After being intrigued by a home disc recorder he was asked to repair, he purchased one and began to experiment with it.

In 1941 he opened a shop at 3104 Telephone Road in Houston, Texas, where he recorded personalized voice messages.

[1] Venturing into music production in 1944, he founded the short-lived Gulf Record Company label.

Around this time, the U.S. Government fined Gold Star Records $26,000 for unpaid excise taxes related to the sale of phonograph records on the Gold Star label that Quinn mistakenly thought were being paid by the pressing plants, but weren't.

After costly legal negotiations, the sum total was reduced to $250, but Quinn ceased Gold Star Records operations.