Sound Management

Despite all of the effort that goes into the development of a perfect prototype speaker, there remains a potential barrier to achieving great sound in the customer's living room: the way in which the individual loudspeaker is manufactured. During the design and development period, Peter Gansterer works with components – such as drivers, crossover parts, and cabinets – of the highest integrity, and these serve as a reference standard. For example, drivers: During actual production, we order large quantities of drivers. During sound development, Peter works with sound tuning in the low tenth of a dB on the frequency response level. Yet even though we use only the best suppliers and stringently demand the tightest of level-tolerances, the production drivers we receive can deviate as much as +/- 1.5 dB!

To tackle this challenge, we at Vienna Acoustics are making efforts that we believe to be unparalleled in the industry. After development of a new speaker is finalized, two things happen:

1. We analyze all significant parts that Peter used in the reference standard, and we find identical examples to keep as part-references. These part-references are the benchmark by which incoming part shipments are measured. Taking again the example of drivers: When we receive tweeters for production, all of them are measured against the reference tweeter and are subsequently assigned to appropriate categories. (An average number of categories would be four to seven.) One of these is the category of "tweeters to be sent back to supplier because drivers not within tolerance according to specification book." For each of the remaining categories of the drivers we retain, we build crossovers in our factory. These crossovers are modified in component values to match the drivers perfectly, thus attaining the same total result achieved in the reference speaker. It goes without saying that individual testing has been performed on the components of the crossovers themselves.

2. In addition to using individual part-references, we manufacture a second complete reference speaker, which has absolutely the same measurements as Peter´s final reference speaker and so exactly replicates the intended sound. Each newly manufactured speaker must be identical to this second point of reference, down to tiny tolerances that have been defined by the designer through listening tests. Specially trained managers compare and study the levels of frequency response, impedance curves, and waterfall plots (to track down resonances). To avoid variations due to changes in temperature, humidity, and minor measuring equipment drift, the reference speaker is measured only minutes before the newly manufactured speaker is measured. As a result of our determinations, we make adjustments to optimize some of the speakers (typically 15%) with post-processing (e.g., complete driver replacement). Judging exactly which of the parts requires post-processing to achieve the perfect sound requires exacting skill and considerable experience.

Such patience and precision is vital to the Vienna Acoustics sound, and we believe this is why we get so much enthusiastic feedback about its musicality. It all takes a lot of effort, but we're proud to know that each customer who unpacks a Vienna Acoustics speaker will get the masterpiece the designer intended.

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