Paul Klipsch et al. "The Dope from Hope"

[mhardy6647]

No, silly, Paul Klipsch wasn't "the Dope from Hope". Far from it. But he and his cronies published an occasional series of newsletters called "The Dope from Hope" on many topics of interest to Klipsch owners and 'audiophiles' (dont' think Paul would've ever used that term) in general.

A recent posting on the Klipsch forum provides a collection of "Dope(s) from Hope" as a PDF file. Just spent some time over coffee perusing these and heartily recommend a look at these for some insight into the Klipsch "cult" (OK, that sounds perjorative -- let's say "mindset") as well as some apt observations on the reproduction of sound.

I think you can see this and download the PDF whether or not you're registered on the Klipsch forums. If not, heck, go ahead and register. They're good folks, too!
http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/thread/740081.aspx

[Nat]

I hope that website has my all time favorite audio ad, featuring Paul Klipsch looking sternly at a Klipschhorn: "Why is the best behaved speaker made to stand in the corner?"

[macaltec]

Thanks mrh. I'll have to read that when time permits.

[mhardy6647]

Nope, no ads, Nat. The one you describe may well be archived somewhere on the Klipsch site -- they're still pretty proud of their heritage.

[pmsummer]

The Colonel speaks.

[img=http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/8546/pwklivemusic7uq.th.jpg] (http://img196.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pwklivemusic7uq.jpg)

[Sandy G]

I saw/read an interview w/ Mr Klipsch years & years ago...Don't remember where I saw it, but I remember getting the feeling that Klipsch wouldn't mind to spit in the Devil's eye if the notion struck him.

[Negotiableterms]

I vaguely recall reading somewhere that Paul Klipsch had a heart attack at a fairly young age, then lived for a long time by doing his own form of cardiac rehab. He was supposed to have been the inspiration for another engineer with the same problem, Nathan Pritikin, who went on to found the Pritikin Institute and pioneered the whole low-fat slow-sugar heart-healthy movement.

I spent time at Pritikin, and while it did good things for my health, the food was all but inedible.

Caveat: I've no idea if either of those claims are true, and my memory is crappy, at best.

[mhardy6647]

Klipsch lived to the ripe old age of (IIRC) 99, and was still involved with the company well into his 90's. He was a famously "no BS" kind of guy.

[MitsuMan]

Klipsch lived to the ripe old age of (IIRC) 99, and was still involved with the company well into his 90's. He was a famously "no BS" kind of guy.


quite a change from the beancounters and lawyers that run most companies nowadays :tears: :tears: :tears:

[silversport]

Klipsch lived to the ripe old age of (IIRC) 99, and was still involved with the company well into his 90's. He was a famously "no BS" kind of guy.

"BS" being a favorite term (Yellow button with the word in "olde" English" on the reverse side of his lapel)... :D ...VERY health concious...
Bill

[mhardy6647]

Indeed (on both counts).

[Brian]

As a retired "bean counter" and lawyer I resent that statement. I worked at Genesis in their heyday so look for other reasons a company has bad product such as the marketing department that looks to deliver larger and larger sales volumes and could care less where they come from.

[dnewma04]

With all due respect, the numbers are what drive a huge majority of businesses and most of the time it makes perfect sense to do that. There are always exceptions, and certain companies take rather maverick approaches to product development/marketing, but more often than not those companies don't have the solid financial foundation that the bean counting companies do. I wouldn't take too much offense to these types of generalizations.

[dnewma04]

As far as Col. Klipsch goes, he would last about 1 day here before being permanently banned for insulting every vendor of boutique equipment and thuroughly trampling things like 100.00 stress ball based isolation devices. As others said, he took a very no-nonsense approach to audio and was one of the more helpful people you'd ever meet. Talk to most any DIY audio nut from the 50s and they probably had some sort of snail mail correspondence with the good colonel despite the gruff demeanor. Much like Roger Russell, the old school audio guys represent everything good about the industry, unlike good ol' Amar Bose.

[wualta]

I thoroughly enjoyed the interview with PWK in Audio magazine, probably in the '70s. I was out of the audio world for many years after that and only recently found out that O. Gadfly Hurtz was no longer with us. Had a good time on the Klipsch site watching the videos of the aged PWK talking about his work.

He reminds me somewhat of fellow Hoosier Kurt Vonnegut. I don't know why.

If anyone ever comes across a copy of young-adult author Daniel Pinkwater's book The Snarkout Boys And The Avocado Of Death, they will find inside, of all things, a delicious parody of the ideal 1950s hi-fi system which, inevitably, contains a powerful, efficient, organ-pulverizing, paralysis-inducing monster loudspeaker called the Klugwallah-- obviously Pinkwater had the mighty Klipschorn firmly in mind.

[mhardy6647]

I consider organ pulverization an essential part of the audiophile experience.

[Brian]

Not the messege that should be 1st on a page, especially when page 2 can be opened directly without going through page 1. Makes 1 wonder what type of organ is being discussed.

[pmsummer]

Not the messege that should be 1st on a page, especially when page 2 can be opened directly without going through page 1. Makes 1 wonder what type of organ is being discussed.

Would that be the "Hi-Fi-Dykes" group? (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) ;-)

[Brian]

I dunno but, when I opened to the page and read it, a certain very valued part of my body and where my brains reside if you ask my wife immediately cringed and retreated.

[wualta]

I consider organ pulverization an essential part of the audiophile experience.
Durn straight.

Internal organs, guys. [sfx: collective sigh of relief]

Do read the book; those of you familiar with Chicago (aka Baconburg) will probably recognize landmarks like Bughouse Square and Old Town, and you'll learn something about avocados, too.

[Jay Pemberton]

I think you can see this and download the PDF whether or not you're registered on the Klipsch forums. If not, heck, go ahead and register. They're good folks, too!
http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/thread/740081.aspx

I've tried this download, and can't get it to work. I'm able to determine that there's 71 pages of it, but they're all white (blank) screens! What to do?

[dnewma04]

Its not too uncommon for Adobe acrobat to take a significant amount of time to load large files, making it appear as if it's blank. My suggestion would be to right click, Save Target As and save it to your PC before opening it.

[Jay Pemberton]

There's no such function on my computer (it's an iMac). I tried downloading once again. It all shows that it's 1.4 MB of data and that it's all downloaded....but still, blank 'pages'. WTF??

[pmsummer]

There's no such function on my computer (it's an iMac). I tried downloading once again. It all shows that it's 1.4 MB of data and that it's all downloaded....but still, blank 'pages'. WTF??

Have you upgraded to the latest version of Acrobat Reader (or OSX Preview)?

[pmsummer]

Could be a memory shortage, too. Dump that cache lately?

[Jay Pemberton]

All I know is, every other pdf I've downloaded has worked just fine. Even the mega-huge ones for the service manual for the Revox A77 tape machine.

[pmsummer]

All I know is, every other pdf I've downloaded has worked just fine. Even the mega-huge ones for the service manual for the Revox A77 tape machine.

Jay,

PM me, and I'll send you my copy as a test. Also, have you tried to open it with Preview (as opposed to Acrobat Reader)?