Solving The Speakon Mystery

Posted on by Jeff Posted in audio visual, good business ideas, Pro Sound, speaker cables — No Comments ↓

speakon connectors from buyspeakercable.comOne of the most common questions we get is about using our Speakon connector equipped speaker cables.  It’s a good question and it is very easy to understand why a customer might be confused.

speakon speaker cables from buyspeakercable.comThere are three versions of the NL series connector, and you can find out more about those here.  The confusion comes from many manufacturers choosing to use the NL4 style connector (4 poles) in applications where only two conductors are needed.  This has led to a sort of “de facto” standardization based on the fact that the Speakon standard has been slowly accepted as the way to go by most speaker cabinet and amplifier manufacturers.

By using the NL4 standard, speaker manufacturers have been able to create a product that can be either “mono-amped”(single signal for all components in the speaker cabinet) or “bi-amped” (separate amp signal for the two different components in the cabinet).  The ability to choose whether a speaker is mono-amped or bi-amped based on internal wiring in the cabinet creates lots of flexibility and this makes the confusion worth while.

Speaker cables from buyspeakercable.com are all two conductor but use the NL4 connector standard.

Best of all (even with yet a little more confusion), the NL4 male connector will fit into the same female connector as the NL2.  They are completely interchangeable.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries,  Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.  Every speaker cable we sell is “Satisfaction Guaranteed“.

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We Could See This One Coming

Posted on by Jeff Posted in good business ideas, Pro lighting, Pro Sound — No Comments ↓

We count lots of smaller, mid-market arenas as good customers, and have been in the supply business for long enough to see lots of changes in the development of 3000-10,000 seat venues.  While it’s great to have new customers,  it isn’t quite so exciting when you discover that they can’t pay their bills.

An article in yesterday’s New York Times brought to light how overbuilding, overselling and problems in the broader economy have brought some of these arenas to the brink of bankruptcy.  Unfortunately, since most of them are owned by municipalities, simple bankruptcy is not a real option.  The whole town would have to essentially go out of business to do that.  Not really very realistic.

Towns all over America were sold on the idea that building an arena would revitalize their downtowns or allow them to drive development to a new area where they wanted to focus future economic growth.  The companies that took the lead in making these sales have failed to deliver the promised fans in the seats and the money they were supposed to bring with them.

Now they are having to do things like put off  employee raises and leave other bills unpaid to service the debt on their new buildings.  Layoffs probably come next.

Even in good economic times, the demand for tickets to second tier sports teams is limited and there are not enough concert and entertainment acts that can make money in these mid-size performance spaces.

We wish the best for these towns that are now struggling to afford their new palaces but realize that they are not all going to survive.

Anybody want to buy an arena?

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries,  Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.  Every extension cord we sell is “Satisfaction Guaranteed“.

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And Now For My Second Act…

Posted on by Jeff Posted in audio visual, good business ideas, Pro lighting, Pro Sound — No Comments ↓

I have written before about how live event production is failing to attract new, young talent and how this industry, particularly concert sound production, continues to “gray”.

The most recent edition of Front of House magazine (one of my favorite trade journals) highlights how some of those concert production pros are redefining their careers in the information age.

Front of House, or FOH is published by Timeless Communications, the leader in trade journal publications for the sound and lighting industry.  They touch just about every aspect of hands on production with good articles, equipment reviews and industry news.

In their current edition, FOH announces the hiring of Mark Frink as the new editor.  Frink is well known to the pro audio community, having worked with acts ranging from Tony Bennett to Jessica Simpson.  He’s worked at the Super Bowl and was involved in Pope John Paul II appearance at Giants Stadium,  so he obviously knows what producing a big event is all about.

Congratulations to Mark in his new position.  We look forward to reading his contributions.  And a tip of the hat to Timeless Communications and FOH for turning to the industry that supports them to provide new talent.

In an business where a retirement plan is about as elusive as perfect sound at every seat in the house,  it’s great to see new ideas for a “second act.”

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries,  Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.  Every extension cord we sell is “Satisfaction Guaranteed“.

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What Do Travelers Want? More Holes In The Wall

Posted on by Jeff Posted in audio visual, extension cords, good business ideas — No Comments ↓

tex talks about extension cords-buyextensioncord.comThere was nothing really surprising in a recent article in The New York Times about amenities that travelers want.  They want outlets to plug in all the electronic gadgets they travel with.

After spending a few days in a very nice New York City boutique hotel and constantly plugging and unplugging devices, I knew exactly what they meant.  My wife’s Ipad ended up plugged into an outlet under the sink in the bathroom and we had to take turns charging our cell phones.  What few outlets that were provided were obscured by heavy furniture and having to unplug the reading light to plug in a computer made less sense every time I did it.

The Times writer even speculated that even more than the big flat screen tv, travelers wanted the outlets concealed behind it!

Here are a couple of items you might want to consider adding to your overnight bag to help solve the problem.

A Tri Outlet Cube Tap lets you turn one outlet into three with a device that you can hold in the palm of your hand. Tri Outlet Cube Tape

A Right Angle Adapter allows you to make an outlet that is otherwise inaccessible because there is not enough space between it and a piece of furniture usable by turning the outlet 90 degrees.

A Three Way Splitter also lets you turn one outlet into three, but has the additional advantage of ten inch cable extensions on each outlet, so that there is plenty of room to connect chargers, power supplies or other bulky items designed to plug directly into the outlet without a cable.

Threre way splitter

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries,  Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.  Every extension cord we sell is “Satisfaction Guaranteed“.

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Can “Less” Mean More? Maybe This Time

Posted on by Jeff Posted in customer service, good business ideas — No Comments ↓
Glow Tape From Buytape.com

Someone from our shipping department handed me a roll of glow tape yesterday and said it was mislabeled.  The box said 1 inch by 10 yards (our standard size) but the roll was obviously smaller in diameter (shorter) and weighed considerably less.  I assumed there had been a packing error and we had been sent five yard rolls.

Glow Tape From Buytape.com

It turns out that the manufacturer of this product had reformulated it to use a thinner film and that the new film made the roll diameter smaller.  Still 10 yards.

In addition to not telling us about the thickness change, the tape manufacturer had also failed to tell us that the new version of this product was now designed to glow up to ten hours as opposed to the older version which glowed only eight.   Apparently, the thinner film also makes the tape hand tearable, so it can be used without a cutting tool.

We are  happy to pass this information along to our customers.  These manufacturing changes improve the product (another plus-lower shipping weight!) and we think end users will approve.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries,  Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.  Every extension cord we sell is “Satisfaction Guaranteed“.

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When Using Google Is Just Too Hard

Posted on by Jeff Posted in extension cords, good business ideas, web development — No Comments ↓

jeff harrison at goodbuyguys.comI spend a lot of time doing customer service.  The products we sell lead to many application-related customer questions, and since I have the most “hands on” experience using the products we sell, answering these questions often falls to me.

I don’t mind doing it, but we make every effort we can to avoid using the phone for customer service functions.  In addition to the ability to get savable information in front of the customer, doing customer service functions online and through email allows me to time shift.   If providing answers doesn’t involve constant telephone interruptions my responses can almost always be more thoughtful, concise and detailed.

I came across a great tool today for answering a customer inquiry by simply emailing them their own question, formulated in a way that Google will deliver the answer that I want to provide.  It has a great “wow” factor and really enhances the customer service experience.

It is called “Let Me Google That For You” (lmgtfy.com).

One of the most common questions I get is “what is the proper extension cord size for my appliance“.  We have a chart at buyextensioncord.com that addresses this question.  By formulating a google inquiry so that it points at our content, entering it into letmegooglethatforyou.com and sending the customer the tiny url that is generated, i can get Google search results in front of the customer that look like organic search but which have been manipulated to insure that the customer sees the results that I intend for them to see.

Try clicking on http://tinyurl.com/6xpgvny and you’ll see what I am talking about.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries,  Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.  Every extension cord we sell is “Satisfaction Guaranteed“.

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Are You Ready To Pay For Their “Free” Shipping

Posted on by Jeff Posted in customer service, duct tape, gaffers tape, tape, web development — No Comments ↓

Free shipping is all the rage in e-commerce these days, and it appears that major online retailers have actually convinced internet shoppers that shipping really is free.

You don’t have to apply much thought to this before it becomes apparent that the cost of shipping has to be rolled into the cost of the product. The merchant would not be able to survive, much less be profitable, if this was not the case. “Free” is, no doubt, the most powerful word in marketing, but there is a catch. A big catch!

Customers ask us every day if we will give them free shipping.  Regrettably, the answer is always “no“.  Here’s why.

Everything we sell is heavy.  A case of gaffers tape weighs 48 lbs.  When you place an order online, our shopping cart asks for your zip code, calculates the weight of the shipment, and gets your shipping cost directly from a UPS shipping database.  This cost is added as a separate line item when you complete the purchase transaction.

We ship our products nationwide from North Carolina warehouse.  If you are ordering from Greenville,  SC your shipping cost would be $18.14.  The same order shipped to Phoenix, AZ would have a $43.19  freight cost.  If we offered free shipping, then the customer in Greenville would have to pay more for the product to cover the cost of “free” when we shipped the same case of tape to Arizona.

Following the same logic, the customer in Reno, NV who orders a pair of shoes from Zappos (they are located in Las Vegas) and pays the same price as someone who orders those shoes and has them shipped to Norfolk, VA is paying more for the shoes than is necessary.  That’s because they have to cover  Zappos’ costs when they ship something across the country.

I don’t know when or if the “Free Shipping” craze in e-commerce will fade from fashion, but I do know that it is not free.

Share your observations on free shipping.  We’ll pass them on to our readers.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries,  Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.  Every extension cord we sell is “Satisfaction Guaranteed“.

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Can You Hear Electricity? What Does $159.99 Sound Like

Posted on by Jeff Posted in audio visual, extension cords, Pro Sound, speaker cables — No Comments ↓

good-idea-jeff_small_biggerOne of my regular reads is a trade magazine called Pro Sound News.  I’ve been a loyal reader for many years and have written before about the educational value of these free, industry supported publications. I even look at the ads.

An add for Essential Sound Products caught my eye, as advertising for something like a basic power cord really stands out among full page adds for the latest digital mixers and speaker line arrays.

A quick look at ESP’s web site made it clear that this ad wasn’t about a simple power cable. Not when you’re talking about $159.99 for a 7 foot power cable.

We like to think that we know a little about power cables, so Essential Sound’s claim that standard heavy gauge power cables cause (their words)

-High Frequency Roll Off

-Blurred Imaging

-Bloated, Sluggish Bass Response

caught us by surprise.

There may be some small truth to the possible ability of a well engineered cable to deliver measurable improved audio performance (we use the word “may” here). There is absolutely nothing that a cable that delivers power for the last two meters of its travel to an amplifier (wall plug to audio device) can do to address possible deficiencies in the building wiring, wall plug, service entrance cable or the miles of wire that the power company runs to get to the point where ESP’s cable takes over.  It’s a passive device and  can’t put something into available power that is not already there.

Money spent on a well made extension cord or power cable with a large enough gauge to not dissipate power as heat is money well spent.  Any additional expense would be better spent on upgrading your audio equipment.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries,  Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.  Every extension cord we sell is “Satisfaction Guaranteed“.

Instant Church

Posted on by Jeff Posted in audio visual, gaffers tape, mic cables, microphones & mic stands, Pro lighting, Pro Sound — No Comments ↓
spokesperson for goodbuyguys.com

We have had a strong involvement in supporting sound and audio-visual technicians in the church market for many years, and I have recently become aware of an exciting new trend in church services.

This involves churches that hold services in spaces not normally intended for worship. Holding church services in a storefront, a school auditorium, or a hotel meeting room is nothing new. It has been going on for years, and it is the way many churches get started. Building a church is expensive, and until there are enough members to sustain the cost, some temporary space is necessary. This is not the trend I am talking about.

What I am talking about is a church service focused on youth that is done as a full blown concert experience. This means a full band with a concert quality sound system, high end lighting, video image magnification and special effects. The whole set up loads into a local arena or amphitheater like a regular show and is run by church staff members who are experts in various areas of special event production.

Having to set up full sound, lighting, video and staging is a tremendous amount of work, but bringing their message into an environment where young people are open to new ideas is proving to be really effective.

We salute these technicians in their efforts and are proud to be a part of what they are doing.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries,  Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.

Customer Service-It’s Not About “Nice” Anymore

Posted on by Jeff Posted in customer service, good business ideas, web development — No Comments ↓

Lately, it seems that we are having to spend just about as much time managing relationships with our suppliers as we spend with our customers.  It shouldn’t be that way, but you do what you have to do.

One of the things that always surprises me when we have issues with suppliers is how some of them seem to think that being “nice” to us, their customer, is what is really important.  That might have been the case in the day of the business lunch and the phone order, but electronic communication has pushed “nice” to the back burner, particularly when a supplier thinks that being polite can take the place of being informed.

It’s really difficult to be tough with a supplier when they think that kind words and thoughtful pauses can make up for not being able to tell me the status of my order or why i was shipped the wrong product.

What we want is information.  One of the greatest things about electronic communication is that it’s easy to set a business like tone without being compromised by someone’s attempt to “nice” their way out of a situation when they don’t have the answer you want.

In this day and age, being a good “listener” really means that you are a good reader.  We like it that way.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries,  Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.

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