Recomended DAC?

[yaddatrance]

Hi guys, it's not fair to say the price of pangolin is bad, the development cycle
of the FB16 board cost us a pinkie over the mouth's worth of Dr Evil.

In defense of Spec, every professional laserist I've met has had buyers
remorse after buying or upgrading Pangolin... This includes Laser Images,
LFI, Holo, Laser Rentals, and all the old laser hippies. I've certainly had my
share. This is inevitable because you're dropping the worth of very fast
motorcycle or a nice used car on something that fits in a small fedex shipper.
However, those that make their money back by doing shows or installations
continue on in the field and buy more systems, those that don't leave the field.
This is the true non-sugar coated view of the laser industry... As I recall,
Spec was there first hand when his partner got his first QM2k system...

Pangolin says what it does and more importantly does what it says. I've
taken the onus on making a board to do the things I want, because I know that
pangolin is unlikely to merge my philosophies into their already successful
product.

Bill I look forward to seeing you share your extensive knowledge with us
at SELEM. I'll bring a couple boards with us so you can see what I'm
actually talking about. All of the local Californian laserists were visibly
impressed with what we've done here on our spare time.

[Pangolin]

Hi Yadda,

I guess I take issue with the term "buyer's remorse", which would tend to indicate a level of dissatisfaction after the sale.

You say that Laser Images had "buyer's remorse", but Ivan Drier told other laserists that he felt the "Laser Visions" show was the best show that Laserium had ever done -- it was done with Pangolin.

You also stated that Holo-Spectra had "buyer's remorse". Well, just for the heck of it, I just called Bill Arkin of Holo Spectra and asked him if he ever had "buyer's remorse" or any other kind of "remorse" for that matter, and he said no, that he had been a Pangolin fan since the very beginning. I asked him if he knew of anyone who ever did and he told me that the only person who ever had anything disparaging to say about Pangolin was... YOU. He told me that in such discussions he defended Pangolin against your comments.

Then I called one of the oldest "Laser Hippies" of them all -- Doug McCullough, who was arguably one of the first laserists in the US. He said that he never had anything but admiration for Pangolin, and that the LD2000 system "was a f*cking awesome bargain!"

I called and left a message for Walt Meador of Laser Rentals to ask him the same thing. I will let you all know what he says, but I doubt if he will ever say he had "buyer's remorse". I will also let him know you said Hello, if he even ever heard of you...

So, hmmm. No buyer's remorse to be found on the part of old laser hippies or any of the companies you mentioned. Are you sure you have your facts straight? Perhaps before speaking on behalf of people or attributing remarks to them, it would be better to ghet these "old laser hippies" to log onto this board and speak for themselves...

Talking about fast motorcycles or nice used cars, well, I don't know of too many of them that can be purchased for less than $2000. But maybe the pricing on the east coast is higher than the west coast...

And Yadda, yes, I look forward to SELEM where everyone can see and judge for themselves based on the quality of the images being projected. As a famous racing saying goes: "when the green flag drops, the bullsh*t stops"!

Best regards,

William Benner
Pangolin Laser Systems

[yaddatrance]

Sigh, Bill, I have no urge to air dirty laundry in public, but suffice to say,
nobody will ever say "I had buyers remorse" to you in person. You are the only
person who took a phrase "buyer's remorse" and took it personally. Why
are you so bristly? For the record, I don't know Doug, and keep in mind that
if he's an old laserist, he was there with you through the revolutionary '80s...

Why are you arguing with me? I have nothing to win or lose in the laser field.
If you must know, I've turned down a any new business because frankly
many of the old-timers were getting me down. I also forwarded anybody who
saw my board and was interested in lasers toward Pangolin systems...

Not to bust Bill's chops, but if that's what he said, then for the record,
I swang by Holospectra the day the boards were originally assembled to
show the guys down there what I just built because their shop was two
blocks down from the assemblers. At no point did I bash Pangolin or say
anything different than exactly what you saw on this forum. Bill Arkin himself
said "You are picking up where the laser industry left off in the 1990's" There
was no defense of Pangolin, as a professional he knows and I know that
Pangolin is a fine product and that where there are problems, there are
known workarounds. However your ranting is honestly scaring me.
As I recall he kept asking how soon he could have one for a project he was
working on and I stated quite clearly that no boards were for sale and there
were no real plans for such... My exact words were "I would like to see two
more years of development and 3 more complete revisions from scratch"

Ivan Dryer? I think I spent far too many weeks sleeping on the Laserium
couch fixing their problems for free to care about what he told you... This
is somewhat internal, but saying they haven't had problems with the QM2k
system would be lie... Keep in mind that I've personally donated hardware to
Laser Images so they can keep their systems running!

Walt? He's a great guy who went over and above the call of duty to help
me pull off a large show, We were having problems with DMX on our
own systems and we actually used Pangolin to do fix it! gasp! (Or more
accurately we figured pangolin is a known working system so we
were able to track down the problem to a broken DMX repeater the
lighting guys lent us)... By the time we figured it out, it was too late to
plug our DMX gear back in so we ran the system with Pangolin.
But come on, you know that pangolin isn't perfect! We shared gripes, but in the
end we're customers... though you're a lot more abrasive and touchy about this
than I expected and I may have to rethink my rah rah support of your product.

So cut it out with the name dropping and whatnot. I can call some
bigoted folks who don't like pangolin much too, but that neither proves my
case nor disproves yours. I had one guy an a show we did at Avalon
who claimed X29 was far superior to pangolin... I shrugged and said
"whatever floats your boat"...

Look, quite simply, buyer's remorse is not related to loving a product or
happily using it. It has to do with the question of "Can we pay it off" and the
comparison of what else you could buy with it...

I'd rather not do a shootout at SELEM or anything silly like that, I
respect you and have received too much insightful knowledge from you
to even consider comparing the respective sizes of our balls.

[Pangolin]

Hi Yadda,

Thanks for the post. You say my ranting is scaring you, but your ranting is scaring me. Maybe we are forming an oscillator I hope this message will bump up the damping a bit and help to quell the oscillations

It is not my intention to "argue with you". But if you make a broad statement like that everyone you know had "buyer's remorse", you should be able to back it up. That's all...

I guess it depends on what you mean by "buyer's remorse". When I mentioned these two words to Bill Arkin, he said "you mean where, after you buy something, you wish you hadn't bought it"? That's how both he and I would define it... I guess if we use your definition -- where people wonder if they will be able to pay it off or not, well, maybe that's a different story. But I think any true professional would be able to pay off the cost of our system pretty easily. After all, the cost of a Pangolin system is far less then the cost of a laser that would be used for professional-level shows.

And it wasn't me who started the name dropping to begin with (at least not the company-name dropping). I was only pointing out that, according to the very people you mentioned, they didn't have buyer's remorse (as Bill Arkin and I would tend to define it)...

As for what Ivan said, it wasn't what he said to me (we rarely talk) but what he said to other laserists who then told me the positive things he had to say about Pangolin. Frankly I was surprised to hear that Ivan would make such positive comments. He has been around for a long time and I really enjoyed his older shows. I would never have imagined that he would say he prefers his newer work, regardless of the system that was powering it.

I am glad that our system was able to help you out of a bind, even with its non-classical implementation of DMX Output.

And don't get me wrong. I will never say that our system is perfect. If it was, I wouldn't be sitting here working tonight, and neither would all of the others who work at Pangolin. There is no such thing as a "perfect system", and everyone has troubles with computers and software now and then. That's just the nature of the beast...

I certainly enjoy the possibility of "new thinking" and, whenever we find it, we try to engage those "new thinkers" in consulting jobs or employment. Sometimes we are successful, other times not. But it is this "new thinking" that makes the world go round, regardless of the origin or ultimate company affiliation.

At the SELEM, I do look forward to seeing your system and seeing the results of your own "new thinking". This has nothing to do with a "shootout". Like the Laserfreak meetings that happen in Germany, it is just a good time to get together, share ideas, and see results. Who knows, maybe we will have some "new thinking" of our own to show as well

Best regards,

William Benner

[yaddatrance]

Thanks! I didn't expect this to get heated or butt heads or anything,
I honestly just wanted to say welcome and share that I may actually
have had a method to my madness.

So here's to sitting down and having some pleasant drinks together...

[Pangolin]

Here Here!

But does this mean that SELEM will have a bartender?

[buffo]

But does this mean that SELEM will have a bartender?

Spec has made it quite clear that he intends to bring a goodly collection of spirits to the SELEM. I suspect that several others have the same idea.

While I'm a bit aprehensive at the prospect of combining lasers, geeks, and alcohol, I have to admit that it's probably going to be a hell of a good time - at least until something gets broken! (The first guy that throws up on a laptop will be summarily executed...) :twisted:

Seriously though, as long as it's kept under control, I don't see a real problem with it. I've even considered brewing up a special batch of homebrew to bring... Maybe an octoberfest cream ale... Or how about some hard cider with amber malt? mmmmmm Tasty!

Adam

[maxvideo]

1st post from an
"Old Laser Hippie" (remember ZAP?)
I have owned both X-29 and Pangolin.
Happy with both but Pangolin is far superior!
I have no buyers remorse, in fact just the opposite.
I have never met Mr. Benner and he does not know me,
except for some email exchanges about lasers and general observations on the state of the industry.
The truth of the matter, I have never known anyone so dedicated to the improvement of laser shows & laser show equipment, both hardware and software, and not just his product. And I can honestly say, Mr. Benner has provided excellent customer service to me, as I am sure he does for all his clients. His constant improvements to LD2000, LivePRO, and conversion of 3D images from 3DS MAX and Cinema4D, and the whole product offering speak for themselves. No charge for revision upgrades!, and the upgrade a la carte lets you get the features you require. His work with laser manufacturers and scanning companies to develop "laser show friendly" equipment is another example of his tireless effort to improve the whole Laser Show Industry.

[eric343]

But does this mean that SELEM will have a bartender?

Spec has made it quite clear that he intends to bring a goodly collection of spirits to the SELEM. I suspect that several others have the same idea.

While I'm a bit aprehensive at the prospect of combining lasers, geeks, and alcohol, I have to admit that it's probably going to be a hell of a good time - at least until something gets broken! (The first guy that throws up on a laptop will be summarily executed...) :twisted:

Seriously though, as long as it's kept under control, I don't see a real problem with it. I've even considered brewing up a special batch of homebrew to bring... Maybe an octoberfest cream ale... Or how about some hard cider with amber malt? mmmmmm Tasty!

Adam

You guys sure know how to advertise for an event

[buffo]

You guys sure know how to advertise for an event

Aw heck, we haven't even started to advertize yet!

Once we get the details nailed down, *then* you'll see some advertizement!
Adam