DCAudioDIY.com

Make it fun, offer music that kids listen to (not classical ~95% of the time?) and in an environment kids would like?

Something like this:

https://www.raconteur.net/current-affai ... ning-clubs

A friend down in TX who was a physics teacher in high school had a class for building speakers. He would demo a good system to the students to get them to hear the difference.

He is friends with a speaker designer that came in to teach the students the basics of speaker design. Each student then could then come up with a design and get help from both of them in the build. Some were very basic and others very elaborate. At the end of the term there was a speaker judging by a team to grade the designs.

I found some decent bargain woofers one time and sent a bunch to the friend for use as needed. Also found them a used CLIO system in a refurbed PC for speaker measurements.

This went on for a few years before he decided to retire. Lots of students really enjoyed it from the feedback and now had decent speakers to listen to.

I don't think it will be of any help for the club, but I understand the real time to get them is before they start walking and talking The ever important role of the parent!

All joking aside, what really did it for me was my first big name concert. It was Peter Gabriel in 1994 I think. Before that, I already had boomboxes in my car, and I was a budding speakerbuilder, but in never heard sound before do the things that I heard it do in the concert (haven't really heard it since either). That was the stimulus that started, and carried me through the now close to 30 year journey. I was also in band from an early age, which I credit to my brother, but before I even knew it was of any importance, I was exposed to the sound of real musical instruments. The important role of music in school!

It's still a long way to get them into HiFi but I think you need to get them off their technology long enough to experience real live music. I think that is the real bridge!

The other thing, and I know it's not a direct plan to get kids in the club, but the most significant barrier for most kids, is growing up in a house that doesn't have tools in it. They need tools at an early age, and they will naturally just start using them, but before they will ever entertain the idea of building an amplifier, a speaker, or anything else, they have to have had the experience of taking apart several of these things first. Another task for the parents!

BTW if anybody does emtertain the idea of getting some kids involved in a demonstration, I don't travel well because I'm looking after two elderly parents, but I have a shop full of tools, I'm available almost any day of the week, I can design a speaker that can be finished in one or two sessions, and I'm perfectly willing to help.

Chris

A few of things got me started when I was young (high school/college back in the 70's)
First, I was in a fine arts club in high school, and the teacher running the club would invite me over to hear is McIntosh system, including speakers he built from kit. Of course, listening to classical music. First time I heard music in the home that was really engaging (having grown up with a simple Grundig console).

Second, I worked in the listening library, spinning discs for students coming to listen to their assignments. The room had a pair of Altec VOTs driven by a Fisher 500C receiver, so on Friday nights when no one was around, I would crank the system up and bliss out on some Mahler.

Started fiddling with building stuff, restoring one of the Garrard Studio turntables the library was throwing out, met an audiophile student with a Linn, Benini Class A amplifier, and pair of Rogers LS3/5A in his room. He subscribed to the Absolute Sound, I borrowed them, issues 1 through 8, as I remember, and re-read them so many times. I seem to remember I forgot to give them back and may still have them.

I put together a budget system around an NAD 3020 amplifier, a pair of Mirage SM-1 speakers, and a big JVC direct drive turntable (poor mans Denon, which I wish I still had, BTW).

As soon as I got out and got a job, I discovered this little shop in Alexandria, Excalibur Audio. Bought a CJ preamp kit and built it, a SOTA turntable, a bunch more CJ gear, and started down the audiophile pathway with occasional solder slinging (Bill Thallman mentoring my attempts at modifications).

Long time ago.

I think the hobby has to start from a love and passion for music, something so strong that you are willing to spend so much of your time, energy, $$$, and relationships structured around the experience. I believe the path to become an audiophile comes from this. I cannot see how anyone could be into high quality audio that is not moved by music is a very deep way. If your attitude towards music is only casual, then why bother.

David

Off topic but I bought my Sota from Excalibur around 1985. Still using it. It was a Star Shaphire which I had Sota rebuild and upgraded to a Nova a few year ago. I saw Sota at Axpona no they are going to make a big push this year with new products

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Walt

Well first, YOU, as in you the Capitol Audio Fest second in command, shouldn't go up to people and criticize the records that they bought. You have done that to me. There should be the encouragement of "analog" in a digital world we are forced to live in. It left a bad taste in my mouth.

Second, people in general (including the vendors) need be open to play more mainstream music ("regular music" if you will, depending what it is). That goes from Boston to Taylor Swift to Metallica to LL Cool J (just some examples but you get the point). Roscoe-n-friends have played things like Green Day and it attracted people. I have personally played other things in other vendors and attracted people. Not everyone likes "audiophile" music. One year, I played Tom Petty in the DIY room and attracted a person at the very beginning of the show. After the song was over, I scrambled to find something else, put some kind of unknown classical? music on, and the guy didn't want to listen to that and left. I also recall a time where I just wanted to hear two songs (back-to-back on the album) and the vendor gave me attitude about only playing one. I also think that if a vinyl vendor brings it to a show, it should be played at the show after purchase. The amount of regular music I saw this year was tremendous.

Third, it doesn't make sense to have people pay $20-$30 to get in a show and there is very little to buy. Vinyl vendors are great, buy vendors like Schiit could have cleaned up during that weekend (especially if there was a show discount). If these vendors are going to spend that kind of money to rent sales space, they might as well get their money's worth. A newbie can buy a DAC-n-cable, hook it up to their existing digital source, and see a difference.

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I reject your music, and substitute my own.

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Walt

I tend to think the talk about CAF is irrelevant. CAF is for people who already identify as audiophiles.
If you want kids, you need to get them where they are. Go to the high schools and Junior highs.
My suggestion is find out where the science fairs are and put a booth there.
Those are the kids you really want anyway!
You also might want to get some music students, so you would show up at regional band festivals for that!

(Edit)I found DCAudioDIY through CAF, so It's not irrelevant. You need adult audiophiles, but if you want kids, you have to do what I suggested.

In school I took every shop class there was. Plastics, wood, sheet metal, leather, etc. Electronics classes played a major role that gave me the background and the "stones" to tinker.
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Just like Walt said, you need recources when youn are a kid if you are going to accomplish anything.
This might be a little off topic but I'm going to share this little story:
There are these two guys that live down the street from me, They are actually brothers, and they have been there since I was a child. They both recently retired, but both of them were very high level electrical engineers. They didn't talk about it a lot, but they did a lot of work for the defense department, and some of it I picked up indicated it had something to do with satalites, and space travel. Anyway, this was a really nerdy pair of guys. The had no interest in women or marrying, or anything of the sort of typical male persuits. The one thing they did do however was Halloween! Second only to thier high level carreers, these guys lived for the night October 31st! They threw everything into Halloween. They had Tesla Coils, Jacobs Ladders, Laser Shows, Stobe Lights, Homemade Klipsch Horns, Robots running around the yard, and all kinds of other stuff. They even had voice recognition, motion sensing technology, and computer control capability for thier show, way before it became available to us. When me and my friends, just kids at the time, walked down the street on halloween night, it was literally a trip into science fiction! The coolest thing however is that me and my friends, during the rest of the year, any time either of these guys was home, could actually just walk down the street, wander in thier house and start playing with the toys. Typically we weren't discoverred for quite a while, and when we were, we got an Hour and a half long lecture about electronics, tesla coils, lasers, or some such matter. Even to this day, I still walk down there every once in a while to see what they are up to, because there is always something happening. I still get the hour and a half lecture too! My last lecture was about 1/8 scale steam engines!

My only point is that you really need people like this in your life. Whether it's robotics, lasers, or HiFi, you need people that don't really fit into the norm, to teach you about things that they are not showing you in school!