Big ticket regrets?

I only have two big ticket regrets in my over 40 year history!
(thankfully)
But this was a costly experience!


I am always in search of the latest, and greatest, technology available in the pursuit of that little extra sonic detail...
And I am a huge fan of small independent companies that go the extra mile, think out of the box, and design something sonically beautiful,
ergonomically different, with totally new concepts.
Well that said...

#1 - Aurora Audio, originally called "Phoenix Audio" I believe, before the partners split up?
Run by a wonderful man named Geoff Tanner.

He designed a bunch of wonderful little modular pieces that would go together (or work on their own) to basically mimic a small Neve Console.
His designs were quite amazing, and I have to tell ya, they sounded glorious!
Really wonderful in all their Class "A" beauty.
His GTM 822 which I purchased, and waited over a year for, was absolutely wonderful.

This little rack mixer sounded better than ANYTHING I ever used before it.
It was a sonic marvel. Everything I ever dreamed of, in a little 5 space mixer.

Anyhow, when it worked, it blew my mind how good it sounded.
But then channels would go out, power supply, a Coutant, I believe would fail.
So I paid about $8000 for this thing, and then had to return it to Geoff quite a few times.

Now packing it up, with the power supply took two big boxes, and insured cost me about $300 each trip from NY to California,
and again on the return trip back to me.

This happened twice, (4 trips) before I gave up.

I had sessions booked specifically with this setup, as it was an integral part of my 8 track remote recording rig, and I had to cancel about three sessions, because everything was based around the sonics of this unit. (it was that special) and I sold this to my clients, especially after hearing demos I did with the unit.

Geoff was as good as he could be I guess, although repairs would take months, instead of the promised week or so, I didn't have the heart to scream and yell at him, (besides where would that have gotten me?)
But I lost thousands of dollars on booked sessions that had to be canceled because of this.

So finally I hated to do this, but I sold the NON WORKING UNIT, for parts, for about $3500 (it was less than one year old, and used twice)
That plus the loss of income...

Then we have #2
Kevin Brown, was an ex Decca employee, who started his own company called "Genex".

Decca used to build all their own gear to suit their needs, which basically was hi definition capture of audio, as they usually recorded Classical music in live Concert Halls.

Sony invented DSD, (direct stream digital) but Kevin, took their concept licensed it, and made it a simple one box reality.
Think of an IZ Corp. RADAR, only that records in multi channel DSD. !!!
Totally off the wall, and a total game changer.

At the time, I already owned 5 x IZ RADAR recorders, and was a big fan.

But I heard this new DSD system, as I rented (at the time the only thing available was a STEREO version Genex Optical disk recorder)
to mix a Blue Oyster Cult record I was doing at my studio in Millbrook NY.

I was offered one as a demo, and Don Roser (Buck Dharma) and I being total audio geeks, we said HELL YEAH, we wanna try one!
Haha
Once again, this process has it's limitations in that you CANNOT EDIT THE AUDIO in DSD, it would have to be trans-coaded to PCM, which of course we DIDN'T WANT TO DO, as we wanted to retain all the sonic beauty of the original DSD MIX.

The sonic results were amazing!
So once this new multitrack machine was available, I ordered one, with a big remote, and waited for 2 years for this thing to be built, tested, and more.
Finally it shipped.

When it arrived, I called a few musician friends in a band and said, com'mon over, I need to test something out, and if we get something, the tracks are yours..
But if not, don't complain!
Haha

So we did some basics, and I gotta tell ya, when everyone came into the control room, I saw their jaws dropping,
It was that good!
Totally mind blowing for all of us in the room at the time.
WOW.
It had all the best attributes of Analog tape, with everything we love about Digital, GREAT digital...(except for editing!, go figure)

Then the fun begins, and the machine started losing parts, (tracks) punches were not always happening.
Audio would appear, and then disappear on the next boot up?
I'd send the machine back to Kevin Brown, the owner and designer, and it would take months to get it back!
Hummmmm sounds familiar.
Little did I know, Kevin had about three employees, and a lot of customers, were experiencing the same problems, and Kevin would take parts from one customers machine, and ut that in another, and send it out.
He didn't have spares, or a staff, and eventually taking from Peter, to Pay Paul, caught up with him.
I spoke with owners that were ready to kill him as they invested $$$$$$ money in this.

My machine went back to Kevin about three times,
But then I spoke to owners that told me, DO NOT SEND IT BACK TO HIM, he'll use the parts to fix someone else's machine and you'll never get it back.

Since his design was totally his, and proprietary, NO ONE ELSE COULD FIX THE DAMN THING, and NO ONE HAD SPARES!

At this time, I was speaking with a few other early adopters, and they all shared the same fear, that if their machine crapped out, where would they get parts.
Since I couldn't trust my machine with paying clients, It needed to go, no matter the loss.

Finally I was contacted by a well known sound engineer, who was working with
(one of the biggest touring companies, that had purchased many, of the Genex multitrack machines, and they needed spare machines for parts!)
We worked out a deal for mine, and the remote, which I do believe was one of two ever made?

I only lost about 20K on that deal!

But that said, it's really too bad he couldn't come up with the funding, cause it literally was the best recording device I ever heard!

So that's it...