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Continued from "Designing the Greenhorns Part 1."

Selling the Greenhorns

I had worked nights and weekends for over a year developing the Greenhorns. My hard work had paid off, I now possessed prototypes of what I knew was one of the finest speaker systems of its day, and the only one with a built in 160-watt amplifier. I had compared the speakers to the finest audio systems I could find and they never failed to impress.

Now, I thought was the time to cash in on all my hard work. I was thirty-five years old with a wife, two children, two cars, a boat and a house to support. My salary as a Chief Design Engineer, left little for discretionary spending, so I did not consider funding the manufacture and sales myself. I had no experience of this part of the world and had no idea how to go about selling the design. Home computers did not exist. A typewriter was the extent of my office equipment.

Locally I pitched the design to Jon Dahlquist, a speaker designer who had just started his own speaker business. Jon was using a phase linear crossover network and displacement of the speaker cones to overcome the imaging phase problem. He was the first person to make me aware of the imaging phenomena. Jon immediately saw why I had been successful, but then told me that he was too involved in his own designs to do anything with mine.

I started using the phone. I called Bose and tried to convince them that they could use my design. It was, as if I was a kid, who had the gall to call them and say that I had a design that could outperform their worldly acclaimed speakers. It appeared that the built in amplifier had no sway with them, as they were "Speaker" people, and not interested in the amplifier end of the business. "Not invented here", would be the sound that would resonate through other such phone calls to speaker companies. "My phone and sales technique leave a lot to be desired" I thought. What I really need to do is to have them hear the sound, not my voice.

My KLH, Dolby tape deck was able to drive the speakers directly, so I recorded my best demo tapes on it and set out to bring the sound to the companies. I was able to bring it to a local amplifier manufacturer (Harmon Kardon). Their Chief Engineer was interested in what I had told him and invited me to their lab. Soon I had these two speakers sitting on chairs being driven by my tape deck. The sound was excellent. It also stopped work as everyone came out of their offices to see what the source of the sound was. Fortunately some marketing and sales people showed up. Every one agreed that the sound was excellent. What they didn't agree on, was that I had demonstrated an amplifier. They looked at it as an amplified speaker, and not within their product line. Not too worry, I was told, Harmon Kardon is owned by Harmon International, which also owns a speaker company, JBL. The people at Harmon Kardon said they would recommend that JBL give a listen to the speakers. A few weeks later I went to the main office of Harmon International on Long Island and picked up a round trip ticket to Los Angeles from Sid Harmon himself. Harmon Kardon, was impressed enough to pay my way to JBL in California, just to hear my speakers. "Wow this is it," I thought. JBL at the time had one of the hottest selling bookshelf speakers, the A25. It was a standard three-way speaker with a ported bass output, the design produced a good tight base and excellent mid and high range sound. It did not however "Image" well. I couldn't wait to have a sound off with the A25s.

I packed the amplifiers in my carry on and flew off to Los Angeles with the Greenhorns in the baggage hold. That evening I arrived in LA and took a cab to the hotel. When I got to my room I had to reassemble the amplifiers to the speakers and test them. All seemed to have survived the trip. I had trouble sleeping that night. Here I was, taking my Greenhorns to be heard by one of the worlds best speaker companies. Sid Harmon himself requested this.

In the morning the sales manager of JBL picked me up at the hotel and drove to the factory. We soon were carrying the Greenhorns into the listening room and meeting with the Vice President of Marketing, a Mr. Fox, and the Chief Speaker Design Engineer Mr. May. First I was taken on a tour of the factory. It was very impressive. JBL was a total speaker manufacturer. I saw the machines that stamped out the cones and the machines used to create the magnets for the woofers. JBL even went to the trouble of converting standard round wire to flat wire. Flat wire is 15% lower in resistance than round wire wound over the same cone. The round wire would pass through rolling dies to flatten it. Then it would be coated with varnish. The varnished wire would pass overhead on rollers as it dried, finally it would be recoiled and wound onto speaker cones. After the tour we went out to lunch at a very fancy restaurant. I was receiving a royal welcome. Returning from lunch we went to the listening room where the Greenhorns were set up for a sound off with the A25s.

The four of us sat listening to various records as the sound was passed from one set of speakers to the other. Each time I felt the Greenhorns sounded better. Then Mr. Fox looked up and said, "I like Frank's speakers better". My heart was in my mouth. Did that mean I would sell the design? I didn't say anything. Mr. May, who had designed the A25s, was quiet. That evening Mr. May's son (the sales manager) took me to dinner with his wife. It was as if the JBL family had accepted me, I was excited. The next morning I went to the plant to get my speakers. Mr. May had stayed that night and ran frequency response curves on them. JBL had sort of a dumbwaiter that went to the roof of the plant. Speakers were placed on it and when they cleared the roof, a calibrated microphone was waiting to measure the response. "They use the outdoors the same as I do," I thought. The results were the same as mine. With tunable tracking filters however, signs of doubling (second harmonic output of the signal frequency) were indicated at very low frequencies. This was considered a negative by Mr. May. I flew home that afternoon. Mr. Fox told me that he would let me know JBL's decision within a week.

The decision came in a letter. It told me that JBL liked my design very much, but unfortunately the design used a multiple of small inexpensive speakers, that could not be manufactured efficiently at the JBL plant in California. The JBL core business is speaker manufacturing and therefore my design did not fit into the corporate plan. Nothing about the amplifier!

JBL had given me a very fair shot at the ring, I believed their rational, especially after seeing the JBL manufacturing facility. The decision however put the nail in the Greenhorn coffin. I stopped trying to sell the design. I replaced my AR3As with Greenhorns and listened to them as I started on my next project.

Summary:

The story above is true. Although the end was not monetarily rewarding, I have learned that money isn't everything. The true joy occurs when you are involved in the project. The pleasure of working long hours, developing your own creation gives pleasure that no amount of money can purchase. During the project I also learned how to work with wood, how speakers function, how to design a high voltage linear amplifier, how to measure speaker performance, and also how important the right presentation can be.

I still have four Greenhorn speakers, although the amplifiers are no longer driving them (the speakers have been rewired to four ohms), and each year they are used for a retreat, filling a hall of about six hundred people. They still sound great and I still proudly say, "I designed these speakers." Click here to see the photos.

Frank Greenhalgh
Sept. 27, 1999

Comments Frank's column hit a nerve and the responses we are receiving are proof of that. Read the comments as well as Frank's response

About the Author

Frank Greenhalgh has been working in power supplies and systems for 38 years. He has many impressive accomplishments and patents. Over the years he has made significant contributions to Trio Laboratories where he held the position of Chief Design Engineer and was then promoted to Vice President.