Monthly Archives: November 2017

Blog Posts

Asheville, Walnut Cove, Biltmore Forrest and Western North Carolina’s Audio and Home Theater specialists present Cane Creek AV and Paul McGowan – PS Audio, Intl.

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I read a review of a system put together as an exhibit at the California Audiofest Show, which recently took place in…..ummmm…..California. The MSRP of this system was $730,000 and that didn’t include the price of the audio cables, which are probably in the $20,000+ range. Nor does this sum include the ASC room treatments, which would probably add at least another $10,000. So, that would put it over the $750,000 range.  The speakers, manufactured by a company whose products I’ve not much liked in the past, were gigantic at almost 8ft tall and 900 lbs, give or take a pound.

However, if you want something close to this, the same company that showed the big stuff, also had something for those of us less financially fortunate. The stuff in this room, not including cables and room treatments was only $60,000.

Let’s all get out our checkbooks.

Blog Posts

Asheville, Walnut Cove, Biltmore Forrest and Western North Carolina’s Audio and Home Theater specialists present Cane Creek AV and Paul McGowan – PS Audio, Intl.

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Starting from nothing

Thank you for all the kind notes about the videos I posted over the weekend detailing the history of PS Audio. I am glad you enjoyed them and it was an honor to share them with you.

One of the few remaining videos I shot in the original Walk in the Woods With Paul series touched on the very subject of the last two posts: how to start a company when you do not have anything but good ideas.

Stan and I used a finance method more closely resembling today’s Kickstarter. In this scenario, you presell goods then use the entrusted money to purchase inventory and make good your promise. If you succeed, everyone’s happy. But if you know your PS history you’ll remember I had to do this twice: once with Stan in the very beginning, a second time after leaving Genesis.

In 1997 I repurchased PS Audio’s assets for $1.00. Yup. It was in that good of shape. The advantage I had was a clean sheet of paper. The disadvantage was no money.

If you’re interested in why I left Genesis and how we pulled off this financial miracle, I would encourage you to watch this leftover from the original video series.

My hope in presenting it is two-fold: an information piece and a guide to struggling entrepreneurs. No, you can’t use the same method I did back then, but it’ll give you some hope that where there’s a will there’s a way. I hope it inspires some to start fresh and make a go of it.

Without risk, there is no reward.