Acoustic Signature Turntable Factory Tour

don't try to sneak into your room like that I know what you've got behind your back records more no records all right we're just outside of Stuttgart Germany and we are going to be visiting the home of acoustic signature turntables Teutonic engineering is what they're saying so this is it this is a real turntable company not one of these basement operations and we're going to go inside and see how they make turntables and tone arms here at acoustic signature so my name is one forever I'm the owner of acoustic signature and my colleague here is Robert Haugen man he is our head of sales or sales manager responsible for sales all over the world we are here at our Factory in Andrews in Germany and are happy to have you here to show people around and see what the turntable manufacturer can make in-house in Germany means okay thank you let's do it yeah we are here at the our loading dock where the incoming goods are there right now we are loading parts that we put to external suppliers for analyzing and so with this loading thought we do the heavy items in and out coming covered with the roof so that we can do that with the valley drains also and on what interesting here is that the zoning allows people to have homes yeah right next to factories yeah that's real mix area so here you have the wheel thing is that on there is the street on that side of the street that is allowed but on the other side of the street that is a more or less residential area their factories like here are not allowed so the this industrial surrounding starts on that side of the street from here to there there you have residential living areas and factories and on the other side it's more or less only president interesting okay well let's we don't want to look at houses we'll only the factories you see all those waste things so there we we select we recycle everything here would recycle the aluminium chips we recycle the steel chips the brass chips so and those things are in those containers and then if they are full we bring them here is the area where the people in the summer can sit and we have solar panels on the roof which don't provide all the energy we need but yes at some point is house here we what your film right now is our short stock for round material and in variations of aluminium brass copper yeah different sizes different materials of the everything which is marked blue here is a sort of aluminium that can be anodized but it's tough to chip the black aluminium is a different alloy that is much easier to chip but you cannot analyze it so it will get three and and it doesn't look nice so as you see mainly we do the blue ones there we have the storage for lot of materials and the little thicker materials in different variations that is what we need short term at the end we try to put in the material short before we really put it on the machine so we tried to do it just in time as good as possible like we receive here of a batch of platters and other cuttings that we plan to put on the machine I think on Monday later so what you're trying to say is you try to keep your inventory lean nice yeah having access in the video you don't want to run out then why not you can't be a producer we have an external storage where we have some material also here is sorts of materials so that is a tango reference housing we have three machines items for the for the Invictus junior and Invictus there so there are free machine but not anodized so if we get an order we can select the color and then produce it quick how long does it take you to go from someone order is one of these top-of-the-line turntables to actually be able to fit out the door if we don't have three Mills items I would say something in between six and eight weeks Wow because milling those huge things takes time on the machine Invictus takes minimum nearly a week on the machine until all the aluminum is done then we need to grind it we need to a surface treatment we need to sandblast it then it goes to anodizing it comes back eventually for both plate and then we need to assemble and test run it and that all takes time date week yeah yeah all right let's go through this so this is worth incoming and this is also where your machine shop is yeah there's a machine shop starts here we have pieces that needs to be surface grinded so they are pre machine but the surface grinding is is necessary then they as you see here they are sandblasted here but the surface is not blinded so first sandblasting downstairs then grinding and then go to the anodizing and after that and your operation is just about completely in-house every do everything everyone so not just about everything we do everything as long as wood wood we buy it from an external to play around here because that is totally not our cup of buzzword blessed one but anything when it comes to metal aluminium plastic we do it now we right being boiled in this machine do here this machine is [Music] because it's not self explanatory so that's like a sense of belt yeah that's a [Music] to get a surface on put that on here you adjust the height of the table in the right way [Music] and then we prefer to do it by hand we do the block [Music] during doing that you need to always move the table forward and backward again you get a grinded surface that looks like all the front covers of aluminium front plate and face plate look like and if you see that why did you have to be so big because the longer this belt so this one is nine meters and the construction are going then they come back at that night right but then you can't look at the surface that's why they do this triangle thing and that also adds up length to the belt so this belt is nine meters and if the belt is nine meters long it lasts much longer than if it would be five meters because the more material you have the longer it lasts you sue it once but having two people working with yes you can do five at once also a very important thing is the height for everything those cinematographers oh those belts are pneumatic crewman see there the bearing on this side is flexible so it moves forward and backwards that means the grinding valve can have just very perfect to the to the surface of the material you are working with okay that is our oldest machine the machine is older than I am and the the lacing machine here I did my school on it and I fought it from the factory where they put it into a corner and the y-coordinate so that's some sort of memory doesn't have any coach with it before the perfect yes you use it for yet sometimes curveball big hookers I think here's our first machine it's it's great if you need to do small things the spindle is up to 16,000 rounds per minute and soaking down the material of a vacuum we are doing right now we are doing this small clip you know yeah giving them doing everything scratch out of the big plates and there we do piece by piece it works for your magnitude and it can handle this small items perfect because of his high spindle speed they have a unit like that so there we have a long hole which connects it to the lift so that it's not moving and we have a Kemper on the top side and fully-automatic we have a Kemper on the bottom side so when the machine is finished we don't need to touch that unit anymore so it comes from the machine ready to use that is what our main goal is we want to eliminate factor human as far as possible and use humans where they are perfect or better than machines but on things like that now you top that with the pieces like a rubber there is a rubber on top it's a person a person does it yeah so first we go down and sandblast it so that the surfaces is more equal and then there will be a rubber on top here and then we assemble [Music] we also change this is a new model which we will in trip at the Munich Show but still with the new model now it's it's bigger branches to have it available when we introduce the product to the market for sure if people are interested in this we can ship it so here at the backside of we right [Applause] we have leaning liquid here and just that there is no way a federal like that something below so if they lacking so that all the things that go out are going in here and [Music] for guys are expensive they know [Music] side on this so here all the work is done Canada if you want to take that out we this is totally Richard's fondant yes and they find and if I put some effort in with the air pressure you can easily take it out like this so those three plants are funding this unit to the Machine and if we put on the next one and with putting in the next unit is quite quick because we simply put it in and then we be careful we will reopen these yeah we reopened the fixture by an additional air pressure and then it stuck it goes down that's it totally Richard and you can put five tons of pressure on here and still they they clamp it and that makes changing part these easy and reliable they are always at the same position where you need them surveys so it will be a full milling machine the insulating machine the total value of only the machinery in here is about one point million euro Machinery my cognitive testing related for chamber fire always made of fear because after three four [Music] in order to keep us up-to-date with headman and with perfect minute action the village but those bigger things we put them first in here when this operation is done we put into the next machine you already see it before and at the end any product is like always grinded blasted and then energized so this wouldn't have been possible how many years ago I would say 10 years ago it would be plausible but it would have taken much longer because now you will see that later and the the the real milling stuff is dormant the technology is so improved now programming lies this program that is running here has about eight hundred thousand lines of code thousand hundred powers of you cannot program them by hand you need to do that like we do it with the cin program where you program everything and then you simply download the file to the machine by network and then the machine is doing the operation and so years ago it would have been possible it would have taken much much longer with less precision of so these ear silencers yeah these are silences here we do a surface treatment president the Cylons have before the operation and that is the same silence or after the operation so you see that we really have a mirror finish and so we don't need to polish them so the camper is really sharp by polishing you do it round we do that in a machine the advantage of machining it is each is similar to the one with your assistance yeah and precision in height consistency and surface and then we store them here we have a machine where we or that you can see a little better right here we are milling and what's happening in here I don't see what yeah at the end this park was made and no it's the bottom of the overbearing so that you see the slot where you can turn it in and it goes up and then we do the second operation and then the the spindle is running on on that part of it see that machines that little part she announces our support if we started the door closes it changes the tool to this puller the bullet goes here goes over it the picture opens it puts it forward clamps and then the next part is done what about automatic so the door opening is just for you now normally the door is closed and Powerful Park goes in here until the bar is M okay blessed us let's not stop production number okay this machine is as you can see way more sophisticated than the other one here we have a dual spindle unit that we have a spindle here we have a fit there so at the end we we can at the end we have a ready product that is already done with all the holes in with the threads in with front side backside operation with cameras on both sides so with this machine as it can do the front side and the back side you get ready parts that are after the machine is the say with that part yeah that is a off-center regal weight which we do for several OEM suppliers in high quantity that's the most in high quantity so you simply put that on the back side of Auriga arm and yeah and lock it down and then you have the way for milling in that depth that speed wasn't possible before because programming it is way too complicated so the big hole we need to to mill outs we'll take whatever four minutes here and before it would be twenty minutes so the new programming technology and everything is a big advantage and even though you own the machine is on the clock doing stuff so the water heats the water we charge by the minute more apart leaves the more the longer it needs the more expensive it is that's why we invest in clamping because they're the change of the workpiece is fast and quick so that speaks of reduction [Music] remove that warmer than the machines boots the Powerade grabs the next this is what we use if we want to let things run for there you can load the bars so to ensure quality we have special mastering tools and here you see there we have one point zero zero one zero zero two so every micron we have it and it starts with every hundredth of a millimeter then it goes with every tenth of a millimeter and with that you can just ensure that if you want to measure ten point seven zero you put them together and then you have to mention that the size you want then you can calibrate your tools but you have to have that you need to to make sure you can measure it the packet back you need to have this and without that quality control is a problem we also have easy inspection those tools saddles are in the machine so they're the tool goes against here and the double-team itself knows where the where the tool stands so that you have the right dimension we've got to the fire of machine let's say oh we're raw material illumine be workable and this is course had made with but all in-house so whatever happens during this process already just right in the food control we have finished I am accustomed and upwards my backside coming over for this this is approximately too heavy for you 30 kilos here we have our metal drill is made of carbide any tenth of a millimeter of the sense then it continues to the lots of diameters this one for example it's a thirteen point eight millimeter that's the drilling into a platter to make the spindle in each of them is about 150 bucks so you can imagine the value of these tools yeah we have the tools for the lacing machine different variations lengths and sizes we have fixtures planting so all those things are packed with material or with money have that's all my money in the garage door opening were parks them in to all of the milling and machining of parts here are fixtures clamping mechanisms for the other parts and allowed to be able to lock things we're gonna show you everything we're going we're gonna go upstairs to storage upstairs this is a factory building so this is a reveal there in the second floor we have parts of the stock in here like carton boxes for shipping we have that in place we have finished turntables as you can see where every turntable is a with the so called number plate yep serial number who it is in which color which arm which pronounced which voltage this is all in here how many different turntable models do you make currently we are doing twelve twelve that's a lot that's a lot yeah but you have also have to see that is a from a retail point of view in pricing excluding arm from $1,000 to aim to one hundred and forty thousand dollars all right so the range is yes correct Yeah right big yeah but we are only doing turntables tone arms and a couple of accessories inherit our our models do we have six six dollars six basic in three different lengths with three different colors so here as we said he are some toe knocks Jones to see five pin rig amount SME mounting ten inch a nine inch 9 inch so it also with the number plate yep let me know what it is I got it more under there more arms over there and more storage over there yeah okay all right those supporting departments servicing the machinery doing prototyping doing things which are necessary to adjust this is done in here or like in this process while we are doing let's say production processes which you do not have gaining a once a why this is all in here why were you tombow in here they're tumbling in the Auriga spaces okay in order that they're looking for you might say is there anything in there inside of the earth inside there's a certain liquid ian and they're turning is you don't know what those are do they make raiga spacers for the for the three screw mount that allows you to change the height of the arm without removing the screws from the turntable you just loosen them and stick these underneath that's right very very convenient much more convenient than to remove the lipid spacer under each screw it's very ingenious it keeps the place running yes the quasi place run needs to be more about okay this is the auxiliary was this the office for the programming of the machines we just have seen the guys are are sending the files of the Italy tones and the files if your machinery room this is separated because doing programming it's basically impossible in the whole world and you're a sender in law yes and so this is the well today we should point out is a is a holiday and so a lot of people aren't here today because that's a good day for me to be here so it's all not interfering with on the one hand it's a good day for you to be here because we have a lot of time it's relatively calm yeah on the other hand it's not showing that in the our fact we are working 25 beep 25 people but I'll show you later on yes the list of people who have believed you I have a feeling they believe you don't worry about that all right yeah this is a very important room in your factory to see where things get actually get one of the money is created yes but things get produced yeah so as beside we have a holiday so there is only a limited amount of stuff here so these are these are the shots that we had in your tumbler yeah these are the jobs now shiny and scratch-free and without any problems you're seeing just to make sure that people are believing me okay that means sick you means holiday so you see all the people who is this week on holiday and I believe you so here is our the production s and I also want to first start with precision and a lot of people talk about precision and microns and all that thing and at the end they can't prove it they don't have the measurement system to do it so what I want to show you is here we are having spindles this is the part which goes into the to the bearing right and we just want to give you an idea about what we are talking about when we will we say precision manufacturing so it should have a little bit less than 12.00 if I take this one it has 11 9 9 4 so that's 6 microns below 12 if I it takes the next one 11 9 9 3 so the difference right now is 1 micron that's acceptable yeah it's okay 11 9 9 3 it's the same no difference we take this one it's 11 9 9 to 1 micron different and the other one it's 11 9 9 2 so all of those 5 spindles are within a micron which I would call that's more or less pretty good yeah that's where yeah the same there is the opposite part that is the bearing which the spindle needs to go in if we measure the diameter of that bearing we are talking about 11 to 3 2 11 2 3 12 no yeah 12 2 3 4 so 2 microns 2 to 5 yep another micron in the other do you actually try to match up the words if there is no matching needed that is what I want you see the production is is is within a micron or 2 microns which is measuring mistake so all of those parts there is no match needed because the the diameter is perfect so that is the ball that goes in here where the whole spindle runs on so their precision is very important because if you have a problem here you will immediately realize that so 5 5 as five nine nine six five nine nine seven and you make these balls in house - yeah 5 9 9 6 9 9 5 ok I believe you 9 9 7 so also here we are not talking about precision within microns we really couldn't prove that our machining is super sophisticated we have linear class scales in any machine to ensure precision from the early in the morning to late in the evenness this is what you produce for every your entire range of Trinity between thousand dollars of your hundred fifty it's the same same process the same same Precision's because we don't want to have a cheap ton table with let's say cheap made bearings and then ruin the reputation of the company because we face hassles so really the people buying at the bottom end are get taking advantage of the precision that you demand on the top getting yeah the procession is involved in the process and there is no discussion about changing or making something cheap because it's simply it's more expensive to make it cheap yeah so show me around the rest of this okay here is the area where we do that the service or the repair work from products that are coming back which is maybe this is a turntable which we use to listen to cockroaches that's a test table that is also old so right now there is a maxim was from one client yes a friend of mine has this turntable that when I reviewed this like what 20 years ago or something yeah so he bought it yeah and this is like you see it's that's for speed adjustment of diameter 300 platters so if we service a motor electronic we want to make sure that when we ship it back to the customer the speed is correct and so this is only there to have the right diameter on a platter to speed it just that's okay for service and so here we are doing the production so we can do three turntables at the same time so there is one position here one position there and another position they are what is this that is top secret no it's just made for you to give the people an idea what silences are doing silencers are those copper cylinders that we press into the platter and the result of them or the effect is easy to demonstrate that's a platter with 310 millimetre 50 millimeter thick 310 millimeter 50 millimeter sake no silences silences if I use my fingernail and knock on that we have this ring ring yeah yeah and if you do the same with the silencers there is no ringing anymore yep the resonance behavior the of the aluminium is totally dropped down by nearly 80 DB so the ringing tendency of those platters which make aluminum sound lively but if it's too much you get some distortions this ringing thing is totally absorbed by the silences so they are beside that they look nice the main reason the main reason for doing them is to improve the sonic quality of the turntable and that is a Maximus that is ordered and ready to be shipped do we have the Thunder that is ready to be shipped and here we on the next batch we do a serious production batch of Primus Primus is our entry level of turntable and so we split all the work into three positions and nearly all of those positions should be last at the same time that means here is position one where this assembly is done it clearly we have identification for the guy what to do and then we have the second operation and the next operation with a Primus this is the platter on the least-expensive turntable that you make yeah well that's pretty impressive huh also you see the backside even there is a normally that not normally after the production our coding comes in here so it would be easy to have a very ugly looking surface here because nobody lives but that's not our cup of coffee how much this turntable cost 12:12 oh yeah something like that yeah then how heavy is their platters about five kilos and its massive aluminium and also here you see the blue yeah the blue cover which we simply do on the front on the top also because we want to ensure that the product is not scratched at the customer's house and when we do the test run we don't want to have any belt things and this is the this is the plastic yeah we cut that on a plopper to put it on top and to have those things around okay with these one primers every 20 minute when three guys are working here and this is your big that's a be here at the big baby that's an order for a client and invictus black and to give you an idea what we are doing this is the picking list so that's the parts list the parts list says that's the article number the name and there is the storage we have like you have we will see later on we have different storages from a to Suzette and then we have different layers from 1 to 15 and each layer has a position from 1 to 5 so if you need to find this part you you go down and go to D layer 7 place 1 and you can pick it up even without knowing what the part is and then that is for the platter that's a detailed instruction for the guy doing the platter what to do so he just needs to follow that rule and then he can produce the platter then we have the the ground plate of the in Victor's also here we have detailed instructions 30 instructions just for this unit and the parts list according to that then we have the parts lists harvest harvest at least then we come to the putting the dampers in the magnetic tempers also with parts list and a lot of parts how many parts go into this turn about 500 500 parts yes that's not including the arm just just the 2005 of things not the army not the wreck right so you see it's a lot of paper just for one come table then all the needed parts are pre-selected so they are in here so that everything is there and then when they start to work they assemble this unit then they put the motors on the so could you sell this like a Dyna kit where you get you buy the parts and assemble it at home maybe that's a new business idea do-it-yourself version of it yeah and whenever the turntables or anything else like you we have photo stages so reference if you lift that up that's a freaking heavy photo play you're not a you're not an electronics designer no you I am I'm a I'm an electronic engineer you are yeah but I I hated it from the beginning so I just finished it and then I moved to mechanics also here we don't use any foreign contractors or whatever so all the things are built in in Germany and like I always say there is made in Germany is is a quality sign but made in baden-württemberg which is the area here it's the it's even one step up one step or two because here is the herd precision machining and so the big car companies are here Mercedes Porsche and all the suppliers bush and all the things so it's a good area if you need anything regarding surface treatment tools whatever you get it within let's go in here now this is this is where you make the arms right yeah but we should do that in the afternoon one o'clock ok wanna come back we'll come back because I have a public holiday in Duluth yeah so they're gonna come in and they're gonna come in and show us at the hell they work in here right after the production is done yeah we go into the same room the units in here you do that thing and there they get their test run for 24 or 48 hours depending on the model and when this is done we take them out and put them outside where the the packing area is here the sedgwick is cutting foils the blue file that is on top of the platters and run any or any other product to ensure that we cover them so that they don't get scratches and you ship it that weight with the blue on it yeah so people take it up at home yeah we had first we had transparent but transparent they leave it yeah they forget it this blue one is colored enough to insurance well this is where you make Legos right yes that's your Lego machine yeah that's my Lego machine so we have this is a laser engraving machine and we use Lego also for the printing because the Lego thing I was being facetious but you're being serious you do use yeah okay I was being facetious but you don't use it we this is for example a fixture where we print the arm tubes oh and so the advantage of this thing is if you put in something round normally you use that for a roof on a legal but you can also place the wrong thing on it and it's always centered and this is for a conical arm tube so you see this is more down than this one there you can put it here and you can print a conical arm too but straight arm tube you say printing me on the tube on the tube yeah printing 3d arms no no no no we are using this fixtures to silk socks we came up with this idea the Lego the Lego idea honestly not me I copied it from some from another company which that's something totally different and I I said holy that's a great idea because it's it's cheap it's super precise and you can change it out the distance from any Lego dot is exactly eight point zero two millimeters and if you have ten it's the ten times of it and so you see we have plenty of larger plates medium-sized plate small place it's easy to to adapt so you can make fixtures for any tool any part whatever you need it's so handy and here we have the legal on and also we have have by turning this this moves to this direction you can move it forward and backward to adjust it and at the end we start we also do the printing on our own our MC cartridge housings so that we do the laser engraving and everything and this is for the backside of a power supply so we we use that quite heavy and also we we use this oil filter to protect the product when words and that does reinforce no this is engraving by laser okay this is laser engraving yeah and that is laser printing yeah there you can just engrave back sides of a housing or front covers right but that is only one color with the search screen printing thing we can yeah as you can see here we can do multi colors we can do white we can do colors and this has to be accurate absolutely and what what what of what alignment you to get people Baerwald Lovgren Evensen we do belt available and we also have control units to check that they are they're transparent which we put on this is used with a with a metal fixture made of aluminium so that the position is correct which is essentially yeah and so we invested quite some money into that also this spring silkscreen thing is it's expensive but our problem is that if we we also do the circuit printing on top of for example the turntable that Publix and things like that if we ship them out to a six print silkscreen printer if we ship 50 we get 50 back but five of them are scratched yeah and they don't want to take the responsibility because they are printing chopped is 7 euros and the damage they cost is 200 so they say no warranty on that now you got do it in hat you for you you have to do it yeah that's the only solution these two machines are an investment of $70,000 yeah euros euros just these two machines but it allows you to produce precision and get what you want yeah without cosmetic damages get spread which you normally get if you do it extra yeah so when the products have passed the test run facility they go out here to the packing area where they get packed in boxes where the protection files is additionally put on if not already done and then we box them that's storage of products and when the units are done they got a tip we put on pallets that's pinnacle that's our Chinese distributor and so we pack it and we wrap it and after that we ship it how many countries are used selling turntables in right now I think it's about 30 35 to 40 depends some of them are less active than than others but at the end it's that so and how have you seen changes in certain countries becoming bigger and certain countries becoming smaller and yes we have seen that though it is difficult to judge if it's now some countries are more enthusiastic about vinyl and analog and some others are losing the interest it has certainly also to do with the economic possibilities and influencing factors of the country yeah for sure in Spain and Greece and Italy people would are listening analog yeah but the economical circumstances are not that perfect yeah on the other hand countries which have traditionally not at that big analog history analog is becoming more appreciated and more popular and they have the funds and the money to buy all these things how do you find South America as well South America is difficult there is a huge potential due to the number of people living there yeah but to be fair our product in terms of price point and in terms of complementing products is not something majority of people are looking at yeah also Texas and beauty is a big problem there and we are a German manufacturer relaxed precision but we also like to follow the rules so the very often done things of under invoicing for to save money for the importing guys is we don't do that so that makes exporting to Argentina or Brazil nearly literally impossible yeah the NBC's the duties to for example in countries in south America custom is between 70 and 120 percent but who are they protecting I mean they're not protecting their own I think the eternal turntable manufacturing what is this it I think I think this is something on a on a scale of where myself I don't feel to comment this is politics and I have never heard about in a Brazilian or chi'lan or absentee no no and forgive me so what are they were they I just don't want money going out I think they want to get money out of the richer people ya know where they can get them so also like Robert said I like investing in machines we bought a new ceiling machine to make it easier for our workers to pack things so you simply put your your box in here you place it you press the button this is not your specialty so don't worry about it okay give me a minute he gets to play with one of his toys yeah and but it was not on okay we understand that you want then you press turning around and you can seal it and that makes it faster and easier for the people to do it without as if your hand gets poor under there yeah and then you think over Alice so if you like you said what happy one of your hand you wanna try no no I can do that nothing happen uh thing happens so there is it detects that something is not perfect and then it only has a certain amount of for Alyssa so it it's here you can see the screws we are using we have a huge amount of different screws all perfectly put into things clearly marked loaded with schools schools in different sizes from long ones thin ones so cold ones for the the golden products that's a quite a fortunate that is just in here in those jig for thee this is the test jig for the tone of the tone ham so here we have a nine inch 10 inch 12 inch and any tone arm gets mounted to this unit with different counter weights and everything and we listen to it with a mounted cartridge for minimum one record side just to ensure that all the testings we did up front and it passed it we just want to listen to it to make sure it works and so any arm gets this treatment which is also nice for the ladies because there they they can listen to music during their work yeah he's only a private one that these are their records yeah some weird things also well that's carnival that's the time where in the period we're in now yeah this is this would be considered sexual harassment in America at this time but that's the lady's record yeah and it's reaching old so yeah well that's right I'm not gonna show this like but this is what the ladies lift your leg yeah this is out of her when so this is a a overview of the 12 different models yeah and what power supply is part of the delivery and so that everybody knows what needs to be in in the box as an overview if you that's a reminder come on decide to we go sign class and Wesley and we're are listening room is where our server room is where that material is in here we need to blast that now and we do this right and also here we have our listening room that we have an elevator to get the heavy items up and down right and in here listening room is very important in a high five company then you find out how concerned they are about how things sound so here we have a nicely set of room with good acoustics though we have to admit that as you see on the captain box is sitting over here hi in 2020 we are also using this now already as a very storage place for the upcoming New Year show we are having here the aambat display we are collecting already products we want to display there certainly we are having also samples and the test run over here but using it already as a as a as you see there is a lot of tall arms I get only six or six different but different models following here you see for example for the Munich show the accessory board yeah you know loads and grips clamps and weights and correctly drill assessor and yeah also this room is mainly used to listen but also used to recreation recreation so we have 4k Beamer we have a big screen so people can sit down and can I show this new model here sure this is a new model coming called the month the Montana yeah and this is the Hannah arm that goes with the Montana only kitten yeah it's a good thing for everybody we show it you don't want to show it show this part of it right now just keep it but I'll show this part of it yes here were also some of the this is a very old Ascona we still keep some of them in stock and the ideas when we have time to put outside there is no kind of you know icons of acoustic signature in like a medium yeah this is this is the latest one yeah the latest one would without silencers yeah so because silences you can get in gold and chrome and whatever so we don't put the silences in before before the order is there some room we have huge new servers we have you see the amount of orange cables that are all the network cables we put in here so we have installation of networks all over and force you have - yeah you can use the best of both worlds and that's our new server which we've got is smaller than the other one but by far more better much better much faster that's the office for the accounting and marketing and yeah when the ladies I yeah counting and marketing this is without this they'd be nothing there'd be nothing here yeah and here is the office the purchase is made and also the support sales support and internal things for production planning and everything and super efficient that is our storage for the small units and there you see what I said up front with our storage system that's ro e and if you have on the parts list e 10 P 5 that means this storage level 10 position 5 take this one out and you have the part and so all the system is arranged chaotic so the computer realizes empty spaces and fills it up automatically and the same we have so this is current part stock to build turntables and spare parts and spare parts the same is on the back side and the same we have we have another hand there's another one that are already produced Primus and there is stock and on the other side it's also stock there it's the same so how many how many turntables can you produce a day if we produce 50 a day after a few days we need to slow down because we can't supply all the other parts needed real arrows bearings feets and tone arms to it so it's you can do 20 50 a day from the interior day of the fighters yeah yeah right now we do approximately about 12 to 13 hundred a year here and about 700-800 tone arms and we could easily increase that but then yeah we need to maybe have a second shift that we can eat we have on building and when we have enough head room left for increasing capacity and their output which you want to have you want to have that yeah but you have to look you have to calculate it's it's we are only doing 25 people turntables majority of our businesses our own brand and this is according to a management or the owners also the idea yeah of course we can increase quantity but that would also mean we need to increase stock purchase product in product ioser m and and this is in these days or escalation of number one risky yeah question of space yeah if outside I can show you two 40-foot containers we higher with export little neighbor's a space where we put unclick critical parts like the inlays the styrofoam inlays yes I've seen that I've seen that in a few places yeah yeah and this is a question yes you can increase but yeah in the stock we're having palate which is running for Vietnam Vietnam told us due to the actual corona and put it on hold yeah number two there's no carrier flying it there's no carrier flying at the moment into Hong Kong it's difficult it's very expensive so we have and you have to warehouse it yeah yeah yeah making all views of all your available space yes yeah yeah I see that cuz you got you got yeah that's going this thing right being there that's also part of this coronavirus issue yeah and who expects it who expects this kind about you to happen nobody that's right so if you continue we have the office of the real boss the real bland wife check in with with real plants I like that more spots and you have you have real orchids thriving in here orc the plants orchids those and they thrive here that's hard to do most people they only stay there well yeah something so you doing something right because most people buy those and then they die that's a hello to you Michael and a nice - oh oh yeah we we are working on 3d drawing things we use SolidWorks and inventor so that we do all the designing of the products from from scratch we have everything in 3d so we can supply service manuals explosion drawings parts lists everything so that is done and developed here and when it's finished we put it on the on our server and then stop production so how many turntables in the future are you working on right now about two or three we are also thinking of maybe doing something that is made specially for custom installation where most of those guys are not into analog so like I can play a bit slug and play and make sure that we for example use a cartridge like for example sound Smith has whether the cantilever is not breaking so it's hard to kill it because those guys don't have the experience and this we lose 10% of the sound but we avoid all the damages it's it's a plus for them yeah and so that is what we are thinking of to have something for the custom installation guys perfectly isolated with with more damping than normal specially made for them and then if those people like what they hear eventually they might want to upgrade the other thing Greta yeah and we want to have it there's a plug-and-play solution a goodwill ambassador there for analog yeah that's what we try to do because especially in your country the custom installation business is is really big yeah and those custom installers quite often simply contact the dealer and says supply some some product to me and install it because I have no clue and we want to give them a solution that they can buy and sell as a CD player just plug it to the wall and you're done with a built in phone also just higher yeah high level output symmetrical balanced outputs so that they can put it to their preamps and we have no hum issue with no installation no no alignment everything done here so that is what we are right now working on in several price classes makes a lot of sense actually so to me that makes sense I think that's a market beside from the high-five guys yeah so here we are coming into the this is the canteen yeah that's the pentene nice canteen and so that is where the people have their lunch ran to have their the German Mardi Gras is on right now so that's it this is nice that's the area where they can have down that lunch coat we have a Braley of microwave we have a nice coffee machine espresso machine and fully cooked kitchen for the employee nice the award for the nicest bathroom in a factory especially in our industry goes to acoustic signature by far this is the nicest bathroom I'm moving in everything matters to them every single thing the detail here is is unbelievable let's see a clearly my sentiment and uber sexy also here you see what needs to be done now these ladies didn't come into this having built tone knobs elsewhere so they are not on there so the salmon is my second train placement goldsmith yeah and watchmaker um so you have the advantage that they are obviously familiar with you know tiny little parts extremely delicate and sensitive to work with and sensitive materials yep the training for tone on business and for the this has done so how long was the development of the toner on part of your business how many years did it take today I think from the from the idea of having an own tone arm due to various reasons and being independent from REM and bigger peninnah and till final production it's more than two and a half three years 23 years and even then when when you produce the law there were still issues that had to be dealt with yes because it always are yes from the from the very beginning tonearm business is completely different than turntable business yes of course it belongs together but from the web production is from the way materials are used it's very different so you have ideas but then you have first prototypes yet then you find out by measuring this is not going to work it's not Richard enough or it's not it's just too much resonances and so you try not only by trying error you have costs EAD you have this you have all the support computer and then you you're dependent upon it has to work with cartridges then it has to work with cartridges then it has to to be mountable on turntables with different arm boards right and face now you don't you don't sell these arms oh yeah no you can't buy it I kept by an acoustic signature tone arm and put on my old turntable you can okay we are selling tone arms on out separately oh you are yes but we are not selling it to OEM customers well if you are as a final customer and customer in the US or anywhere in the world going to dealer and authorised exclusive acoustic signature I can put it on whatever turntable oh okay I know that you can do that similar Vica versa if there are bees I would say diehard musicians musical fanatics um using three or four tone arms on a Onan invictus Jr yeah we are happy to manufacture if they have a net out of the old days and SAT at rippln or tonearm we're happy to manufacture the tube match into our ace yeah which makes complete sense yes you because as you have seen today we can do all this inner in-house yeah but we are also happy if someone is mounting a ta mm on the linen or a ta 5000 on an JR or a clear audio fine but we are not manufacturing this for other turntable companies which I had to stay at also yeah I mean that could be a business but on the other hand what the boss said majority of the business was will in is our own brand you see now is that is that glue or that that's lubricant um it's as a lubricant yeah and that's a spring that's a good nose ring kind of washer and that's Loctite yeah this is this desert extender I'm just kidding and instead of magnet magnet it's magnetized so there's no skating I need a condom the honey feeder him oh yeah that is the extent that later on a spring is again coming to adjust the underseater scaling yeah - plenty and different doctors here true but more accurate the investigating is it a magnetic repulsion since always as a racist free and that's the spring that's whispering hold a I survey considering my age and my fingers and my visibility capable it's still it would take ages boy like that okay from what ta 7,000 carbon-fiber glued together with the other parts in that in housemate so this is exact that you use for something yes to 9 inch to 12 inch and this is then what we what needs to reply here and then before it's going to each and every tone arm is going to be test it and listen to so this is done but what are these actual arms that that you sell guests that are in this jig in order to be tested know that industry to dry they exactly loot glued and they're here to dry okay and when this is then done that it's going to be fun mounting and then going to be tested okay with the counterweight and all these things and how long does it have to glue for 24 hours the just AMRO to the rest about an hour an hour yes what kind of glue is it is like a metric really tool component because yeah that you don't manufacture these carbon tubes no the carbon cubes we are giving as a raw material but then we are doing the you know adjustments and all these things and is it what we're talking about Luton 3d printing yeah we are also doing one one head shell you know the head shows we're doing on our own an aluminum on our machinery there's one upgrade attach tool for the ta 9 thousand and seven thousand in titanium and in titanium Madrid and 3d print right this takes a very long time yes and to be very fair this is not done in-house because we do not have a 3d printer what makes us it's simply too expensive he would love to have this yeah every word but you're not stopping but this is simply we would not have the output level for titanium natural such as fine invest like be 3d print maiding about ta 9000 which is a to make it very Richard and resonance free you have an inner structure like a construction place when you're building a skyscraper alright and you're not printing it in 3d printer the horizontal way but you're printing it upwards and to print this arm cube takes about two days in a 3d printer because the whole structure is this is what is the made of aluminum it's loaded yeah so alumina powder like a selective laser melting yet the legs a metaphor makes it and where is this done this is also done here in Germany it's a company close to none back and they are very famous for 3d print they have the biggest 3d printing machine Park Inn in Germany they are working for us on this I'm CUBAN titanium Hetzel available for the bigger um tone arms as an upgrade version and three different lengths okay so she's doing this part yeah are we gonna see the Assembly of any other parts or is listed doing Andy Andy skating than right here oldest we're putting on here we're getting fine mount of the TA 500 and as you also see and all arms have two options in internal cabling copper or silver and who attaches the head shell the the cartridge clips to that solution it's not oh yeah yeah yeah in here we are clipping a the the cubes for the HR for the cartridge into no counterweight yet no that's fine a lot of parts all this done in-house yeah yeah and mount it and also you know here's what what we saw this morning um the rubber which is put on this little metal holder lift order you don't you buy this this yeah sure you gotta buy some parts that well if you start getting resourcing our own rubber and our own plant where the rubbers coming from densha otoko plantation too difficult for it then these your ABAC bearings yep see where the ADIZ from Japan or Germany or Japan no wonder that in this department only females our yeah of course of course I love this this is hand soldered here yep and this is also to make sure hand solid SEO as you correctly said that every tone arm is going to be tested in emotion that we really seats it's number one working number two it's adjustable number three music is coming out left right the right array yes of course how embarrassing would it be for it to be backwards which could happen for it look everything happened everything can have with us and and we're not saying that me that acoustic signature is a hundred percent perfect simply because there's nothing at 100 percent of the planet that's right but we have the approach and the wish to become perfect 100% knowing we are not achieving it yes but when you're having this goal then it's it's achievable and if you reach 98 that's very good what was this room used for before you went into the total business final mounting of the content area yeah yeah actually as this as it is our own building is going to mention earlier we can once a while if we have different ideas yeah get one wall rid of that put another one here okay so she's she's a lot like gold plating yet it's gold plating on this one is first we put on nickel it was an electro chemical process galvanic process so now the brass gets nickel plated you see it's it's shiny now yes the nickel prevents the brass firm from oxidizing and then getting green and miss colored and nickel is what is needed as a sort of a barrier from the brass atolls to go into the gold and after the Nicolas is done we put gold on or CRO depending what the client want using the same technique technique but a different liquid really yeah interesting so we have nickel we have palladium that is for Chrome the problem is that normally you need to put makeup below but especially on the silences you don't want to have nickel because nickel is magnetic right and the silences are nearby yes a cockroach this is the outside of the platter so there the nickel is is no problem but for the silences we we only use palladium now if I hold on to that alligator clip and she may turn me into into nickel don't play with nickel plated finger no no no wait it's only on metals now what planner is this for sleds kkona kkona and Victor jr. and Invictus as a sandwich platter okay you see if you take a look on the on the top you see where the brass is covered with the nickel so there it starts here and it goes around yes and it's only there where it's needed so that we don't kill the fit or of the pieces doesn't take much right now it's only my currency half a micron 2 micron that's it [Music] [Music] sticks this is one of our cleaning machines which we use to clean them the parts that come out of the machines before we blast them because as you have seen in the video before all those machines run with a water oil mixture right and this is yeah bonded out to the outside of the of the part and if we put this part down to the blasting the oil water thing is sticking together those fine blasting materials so we need to get rid of the optimum oil and of degrees of the water from the parsley from use this is a power washer if it is hot high pressure high pressure and it's a closed loop that means all the water going down the oil is separated the oil disappears that the water gets filtered and is reused for a long long time so that is oil can disappear it has to go someplace yeah it goes somewhere so much so that there is a special tank where the clean where the separated oil stays and what what do you do with that well you reuse it in the machines or nope then you dump it to the river yes they're checking on you much of this material start will have purchase and how much you I was just kidding you can't kit around here I'll let they come get you if we take out the cooling liquid off the machine because after some time it's dead yeah then you put it in and when those thousand liter tanks are full you called the environment guys they come they with a big tank they they soak it out of the film they take two probes one probe stays with you the other probes they do to their left and then they let this unit stand on a place until day and they analyzed the probe they take so if the probe is within the specs here then they dump it too and they take the oil out and and and whatever do their environmental process but if your probe is not is not correct they charge you and then they don't dump the thing so then it's special rubbish and the rice goes up like hell and any of those containers is checked it stands for two weeks until they say yeah go for it so I'll tell you one thing that's not how they do it in Texas Texas like they dump it in the river and they just hope for the best oh you just over the border over the border - max we're talking this earlier different visa is our excess stock yeah the two containers you rented space on the other side here you see here the what is out of the machine the aluminum yep and why we were saying this morning with German customs in South America and all these things German text men for example to make sure that everything is according to the rules they check on you how many tons of aluminum you are buying we are buying for example 35 times a year right the amount of products we export it and we sold in the weight and the amount of chips were returned to make sure you legit exactly and if the if the discrepancy I mean it's always a little discrepancy because they're weighing by the finished product yeah statistically there is whatever shipping is 17% of your you're buying aluminium and if you're down to five they really tough double-check so because you get a little money for those chips yeah and it's not it's not much but it's it in the past most of the chip sales have been cash and they avoided that within a second so they are really are we are loved riding the aluminium now you see is you see the the marks of milling and we want to have rhyming on it which is done with that machine [Music] [Music] we take five and it's variable to constantly move the table one direction slowly very raw to a rock working with Larry ruff [Music] all fitness as you see now we we have some issues here we have some issues there we have scratches in the material here which needs to go out so that depending on the dents and marks that are already in I would say - 15 minutes so few times forward and backwards and then for each piece for each reason for each side because then you flip it around and then you do the other side but if you don't do it it looks ugly this actual show this site no because it's the bottom by when you take it out of the box maybe that customer flips it around and then he sees it and then that's not what we want even if it's the bottom it must be perfect from any perspective you look at it it must meet the standards we are requesting yeah left [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Analog Planet

Views: 80,400

Keywords: analog, audiophile, analogplanet, vinyl, Acoustic Signature Turntables, Turntables, Tone Arms

Id: XS7fh4lnLa4

Length: 95min 34sec (5734 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 10 2020