Introduction
As a member of the press, it's typical at trade shows to
attend a dinner or reception hosted by various manufacturers. They might
present a new product or two among the glasses of wine and cheese platters.
It's a lot of fun for everyone.
But, getting treated to a factory tour by one of the larger,
more prominent loudspeaker manufacturers in the serious audio market made me
feel like I was covering an automotive press event.
The idea that a real company would take the time to show me around
and otherwise lend the time of Mark Aling, and some of their most important
marketing muscle, in addition to a good portion of Paradigm and Anthem’s
engineering staff, so as to provide a gloss-free, truly in-depth look at
real operations, 'under the hood', so to speak, relating to the production
of what I consider superb products, from concept, through design and R&D, to
production and distribution, blew my mind so far out of the water that I had
trouble ending sentences.
I had received an invitation a couple years ago, but had passed, as I
thought they were kidding. Who, in the audio industry, does that? The usual
route for press relations is to have the PR guy arrange a dinner, and then
fill any open ear with pleasantries and fluffy claims. Following that, like
a scorned woman post affair, they’ll send you annoying press releases,
remind you how great it was to bask in their presence. They rarely invite
you to look behind the curtain. And they’re letting me in? I'm the guy who
doesn’t have the sense to not ask stupid questions.
For those who don’t remember, Brian Florian has already taken
a look at the Paradigm facilities back in 2001. Please read this
first. Brian's better with certain details, to be sure.
I'll try not to beat to death what he’s already mentioned, but forgive me if
what I found worth stating carries some degree of redundancy. Most of what
was true then remains true now, with some degree of evolution, and the
direction of evolution, combined with the lack of radical change, is
telling.
At that time, the now established and still supported AVM-20 SSP was a work in
creation, and Sonic Frontiers was still a brand which had equipment with
its name on it (as opposed to the current situation, where all current
equipment is under the Anthem name.) It's illuminating that the promises
made about the AVM-20, including the ability to upgrade hardware as well as
software, were followed to the letter, and then some. While the latest
iteration of the product is the AVM-30, the AVM-20 is still fully supported
with updated features available on the AVM-30.
From that platform evolved the Statement D-1, and most
recently, the D-2, which incorporates video processing/scaling, etc. I need
to figure out a way to wrangle one of those for play time. Spending more
time doing product reviews would probably be a good start. Then again, after
spending a good deal of time with their AVM-20 and then AVM-30, I’ve lost my
motivation to keep looking, but I digress . . . .
Since Brian's visit, manufacturing has been unified under one location, and
their bigger, better anechoic chamber has been completed.
What
first impressed me most about the whole operation was the degree of
professionalism within the organization. Everybody seemed to love Mark, but
I didn’t notice anybody goofing off. Everybody in design and technical
support really seemed to love their jobs, perhaps to the point of being a
little creepy, but Canadian Creepy, like South Park, so you can always just
laugh and point. This isn’t merely a bunch of cheap labor stuffing boxes
with OEM parts. Paradigm (and when I say Paradigm, it applies to Anthem as
well) controls the entire process, start to finish, and the place is clean
as well. You will NEVER see my house as tidy as their factory.
Click Here to Go
to Part II.