Wigwam Jones

Having recently been uprooted from my home in North Carolina and thrust into the rust-and-insanity that is the Detroit area of Michigan, I have discovered some upside to the whole thing. One of those positive things was that I was able to reconnect with an online discussion forum that I had been involved with a few years previous, AudioKarma. AudioKarma, or AK as it is affectionately known, is a typical discussion forum, but with very untypical members. Unlike many discussion forums which purport to cater to the audiophile (snort), AK's members are more interested in good music and how to get there. If it involves some high-end expensive kit, there are a number of members who are well-heeled enough to get there. But if it can be done on the cheap, there are members whose budgets might be constrained, but their imaginations are not. From vintage tubes amplifiers to solid-state 1970's receivers to the best that the 'Top of The Line' has to offer, these guys run the gamut. And the amazing part? They do it without attitude, and with only the occasional firefight.

So, once a year, these lunatics converge on Detroit to get drunk - er, I mean, socialize with adult beverages, listen to each other's audio gear, check out the latest high-end kit, swap wives, er, I mean lies, and generally enjoy each other's company in person. Putting faces to names can be interesting - and in the case of AK, where just about ever buddy uses an alias of some sort, there is much peering at "Hi, my name is" name tags, since online personas really don't match up with real life personalities at all.

So, I was thrilled to find myself sojourning only a stone's throw from the location of this year's AK Fest. As it turned out, my eeeeevil employer called me on the phone while I was at the fest and I had to go to work before I could enjoy the entire festival, but I got back at them - I'm writing this from there. Hah. Bastiches.

Alright, enough with the palaver, here's the photos. Click on them if you want to see them bigger. Just remember to 'back click' to come back here, ya boneheads.

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Always start off with a pretty lady. This here is a pretty lady. She was selling 50-50 raffle tickets. Unless that activity happens to be illegal in Michigan. In that case, she was soliciting donations to a local charity. Whichever. Sorry, guys, I did not ask her name. Mrs. Wiggy would not approve. Well, actually, Mrs. Wiggy would be fine. She'd be busy laughing at me stuttering and blushing like a fool, is what.

This is the hotel. Now, the funny part is that it is described on AK as "The Plaza Hotel." Sounds swanky, right? Well, it is the "Howard Johnson Plaza Hotel," is what. Which is another way of saying it combines the best of Communist-era design with rooms inspired by the movie "Escape from Alcatraz." The place looks ok, but it has fun mystery elevators. You never know if you're going to arrive on your selected floor or not! Sometimes, the elevator stops between floors and pauses for awhile, as if catching its breath. Strange as it may seem, 'plunging to my death' was not actually how I intended spending my weekend! What the heck, AK Fest is NOT FOR THE WEAK! Anyway, here's what the place looks like from outside.

Presuming you survive your terror-filled journey to the 12th floor (maybe it is really the 13th floor, hmmm?), you must register and pay your fee. Yes, nothing in life worth having is free, pals. There are also refreshments you can buy in case you need them. Having tossed my cookies in the elevator, I was curiously not tempted. However, there was a raffle and you could buy shirts-n-stuff. Mrs. Grumpy was guarding the till.

Why look, it's Grumpy hisself! Yes, he was harried, hurried, overwhelmed, and still managed to sport a smile. Well, I think he was smiling on the inside. When he said "Get that camera out of my face, you freak," I think he meant it in a nice way. Just to return the favor, I flicked a booger as I walked past. The first time I met him, he was so scary, I think I pooped a little.

An absolute must-see is the Swap Room. This is a bunch of vintage equipment that is reasonably-priced (and folks, I do mean reasonable - as in better than eBay prices without the mystery over whether it works and without the Bob and the Amazing Shitheads ™) packing job one normally gets from eBay 'professional sellers'. Seriously, there were some amazing deals, and only a few Sansuis.

Every room in the hallway was inhabited by either an AK regular and their favorite "You have got to hear this" gear, or by a manufacturer or retailer of high-end audio equipment who was demonstrating and auditioning their latest and greatest. I saw some fantastic gear, folks, from the least expensive to the nose-bleed area. All of it was terrific. In some cases, I'd walk into a room and not even have a chance to sit down before my mind was blown by the incredible sound. Truly, there were some systems there that would make you weep, and not just at the price tag.

Here is my friend Squidward's setup. I actually watched him build that Dynaco you see there last weekend. And that cigar box is actually a passive pre-amp he built. In his regular job, he makes rabbit hutches that are really radios, and guns that are really pens. Nobody knows why.

No AK Fest would be complete without the Kegger, doing, er, whatever it is that he does. Squidward says that he is a Mad Genius ™ and he certainly may be. He is definitely someone you want to get to know. And avoid making mad. Anyway, he's got some great stuff. I love the look of those tubes in his ST-70. Are they cool or what? He demonstrated for me his use of low-gain tubes and no feedback design - with the pre-amp set to 'CD' and the volume turned up full with no signal, there was NO noise, hum, or anything else coming from his speakers. Truly awesome, and the mark of a true mutant, er, I mean genius, to trust his own designs enough to risk blowing his speakers out the twelfth-floor window of the HoJo Hotel. Anyway, here's Kegger. Dude looks like a Viking warrior. Put a helmet with horns on him and a period costume, and he'd scare the bejabbers out of people.

This is the location of one of the little-known and unadvertised specials of AK Fest. To the outside world, this looks like the Smoking Area. But in reality, this is the secret location of the Sansui Drop. Yes, Sansui's are brought to this location hidden in catering carts, and handed over to the High Priests of HiFi. An incantation is muttered, and another Sansui meets its maker in the parking lot below. Well, one of them met a Honda. Which is really ironic, when you think about it. But the Honda owner was less than thrilled. Come to think about it, the guy whose Sansui was chucked over the edge was less than happy as well. There is an identical location on the other end of the building, this is where the Bose Tune-up Clinic is conducted. Strangely, the way to properly tune a Bose speaker appears to also involve heaving off the balcony of the twelfth floor. Strange.

A must at any real audio event - stuff blew up! But it is totally cool to see people pitching in to get things running again, and to turn off the fire sprinklers.

I confess, I did not get everyone's name, nor did I pick up all the fliers or schmooze with all the audio reps. I did have a nice chat with Bill Ohara, VP of Business Development with Tetra, whose speakers sound terrific (Bill, you owe me, dude):

Tetra Speakers

I also met briefly with Larry Moore of The UltraFi Times and he seemed like a nice enough fellow. Kept a parrot in a sack, for reasons I cannot understand. He kept calling it 'Ed DiBenedetto' and beating it with a stick. Humm.

This is Markus. He built the speakers you see below. Metal cone drivers to match the tweeter and his own custom crossover. I have seldom heard speakers that sound as good as these, that have such presence, and a soundstage that just follows you around and knocks you upside the punkin' haid. You really owe it to yourself to hear these.

The remaining photos are people I met and stuff I saw and listened to. I was incredibly happy to have been able to attend, and very sad that my eeeevil employer called me in to work before I got to hear the live Blues show on Saturday night, or attend the second day on Sunday. I will get my vengeance. But anyway, enjoy the remaining photos - if you see anything you think needs a caption, drop me a line and I'll do so. If you are in any of these photos and you'd rather you weren't, let me know that and I'll do something horrible to your face in Photoshop just to torment you. If you're one of the fine reps of the audio equipment pictured, send me your contact info and a link and I'll post it up next to the photo of your stuff. For the humor-impaired - no parrots were beaten, no Sansuis were hove, and only a few Bose speakers were taught to fly, really. So enjoy the photos, and then get lost. Make plans to be at AK Fest next year, or we will talk about you and make jokes about your family tree.