WARNING: Very Long Post
I am often asked how we got into the speaker business. The fact is, we never set out to start a speaker company. But before I can explain how it happened, I must go back a bit.
My first job before graduating high school was as a professional musician. I joined a regional group (Minnesota, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota, and Iowa) that was later inducted into the Midwest Rock Hall of Fame. We were all versatile musicians playing numerous instruments. So we were often called into recording sessions as we could cover almost any instrument that was required on a given track.
I pretty much thought I’d be a musician for the rest of my life. But then came Vietnam. While on my first in-country mission, a hand grenade went off three feet away. A friend who was ten feet on the other side of it was killed and a guy on the other side of him was injured as well. I was lucky to be close to the blast. Had I been farther away, I wouldn’t be writing this today.
I spent the next eight months in the hospital learning to walk again. Funny, as a 21-year-old, you’d think you knew how to walk. But I had to start all over again as if I were a baby taking his/her first steps.
As a disabled veteran, I had the good fortune of having free college tuition. And I took advantage of it! Not having to worry about the cost, I pretty much took whatever interested me at the time (whether it resulted in a degree or not). I had no need particular for them, but I took every electronics course offered. That would come in handy in my next adventure.
My former brother-in-law was a business professor at the University of Minnesota, but he didn’t find his job fulfilling. He asked me what I would do if I could do anything I wanted. I told him that the thing I enjoyed the most was working in recording studios.
About two weeks later, he called to say it was a go. “A go?” I said. I was a bit taken aback since I thought our conversation was purely hypothetical. But he indicated he had sold his house and had the funds to start a studio. He was committed at that point and since I was the only one who knew what the project entailed, I felt obliged to move ahead.
We didn’t have a lot of money, so we purchased some used recording equipment and began building out the studio itself. After months of work, it was time to hook everything up and take it for a test spin. In a word, it was a disaster – noisy as hell.
What were we going to do? We were basically out of funds and didn’t have a working studio. While I had taken every electronics course offered, I had never put that part of my education to use. But faced with impending doom, I did the only thing I could think of to save the day.
I opened the recording console and ripped out every wire, fader, preamp, etc. down to the frame of the console and rebuilt it from the ground up. Problem solved, we were on our way.
I spent the next 30 years working in studios around the country producing commercial music, radio jingles, commercials, and later videos.
One of my clients became the president of a worldwide direct-selling organization and asked me to join the company as a Senior V.P. of Marketing. I had never had a full-time job working for someone else and turned him down. Over the next year or so, he kept offering more money until I finally gave in and moved to Cleveland. I was there for ten years before I was recruited to work for a competitor. I was very well-compensated…until I wasn’t.
The year was 2001. That second company experienced a change in management. Since I was the “previous president’s guy,” I knew my days were numbered. I did manage to hang on for a year until they thought they had figured out what I was doing. My position was eliminated one month after September 11th. At that time, no one was hiring, especially at my salary level.
I always wanted great speakers, but I didn’t think that purchasing mega-expensive speakers was a good idea while I was unemployed. I did have time on my hands, however, so I thought it might be fun to try and build a pair. I had zero experience in speaker design and even less experience working with wood. In a very real sense, I had no business doing what I was about to attempt.
I found a DIY speaker kit Danny Richie had designed and I thought I’d give it a try. I called a local cabinet maker to cut the cabinet parts. When I picked the parts up, he asked me what I intended to do with them. I told him I had just stopped at Home Depot for clamps and glue.
“That will never work,” he said. “The joints will just slide around, and you’ll never get everything lined up properly. You need biscuits.”
“OK, what are biscuits?” I asked. I had no idea what he was talking about.
In the end, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the finished speaker. So I looked for a higher-end design I could build as a follow-up. At the time, a speaker called Ellis 1801 was receiving a lot of positive comments on DIY forums. So I built a pair of those. Wow, they were indeed a step up!
I talked to Danny again and he indicated he was coming out with a new design utilizing a ribbon tweeter. Now, it is important to realize that almost no one was using ribbon tweeters at the time. So I told him to ship me the very first kit when it was ready. That was my first experience with the transparency of a ribbon.
I loved the Seas W18 woofers in the Ellis 1801’s and the ribbon in this new kit from Danny. I began to wonder what the combination of those two drivers might be like. I knew that a guy named Dennis Murphy designed the crossover for the 1801’s. I didn’t know him personally but thought, what the heck, I’ll just email him and ask him what he thinks of that potential combination.
Dennis emailed back to say he thought the combination would definitely be worth a try. But the most surprising part of the email was his offer to create a crossover for this design at no charge! (Turns out Dennis worked in consumer electronics enforcement for the FTC at the time and could not accept remuneration since it would be a conflict of interest.) I obviously couldn’t pass up that opportunity.
The resulting design (Veracity HT1) was the first speaker we put our name on. I took the speaker to a few DIY events knowing full well that it would likely be the best speaker at the meets. But speaker building was only a hobby for me at that point.
My next project was a larger 3-way speaker kit. I invested a lot of time building the cabinet and veneered it with mappa burl followed by about 60 coats of wipe-on poly. When finished, the kit designer thought they looked spectacular and posted a picture on the internet.
Soon, I started receiving emails from people asking if I’d build a pair for them. This seemed crazy since they didn’t know me and had never heard the speakers. But I had time on my hands and their deposit checks cashed. So I started building.
At the time, I had a contractor saw in my backyard. That winter (and the next couple), we had to shovel snow to get to the saw and had to stand outdoors all day routing cabinets in the cold. Meanwhile, the requests kept coming.
In order to speed things up, I purchased an air compressor and spray gun so we could shoot finishes much faster than applying them by hand. As fall approached, I realized that I couldn’t shoot lacquer outdoors in the winter. I either had to turn this hobby into a business (rent some commercial space) or quit building speakers. Those were the only options.
By that time, I had met a number of people in the audio industry and asked them for advice. “Should I make it a business or find another hobby?” The advice was universal. “Don’t do it,” they all said. “It’s far too competitive, and you will fail.”
From my very early years, I have always reacted negatively when someone told me I couldn’t do something. I knew they couldn’t do it since they already decided it was undoable. But did that mean I couldn’t do it? There was only one way to find out. So we rented some industrial space and went to work.
One of the first tasks we undertook was developing a 3-way model for the Veracity line. I wanted a speaker that played down to 20Hz. I already knew that the ribbon tweeter and the W18 would work for the midrange and tweeter. But we had to find a woofer.
TC Sounds was building some of the best subwoofer drivers at the time. So I called Theo Stumpler and told him I wanted a 12” woofer that was 8 ohms, high sensitivity, and would play down to 20Hz in a smallish cabinet. He had a good laugh and explained Hoffman’s Iron Law. He told me if I ever found such a driver to make sure and let him know as he would certainly purchase one.
Theo then offered an alternative. It would not meet all our specs but would likely work. So I purchased a pair of 12” drivers. As it turned out they did indeed work. They weren’t nearly as sensitive as I would have preferred, but they played deep in a reasonably-sized cabinet.
That out of the way, I called Theo to ask about ordering more of these woofers. “The minimum order size is 100 units,” he said. Well, I certainly didn’t need 100 drivers since I had never sold a speaker at that price before and we weren’t getting all that many orders at the time. I told him I just couldn’t do it. He countered saying he would accept an order for 50 drivers.
I didn’t need 50 drivers either, so I had a decision to make. The HT3’s were the speakers I wanted personally. I imagined that others might be looking for the same thing I was looking for. So I rolled the dice and ordered 50 drivers (the first of many orders).
About that time Zybar heard about the HT3’s and contacted me saying he was having a speaker shoot-out at his house. He wanted to know if I’d ship a pair of HT3’s to the event. All I had at the time was my personal pair. I told him I’d ship my speakers, but I would need to get them back after the shootout.
The shoot-out was on a Saturday. Zybar called on Sunday to report that they started listening to the HT3’s around noon and his wife kicked everyone out at 11 PM. “Who do I make the check out to?” he asked.
Based on Zybar’s experience, Marbles purchased a pair. Then the two of them started a Salk Owners Circle here on Audiocircle and we were off to the races.
Not long after that, I got a call from Dave Ellis. He told me Frank Van Alstine was looking for a speaker to show off the bass capabilities of his amps and suggested I contact him. I told him that I really didn’t want to send a pair since I only had the replacement pair I built for myself.
At the time, Frank was publicly conducting a test of speakers to find the magic speaker that would do his amps justice. About a week later, I received an email directly from Frank requesting a pair of HT3’s to audition. Again, I told him this was my personal pair and I would need them returned.
About a week later, I received a call from Frank. “These speakers weigh a ton,” he said. “I wasn’t about to unpack both speakers until I knew it would be worth the effort.” So he and a friend unpacked one speaker and set it up. Frank said that within the first 3 seconds, he knew he had to unpack the other. “Who do I make the check out to,” he asked.
Frank reported online that he had made a decision and that the HT3’s were the speaker he had selected. Of course, many people had suggested other speakers to test and were upset that Frank ended his search so soon. Frank replied that there was no need to look further. He had found the magic speaker he was looking for.
Over the next few years, Frank sent many customers our way and we did quite a few audio shows together. It was a great relationship all around and I will be forever indebted to Frank.
We now had a couple of models that were well-received. But Dennis Murphy thought we needed a model at a lower price point. With the help of Paul Kittinger, he had just finished a design using a transmission line cabinet and drivers that were reasonably priced but performed very well. Dennis suggested we could sell this speaker for under $2000 a pair.
I told Dennis that we couldn’t make any money on a $2000 pair of speakers and I wasn’t interested. But he persisted. After about eight months of encouragement, I told him we would build a pair and have a listen.
When I first heard this design, I was still not interested in selling it. But, man, it sounded great. It didn’t do everything the HT3’s did, but what it did, it did perfectly. And that is rare for any speaker.
I decided I had no choice. This speaker was simply too good to pass up and I was sure it would be well-received. So we named it the SongTower and it quickly became our all-time biggest-selling design. This design went on to earn an Editor’s Choice Award in The Absolute Sound seven years running.
As we developed new designs over the next few years, many SongTowers owners would say, “If that is what a $2000 speaker sounds like, I want a $4000 speaker.”
So it was the HT3’s that started things off and the SongTowers that put us on the map.
As I mentioned before, when building my first speakers, I knew nothing about speaker design or working with wood. I had a lot of help along the way. No matter what I needed to know, there was someone willing to teach me. Pierce Gettsinger and Bruce Cambell taught me virtually everything I know about woodworking. Greg Koinis taught me fine finishing. And people like Dennis Murphy, Dave Ellis, Danny Richie, Jeff Bagby (RIP), Phil Bamberg, Martin King, Paul Kittinger, and many more explained, in detail, the ins and outs of speaker design. Without them, Salk Sound would never have been possible.
We have also been blessed with fabulous employees. The atmosphere around the shop was always more like a family than a business. Everyone wanted to do the best work they were capable of. And all of them were willing to go the extra mile when needed. It would take too long to list them all here, but I couldn’t have asked for a better crew.
Over the past two years, we have had the pleasure of working with what I feel are the finest audio drivers ever produced. They are from a relatively new company called Purifi. These drivers are so good, I doubt I’d ever have an opportunity to work with better drivers regardless of how long we remained in business.
In sports, people always talk about phenomenal athletes who hang on too long…that they should have gone out on top. This month I turn 75. I doubt I would ever have an opportunity to design better speakers than our BePure series. Since I can’t go on forever, it seems like the time is right to go out at the top of our game.
They said it couldn’t be done, but for over twenty years we have been delivering high-quality speakers, many in highly customized finishes, that have brought audio bliss to customers worldwide. The feedback we constantly get from those customers is what kept us going over the years. It was not about money (we never really made much). It was about the joy of providing listening pleasure to all the friends we’ve gained over the years. That was the greatest blessing of all.
So what now? I’ve learned a great deal about speaker design and building over the last 20 years and am not the kind of person who can just sit around idly. I had an incredible amount of help over the years. Now, perhaps, it is time to share what I learned to inspire others to design and build the speakers of their dreams.
Even though we will no longer be building speakers, I have given a good deal of thought to perhaps expanding our website to include videos on all aspects of speaker building. This could include woodworking tips we’ve learned over the years, something that most DIY sites don’t cover. We could offer some of our more popular models in the form of DIY plans. The site could cover breaking audio news, a discussion forum, and more.
The only issue would be how to cover the costs involved. Perhaps we could sell plans to generate income. Perhaps we could sell advertising. Individuals could sponsor our efforts via Patreon. Or it could be a combination of those things.
What it comes down to is how many people would find the site entertaining and useful. So I’ll be giving that idea some thought over the next month or two and we’ll see where it might go.
In the meantime, Happy Listening!
- Jim
