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Company Tours
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- Written by: Jonathan Gorse
- Category: Vertere Acoustics, July 13-14, 2023
There are few audio designers more imposing than Touraj Moghaddam, a towering Iranian expatriate of impressive eloquence and wit. His piercingly intense eyes betray a lively sense of humor. When Touraj speaks, his powerful voice and quick intellect enable him to project his ideas about audio design with great passion. In short, when Touraj talks about high-end audio, you’d better be on your A-game because he’s a master of the subject, and keen to engage, debate, argue, and inform. I warmed to him immediately.
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: Audia Flight/Alare, May 26, 2023
I found it somewhat challenging to get a handle on the town of Civitavecchia, which is about an hour southeast of Rome. On the one hand, it has a sleepy, small-town feel—lots of narrow streets lined with cafes and restaurants, exuding charm and quiet, old-world sophistication. But Civitavecchia is also a major port that services Rome. I saw two enormous cruise ship monstrosities moored just offshore, out of which poured waves of tourists whom the locals seemed to bear with admirable patience.
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: Gold Note, May 24-25, 2023
Following the Unison Research and Opera Loudspeaker factory tour, the Fidelity Imports caravan pulled into the Santa Maria Novella train station in downtown Florence on late Tuesday afternoon of the week after the High End Show in Munich. After a short tram ride, we were met by Ottavio Marino Cerrato, Tom Dolfi, and Alice Zoppi, Gold Note’s graceful, stylish, and friendly representatives. We traveled along some of the twistiest one-lane mountain roads I’ve ever experienced, up an ear-popping circuitous route that devolved into a rough dirt track. The end game was the classically marvelous Le Fonti a San Giorgio “farmstay” villa. I melted into a puddle as I soaked up the twilight views of hillsides layered with vineyards, cypress trees, and flowering honeysuckle.
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: Opera Loudspeakers/Unison Research, May 22-23, 2023
As is my wont, I woke up early on my first morning in Treviso, Italy. My presence here, an extension of my week in Munich covering High End 2023, was arranged by Steve Jain of Fidelity Imports. A US distributor of high-end audio gear, Fidelity represents Opera Loudspeakers, Unison Research, Gold Note, and Audia Flight—all of which I’d be visiting over the course of the week, along with several other journalists and one dealer. Jain had arranged this trip so that we could gain some familiarity with these Italian brands.
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: DALI, August 22-25, 2022
Quick! What’s the second-largest hi-fi speaker manufacturer in the world? I’d say that you’ll never guess, but since this article is gonna tell you about my recent tour of the DALI factory in Nørager, Denmark, I think I may have given it away.
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: DALI, August 22-25, 2022
“On your left you can see the Queen of Denmark’s residence, and if you look over to the right, you can see shipping containers converted into university students’ residences,” said our guide as we putted through Copenhagen’s harbor on a tour boat.
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- Written by: Hans Wetzel
- Category: Monitor Audio, September 25-26, 2014
As impressed as I was with my visit to Monitor Audio, it would all be for naught if I were not equally impressed with how their loudspeakers performed. Spoiler: they perform remarkably well. I began my listening session, which took place in Monitor's dedicated listening room, with their Silver 8 model. Retailing at $2000 USD per pair, the three-way design makes use of a 1" gold-dome tweeter -- which I'm told is the best domed tweeter Monitor has ever made -- a 4" midrange, and a pair of 6" woofers. All are made from their proprietary C-CAM material, short for ceramic-coated aluminum magnesium. At around 40" tall and 51 pounds, it's easy to see the virtues of Chinese production, as the 8s were well appointed. Simaudio and Cyrus electronics were set off to the side, while I was given free rein to play whatever music I wanted.
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- Written by: Hans Wetzel
- Category: Monitor Audio, September 25-26, 2014
As alluded to in the prior article, Monitor Audio made the manufacturing move to China in 2004, and the company has not looked back. While labor costs went down, at least preliminarily, and production numbers went through the roof, Monitor has grown ninefold since the early 2000s -- but improving the quality of their final product was always the endgame. At first they battled uphill against the prevailing sentiment about having products being "Made in China." But all it took was demonstrating their first Chinese-made products, the Silver RS line, to distributors and dealers for that to all but disappear. The reaction that Dean Hartley (shown below) recalled was "Really? Made in China? Wow."
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- Written by: Hans Wetzel
- Category: Monitor Audio, September 25-26, 2014
The "Made in China" tag was always one viewed with derision. I saw it that way, at the very least. And why not? China was always synonymous with cheap knockoffs, lower quality, and a way for companies to save money. So when Monitor picked up shop from the factory that I visited in Southend-on-Sea, due east of London, and headed significantly farther east back in 2004, there were some skeptics. It's arguable that at that time, such a jaundiced view was perhaps warranted. So why make the move?
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- Written by: Hans Wetzel
- Category: Monitor Audio, September 25-26, 2014
For many smaller loudspeaker companies, the undertaking of a brand new project, from the ground up, is a daunting prospect. More often than not, companies will outsource the industrial design of a nascent product to a third party. At Monitor Audio, however, there is a full-time team of approximately ten designers who are tasked with bringing concepts to life.
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- Written by: Hans Wetzel
- Category: Monitor Audio, September 25-26, 2014
"We kind of started in the Wild West of audio. A lot of people back then were making money selling loudspeakers that weren't that good. Our methods these days are based on pure science; everything has a logical explanation. Number one thing, top of the list for us: we're trying to improve audio performance."
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- Written by: Hans Wetzel
- Category: Monitor Audio, September 25-26, 2014
Located about an hour's drive due east of London, UK, Monitor Audio quietly occupies a fair bit of space in a modern industrial park. Its office space is modern and open format, seemingly encouraging collaboration and discussion. The engineering, design, and marketing teams all struck me as being remarkably young for a modern hi-fi company as I arrived and parked my laptop and camera. Notably, it also had a non-corporate feel to it. Sure, "Monitor Audio" coffee mugs were sitting on desks, and some framed pictures of loudspeakers adorned conference rooms, but that is hardly unexpected for a loudspeaker manufacturer.
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- Written by: Hans Wetzel
- Category: Cyrus Audio, September 23-24, 2014
As mentioned previously, Friday afternoons are fodder for the imagination at Cyrus, and their engineers have come up with some interesting stuff. Several years back, one announced, "I want to do a class-D amplifier," while another said, "I want to do a switch-mode power supply." Peter Bartlett duly responded, "Between the two of you, you're going to bankrupt this company's IP!" It turns out that the switch-mode power supply was a more daunting prospect than anticipated, and while there is still hope for it, the company elected to focus its attention on class-D amplification in the hopes that it would bear fruit.
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- Written by: Hans Wetzel
- Category: Cyrus Audio, September 23-24, 2014
Jeremy Brown (shown below), Cyrus Audio's Export Sales Manager, was kind enough to give me an in-depth tour of the company's workshop.
- Details
- Written by: Hans Wetzel
- Category: Cyrus Audio, September 23-24, 2014
Cyrus Audio's factory also recently brought in-house the production for its newest line of products: Lyric. Comprising the Lyric 05 and Lyric 09 models, they are hugely "connective" pieces of hardware. From the outside, the two look identical.
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- Written by: Hans Wetzel
- Category: Cyrus Audio, September 23-24, 2014
If we're honest, there is no shortage of electronics manufacturers out there. With all of the fluffy marketing language, tall claims of technical performance, and a sea of folded-metal chassis, it can be tough to distinguish one product from the next. But Cyrus Audio's approach has been both consistent and singular.
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- Written by: Hans Wetzel
- Category: Cyrus Audio, September 23-24, 2014
Cyrus Audio was an unfamiliar name to me when I learned, at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show, that it was making its return to North America. Veteran audiophiles, however, will no doubt remember the brand's association with the Mission loudspeaker company. Indeed, the company's current technical director, Peter Bartlett, was hired by Mission from his role at NAD in 1983, and six months later Mission/Cyrus was born. Conceived of as a manufacturer of affordable amplifiers to complement Mission's various loudspeaker offerings, the company has evolved quite a bit since then. It parted ways with Mission in the 1990s as it began pushing into the "affordable high-end" of the market. In 2005 Bartlett led a management buyout of the company and assumed his current role.
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- Written by: Doug Schneider
- Category: Octave Audio, May 12, 2014
"I like perfect products," Octave Audio's founder and chief designer, Andreas Hoffman (shown in photo below), said to me. "That's why I try to make my amplifiers as perfect as possible."
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- Written by: Doug Schneider
- Category: Octave Audio, May 12, 2014
Octave Audio's overall quality-control process is as extensive as I've seen. Assembled products are screened visually, tested for functionality, and put through a battery of electrical tests in order to assess performance and verify that the protection mechanisms work properly.
- Details
- Written by: Doug Schneider
- Category: Octave Audio, May 12, 2014
Octave Audio's current product line includes five preamplifiers, four power amplifiers, four integrated amplifiers, one phono amplifier, and two power-amplifier add-on modules. All of the products are made in its factory in Karlsbad, Germany.
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