Aug - AmericanRadioHistory.Com

status of an underground movement, prove able to regain
its rightful control? Recent peripheral skirmishes such as
the conservatives' attempt to improve binaural techniques
by providing different manufacturers with inspiringly
varied systems of head placement, although reminiscent of
past glories, demonstrated a lamentable lack of knowledge
of the devious strategems necessary to success in today's
Machiavellian atmosphere. Indeed, the only positive success
recently achieved, aside from the trifling development of
unco -ordinated rewind and forward speeds, to assure "tape
stretch," has been the rather whimsical appelative triumph
which resulted in one- hundred -pound recording machines
being equipped with handles for midgets and designated as
"portable." At least this demonstrates that our forces, even
though temporarily in retreat, have not lost their spirit.
But we - I mean you - will have to do better than that, or
the old tape -salad days will be only a memory.
6. However, you will be pleased to learn that a method
finally has been discovered to bypass the need for uniform
speed in tape reels. This is accomplished by a new machine
which stretches the tape out to its complete length of
twelve or eighteen hundred feet, and a transport mechanism
which carries the various heads along the tape's entire path.
Since these units were first tested in vacant elevator shafts
in the Empire State Building, unfortunate publicity was
attracted when several people, mistaking the transport
mechanism for an elevator, plunged to their deaths.* However,
no logical criticism of these units now remains with the
introduction of a marking system which positively identifies
them as not being elevators.
Dealers ....
T. Arrange the demonstration room so that any potential
customer is unable to find any place to sit except on a few
strategically placed, highly polished, mahogany enclosures.
2. Govern the length of your pre -customer approach
duties so that your customer is either forced into a state of
upright exhaustion or on to one of your enclosures.
3. In either event your customer is putty. If he is not in
a state of zero sales resistance from physical exhaustion, he
is sitting on one of your easily scratched mahogany enclosures.
If the latter be the case, your immediate examination
of the enclosure can be accompanied with sufficient obvious
consternation to foredoom any possible sales resistance.
4. Demonstrate all equipment with popular records for
the classical enthusiast and with classical records for the
popular enthusiast. For the dedicated jazzman, always play
Guy Lombardo.
5. If your customer is able to trouble you with
questions, the volume is obviously too low. Remember, it
isn't high fidelity unless the soles of their feet tingle.
6. If there seems to be any danger of a customer's actually
deciding upon a particular component, it is because you
have failed to demonstrate the products of a sufficient number
of manufacturers. However if, even after multiple
demonstrations, your customer perversely continues in his
eccentric decision to purchase a certain component, subtler
tactics should be employed. The technique certainly both
most advanced and likely of success is (or soon will be)
known to the trade as the "Faye Principle of Customer Indecision
When Confronted with a Constant Variable." To
illustrate: assume your customer has decided upon a certain
loudspeaker. All you need do is prepare an array
consisting of one dozen units of the model selected, in
essentially similar cabinets which look different. Then
simply conduct a demonstration, asking your customer to
compare unit one with unit two, unit two with unit three,
unit three with unit four, etc. Soon he will get into the
spirit of the thing, and indeed may well extend his newly
acquired critical techniques to include a searching analysis
of his own sanity.
t
*An interesting sidelight on this tragedy was provided when it was found that
the recording mechanism had been in operation during the fatal fall. The
screams recorded produced some of the best and most realistic high frequency
tapes of the human voice yet created. Due to the difficulty of arranging an
encore, it is expected that these tapes will prove standard for some time.
By way of summary: the demonstration's purpose is to
impress upon the customer the futility of relying upon his
own miserable judgment and the necessity of placing com-
DRAWINGS BY CHARLES RODRIGUES
38
HIGH FIDELITY MAGAZINE