07/24/2026
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80 years of iconic Klipsch images | Double Vision, 1980s – Paul W. Klipsch famously wore two watches, as shown in this photo taken at the Texarkana airport by chief engineer Gary Gillum. He was an accomplished pilot who helped ignite the hifi revolution in the 1950s by flying to upstart stereo stores - making sales calls and giving audio demos. PWK kept one watch set to the city of his departure’s time zone, while the other was set to the city of his arrival’s time zone. Often, they displayed the same time if he traveled close to home. He also kept a pocket watch in his suit coat breast pocket, which was set to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) for international business calls. Accuracy was incredibly important to PWK. In 1960 he was still carrying a Hamilton 992-B pocket watch because “railroad time” was the standard to beat. He received an Accutron from his wife for his birthday - March 9, 1962. Six days later he wrote to Accutron stating that the watch was not as precise as guaranteed, citing his comparisons to the National Bureau of Standards’ broadcast and criticizing the watch’s lack of visual acuity. A few months later he wrote again, providing a graph of the inaccuracies and an example of what a watch face should look like. A telephoned response from the head of R&D at Bulova indicated that that a very small piece of iron-nickel alloy .0005” thick and .005” wide was interfering with the magnet system. The executive also noted that one of their Accutron engineers was a Klipsch fan, although no mention of the watch face suggestion was made. After another few months PWK sent another graph of new inaccuracies, along with the watch, for a refund. Much correspondence followed until August 31, 1963 (over a year since the saga began) when Bulova threw in the towel and authorized Klipsch’s refund in the amount of $195.75.
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