Jim Salk has announced he will close his company Salk Sound. He isn't yet retiring completely, but he hasn't yet said exactly what he'll do in the future. He announced this in the middle of June. I was, of course, sad to read how his efforts to find suitable buyers for his company did not come to be. So, with quite a bit of sadness, I have to post this news on AudioHolics. See this thread for his announcement.
https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=186217.0
On that thread, Dennis Murphy and Frank Van Alstine, who have both been long-time associates in the audio business with Jim, posted their comments.
Frank Van Alstine:
Dennis Murphy:
I couldn't have said it better than those two. I'm sad to see Salk Sound go, but I'm also very glad to see Jim retire, or at least semi-retire. He earned it. I'm very glad to have done business with Jim, I've owned Songtowers in the past, and I now own Veracity ST speakers, as well as a SongCenter speaker. I know of several folks here at AH who also had the pleasure of doing business with Jim, and now enjoy his products.
Dennis said "Jim is indeed a class act". I can't agree more. A few details of his life. Jim Salk grew up in St. Cloud, Minnesota. In the late 1960s after graduating from high school, he ended up in the Army (probably was drafted) and was sent to Vietnam as combat infantry. On his first combat mission, in 1968, he was badly wounded as he & his unit were attacked by rocket & artillery fire, as they were delivered by helicopter to a landing zone. At first, he was left among the dead & dying, as the helicopters flew off, escaping the surprise attack. Suddenly, one of the helicopters, circled back, and dropped in long enough to pick him up. It saved his life. Jim spent the next 1½-2 (?) years as he slowly recovered from his wounds. A lasting effect of that life threatening event in his young life was that he no longer was intimidated by the "small stuff" that we all encounter in life. Jim knew how to stay calm and keep his cool no matter what. As long as I've known him, he always displayed the remarkable ability to recover from life's set-backs, getting stronger & wiser in the process. He may have been born that way, but I think his war wounds and recovery taught him how to manage life.
By 1970 he was mustered out of the Army, and he returned to Minnesota. He went to the University of Minnesota. He briefly served on the St. Cloud town council and became Mayor of St. Cloud.
He was a musician when he was younger, playing trumpet. He started a small music recording studio, that quickly morphed into a commercial business. Producing music for advertising allowed him to earn a living, much better than producing musical recordings.
He was successful enough to turn that into a career with, of all companies, Kirby Vacuum Cleaners. Kirby sold expensive vacuum cleaners door-to-door. In those days, long before the internet, they operated a large sales network, using commissions and other perks & benefits as motivation. Lavish travel rewards were one of those benefits. Jim produced Kirby's travel videos to entice sales. He was paid well, and got to travel to all the locations he filmed. All that ended in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. Travel plummeted, and Kirby re-organized, eliminating it's travel incentives, and closing Jim's studio.
As a project while he was unemployed, Jim built his first DIY speakers in his back yard, a 2-way design using an expensive Seas aluminum/magnesium alloy 6½" woofer and a Aurum Cantus ribbon tweeter. That's when he discovered that his ideas of designing a suitable crossover were less than adequate for those drivers. He eventually reached out to Dennis Murphy on a DIY-speaker builder forum operated by a DIY audio parts company named Madisound. Dennis helped out, designing a crossover that allowed those drivers to sing without stumbling over themselves. For years, that design was sold as the Salk Veracity HT1, the first of many successful Salk/Murphy collaborations.
Gradually that effort became a successful business, Salk Sound. Jim always seemed to know how to recover from set backs, and come away better than before. He knew how to navigate his small speaker manufacturing business in a world dominated by large corporations with deep pockets, and sometimes cut-throat practices. And he did that by offering high quality products at exceptionally low prices, while earning friendship and respect from his customers. I hope my brief summary here conveys that.
