvested from real life.

[jrfrond]

About 2005 went to a Yamaha keyboard and related seminar. Classes in the morning and the afternoon was spent rotating among ten stations made up of broke gear. That was excellent. Lots of good tasty failure modes harvested from real life.

Yamaha's training sessions, like everything else they do, is brilliant. Their National Service Manager, Harvey Casey, is the best in the business (and a sweetheart to boot), and their instructors, especially Wayne Williamson are amazing.

The "resume run"... what a disappointment.

[Enzo]

Oh dear. Long ago when I was in field service, I would fly to Memphis or Boston, or wherever, having run local ads for techs. Then I spent a couple weeks there to hire local staff and get the operations set up. I know what you mean. Specific needs get ignored, levels of experience spec is ignored. Not to mention the guys who apply, then call several times a day, "in case I tried to get ahold of them and couldn;t."