Howdy, I'm Stanley, a Seattle "native".
Got addicted to music & hi Fi stuff thanks to my older brother & father who built a killer hi fi when I was a kid... Big Scott Tube-Amp, Empire turntable and refrigerator sized speakers (electro-voice drivers)LOL! It kicked ass back then, and all my pals would come over to the house, shoot pool, and we'd crank the Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Yardbirds, Hendrix, Byrds, Steppenwolf and well, you get the picture---Gave those speakers, and amplifier a work-out! None of my friends had ever seen or heard anything like it --- we were in heaven shooting pool and cranking the tunes down in the basement!
Started out in the business of Hi-Fi in 1971 in a funky speaker factory sweat shop and soon had my own little store on a busy street near the University of Washington, selling HiFi and designing and building cool speakers for the wealthy Uof W kids.
One day Bob Carver came into the store and hired me away from my own business (which I turned over to my coworker), to work for Bob @Phase Linear (this was before CARVER CORP)... After that I worked for the original Speakerlab, running a couple stores and contributed design speaker design stuff and answering technical questions on their 1-800 help lines, then worked for Magnolia (when it was tiny company), and then Definitive Audio when it was just 7 guys. Got Definitive started in CI stuff, was actually successful there, then ever since have been sort of job-hopping for small guys and also doing my own stuff.
I hope to be able to start another Custom Division, like I did at Definitive, however it will be a little more challenging due to the general economic climate these days,, and it won't be a huge division --- just a few nerds and myself.
I can't imagine doing anything else, really (except maybe cartooning)... or getting paid to take naps.