How Arslab acoustics are created and why High-End can be sold at the price of Hi-Fi

Bookshelf speakers Arslab Old School Superb 90

In today's article we will talk about how the work on Arslab columns is going on, and tell you how you can “cut off zero” on high-end acoustics price tags.
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But first, let's look at how the audio technology market works: why are there so many brands that produce audio systems? It would seem that there is a basic theory of designing linear systems, one approach to creating a linear sound with the least distortion - is it enough to use it, and you can safely capture the market? Not certainly in that way.

The fact is that engineers are important not only the sound “by itself”, but also its perception by the listener, which depends on many factors: firstly, physiological and psychological - the curve of our perception of sound is nonlinear, secondly, much depends on , in what conditions, at what volume a specific music lover prefers to listen to the recordings.

The perception of sound changes with age, depends on the surrounding space, is distorted if a person is intoxicated (this partly explains the disappointment of those who are experiencing that their favorite speakers do not give the sound “like at a rock concert”) - and all this affects the work of engineers.

In fact, the monolithic market of music lovers for a manufacturing company is divided into hundreds of subgroups: aging rockers with listening rooms in country houses, young electronic music lovers who often ride the subway, sports fans, classics who live in small apartments - all of them (and many others perceive sound differently, and they all need different goods.

How to create a product for so different people? Frequently, an engineer relates himself, his preferences and lifestyle to one of these groups and does what he likes, hoping that someone else will like this sound. He deliberately introduces his elements, distorts the sound, so that the system sounded especially good, say, at the volume that he (the engineer) considers optimal.

Solid dictatorship: however, this approach works - if you see the equipment of this or that brand on the stand in the store, it means that it already has a circle of fans - people who listen to music in those conditions “under which” the engineer created this system.

The engineer whose development underlies the Arslab brand is Yuri Fomin (who previously developed loudspeakers for the brands Jetbalance, Defender, AVE). Before you start designing acoustic systems, Yuri Fomin worked as a studio and concert engineer, played the guitar - all of this left its mark on the “sound philosophy” of Arslab:

We, together with the second leading engineer, were engaged in professional sound. We had a lot of studio work, we understand how everything sounds live. Yes, perhaps we both have a certain taste, grafted by the studios, which we are trying to recreate. But this taste is neutral. Ideally, there are no features at all inherent in the system.

- Yuri Fomin

Of course, it is impossible to exactly recreate all the nuances of sound that the sound engineer intended. For this, you must at least be present in the studio at the time of its work, however, Arslab believes that the focus on stylistic "neutrality" can give acoustics an individuality:

We consider the approach “here the metal sounds worse and the classics better” wrong. Equipment should be able to play everything, priorities should be placed by buyers. This is our philosophy.

It is important for us that a person believes that his favorite music plays best on our systems. If he loves metal - let him say that it is intended for this genre. If the blues - well, let the blues play the best. [...] We are still looking for ["our" sound], but we are already told that "we will recognize your sound from afar"

- Yuri Fomin

Arslab acoustics itself has two non-trivial (for the acoustic market as a whole) features: Russian engineers and (Russian) Audiomania are behind its development, and it is produced under the slogan “High-End at a Hi-Fi price”. We will understand how this was achieved.

From idea to plant

The idea to create your own brand, which produces acoustics, came from the founder of Audiománya, Artem Faermark, after meeting Yuri Fomin and his company F-lab in 2000. For the next eight years, the future creators of Arslab visited foreign factories, got acquainted with their owners and leading engineers, as well as how the production of machinery was organized, created experimental samples.

Production of speakers began in 2008 - it was based on the development of F-lab, the Taiwanese company TB Speakers (originally in the speakers Arslab used the dynamics of this brand), and the manufacture of cases took place in China.

Very soon, the company realized that this is not a sufficiently convenient format: Chinese factories prefer large orders and do not experience a halt in offers - production is usually loaded “to the fullest”, therefore, to make a batch, you must wait for your turn. And it is not only difficult but also expensive to control production at Chinese factories.

This is how the idea of ​​creating our own production appeared, where everything will be manufactured - from the “stuffing” to the hulls (for the same period, Artem Faermark collaborated with Allan Isaksen, the founder of Wavecor, a European speaker manufacturer, whose products are still equipped with Arslab systems) .

They decided to locate the production in Riga - there are still specialists who worked at the Soviet Radiotehnika factory and are familiar with the production of acoustics (the Scandinavian countries have experience in the production of acoustics in the Scandinavian countries).

Riga as a site for the plant was also chosen because this region provides quite a lot of freedom for the production business: on the one hand, it is close enough to Russia (while Arslab speakers are mainly produced for Russian music lovers), on the other hand, there are fewer problems with importing and "customs clearance" of imported components.

With the growth of production at the plant, goods of other High-End brands began to be produced. The most striking example of this is the acoustics of the Penaudio company, whose Audiomiania acquired a controlling stake not so long ago. Now Audiomania is engaged in everything related to marketing and distribution of Penaudio columns, and their creator Sami Penttilä can devote all his time to developing new models and monitoring the production process - he arrives at the factory in Riga every month.

From the shells ...

Production of cases for acoustics is made on a special German woodworking machine. The machine performs operations in a three-dimensional coordinate system - with its help, you can create cabinets of a unique shape. Therefore, in addition to the Arslab acoustic systems, at the factory in Riga, cases are being manufactured and on request for other companies.

They use materials from budgetary ones — for example, Latvian plywood (made entirely from birch), to classic oak, walnut, ash or cherry, and even exotic zebrano and expensive rosewood and Karelian birch. However, even for low-end models, technologists are trying to select high-quality materials: for example, high-density MDF, used in the cases of most models, is imported from Germany.

For the manufacture of cabinets acoustics Penaudio use a unique finish, which has become the "calling card" of the company - the transverse layers of plywood. At the Riga plant even managed to improve the technology of their creation compared to the original Finnish approach.

After “cutting”, the workpiece goes through the stages of assembly, gluing, varnishing or painting and drying. Most of them are done strictly by hand. Then the finished case is equipped with speakers, crossovers, connector blocks and other "stuffing". At the same time, products are tested at every stage of production - thanks to this, the percentage of defective products tends to zero.

Viktor Lagarpov, chief technologist of the plant, notes: the factory will return the finished acoustics to the plant only if it was damaged in a store or a showroom: the current approach allows us to avoid production defects. In the same place, at the factory, Yuri Fomin and a team of sound engineers are conducting and testing new equipment in the laboratory: some copies later become Arslab production models.

... before packing

It would seem that everything, the column went through the entire assembly stage, but it is also important to pack it correctly - this is the only way to guarantee the safety of the goods during transportation. To do this, at the plant Audiomania came up with a few know-how .

When packing columns, employees use latex or vinyl gloves - they leave no marks on the polished surface. The lacquered columns themselves are wrapped in a special non-woven packaging material that leaves no traces on the varnish. It is delivered to the plant from China - nowhere else such packaging is made.

Victor Lagarpov emphasizes: if you pack the columns in a regular cloth or film, the likelihood that they will be scratched increases dramatically. In addition, non-woven material allows the speakers to "breathe."

The boxes in which the columns are packed (this applies, first of all, to the most expensive of the models produced) are made of a combination of plywood and durable cardboard. Such packaging is much stronger than ordinary packaging cardboard, but at the same time it is more environmentally friendly than wooden boxes (similar options - wooden packaging - are also found on the market).

The fact is that plywood, firstly, is made from industrial wastes, and secondly, it does not require additional processing with chemicals (the latter often insist that many countries use sanitary and environmental surveillance in the case of wooden, not plywood, boxes).

After the column is wrapped in non-woven material and placed in a box, the remaining space is filled with special packing foam, which quickly grows and fills all voids. This allows you to not use in the package liners (which need to be changed depending on the model of acoustics and the size of the package) and further increases its reliability.

Usually, a stapler is used to fix wooden-plywood boxes, but in this case, after unpacking, wood or plywood is turned into waste. Audiomania has invented a way to use durable packaging material many times: for this, an individual employee fixes the boxes with self-tapping screws. The combination of all these factors provides almost one hundred percent guarantee of reliable transportation of goods - even if the boxes are stored in large stacks.

High-end Hi-Fi price

Features of the production and development of audio technology largely explain the bold motto of Arslab, and why Audiomania managed to seriously lower the price tag for "its" speakers.

For example, the decision to produce cases on its own equipment allowed Audiomania to exclude additional links from the production process, which otherwise would have led to higher product costs: and this is the payment of third-party work, logistics costs, and losses due to the need to wait for their turn. as is the case with Chinese case suppliers.

In the same way, the fact that Audiomania itself develops and sells the acoustics of its own brand affects the reduction of the final price: the company does not need to overpay for third-party R & D, and wholesalers and distributors leave the chain connecting the manufacturer and the buyer.

As for the components that still have to be purchased from third-party manufacturers, Audiomania tries to establish the most comfortable and efficient working conditions with them - and use it in order not to increase the price tag once again.

For example, the close collaboration between Audimania and Wavecor speaker manufacturer allows a company to purchase components in large quantities and use them as needed. At the same time, Wavecor respects the requests of the Russian side to change certain parameters of their products in accordance with the ideas of engineers.

Does all this speak in favor of the Arslab speakers? Only the listener can determine:

Understand, like or not like, you can only turn on and listen. Each system is the product of the creative state of a development engineer. In the work he puts his soul

- Yuri Fomin

PS More materials on the topic of audio - in our blog " Hi-Fi World ".