![[SoundStage!]](../sslogo3.gif) Factory
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| September 2002
I remember walking through an audio show and hearing someone ask, "Do we really need another speaker company?" Good question. Certainly, when you look at the vast selection of loudspeakers on the market from the seemingly endless number of companies, the question has more than just a little validity. From entry level to state of the art, the barriers to entry to the loudspeaker market are enormous for any company, no matter what the size. However, Talon Audio, led by Mike Farnsworth, proved that if you really do want to create a speaker company, you better be more than just another company. History To talk about the history of a three-year-old company is a little bit of a contradiction in terms. After all, most everyone knows that during the first year or two the number-one goal of most startups is to simply not become history. But Talon's over that hump now and can be considered established in the high-end community. In fact, they've accumulated enough stories in that short time to give some other new business owners a real history lesson. And, not surprisingly, during that time the company created a stronger vision and a stronger sense of purpose from what they've learned. Talon Audio began in 1999 as, quite literally, a garage-style operation. Using third-party services to produce the cabinets and with a small crew for assembly, they debuted the company’s first loudspeaker: the Khorus. Manufacturing on a small scale like this is fine to get things going -- in fact, many companies never really progress beyond this stage and can keep on making a living producing speakers from not much more than this. But Farnsworth has always had bigger dreams for his company. As Mike said to me, "I like really nice things." And by "nice things" he means stuff like cars, houses, food, and of course, stereos. Luxury goods are what they’re classified as, and that’s precisely what Farnsworth wants his loudspeaker company to create for the audio world: statement-level audio products for discriminating listeners. Subsequently, that first loudspeaker Talon created had a list price of $14,000.
I flew to Salt Lake City in the final week of July of this year to visit this location. It’s about 20 minutes from the airport, slightly to the south of downtown Salt Lake City, in Pine Hill Business Park -- Building #7. Unlike the very distinctive-looking products Talon makes, the building itself is quite modest in appearance with only a small Talon Audio sign adorning the doorway, giving just a hint to the goings-on inside. This didn't really surprise me, though. I've traveled to many companies and found the understated appearance of the exterior to be the norm -- perhaps to discourage burglars from knowing what's inside! Inside Directly inside the entrance are the administrative offices. Mike’s own office is immediately off to the left. It’s a spacious area with an huge desk, an Apple laptop computer, and a full stereo system set up for critical listening. I began to think of it as "listening room #2," and it's also where I encountered Talon's latest line of business. It’s no secret anymore that Chesky Records commissioned Talon Audio to build their Internet-direct C-1 loudspeaker -- the distinctive two-way columnar loudspeaker with the steeply angled top. And that's what was set up in Mike's office/listening room. On the day of my visit, Mike and crew were finishing the final "voicing" of the speaker and getting ready for full-scale production. So before we got to the rest of the factory, Mike asked me for a critical opinion on the sound. I kind of raised my eyebrows and gave him a "really" sort of look. "Let me know what you think," he said, and meant it. I learned that Mike takes feedback seriously -- very seriously -- not just my opinion, but others too (many of his employees, for example, get called on for the same, and it builds a collegial atmosphere around Talon). This impressed me, so I quizzed him more about it. Mike's background is business -- various aspects including marketing and management. He's learned that feedback is instrumental to learning exactly what it is the customer wants -- without it you're just flailing in the dark. In fact, he confesses that one of the early mistakes Talon made was either not getting enough feedback or not getting the right kind of feedback. After all, when many people are asked to say what they think, they often hold back, particularly if what they're going to say isn't going to be 100% positive. I learned quite quickly, though, that today Mike wants real and honest feedback -- no holding back. And he takes it seriously and, most importantly, he uses it to build his products.
Around back Directly behind the administrative area is the exceedingly spacious factory area, neatly sectioned off into wood cutting, assembly, testing, packaging, and shipping. Today Talon is far larger than the garage-style
operation they were just a few years ago; still, they have considerable overlap when it
comes to creating the products. In other words, although they have key people in charge of
the areas -- Curtis Larson is the main design engineer, Dustin Collins is the production
engineer, Jason Morgan is the head-tech for final assembly, Luis Calderon handles cabinet
assembly -- the company is still small enough that one person often helps the other should
crunch time come around. "Can you believe that I put more than 3600 minutes on this phone each month?" Mike queried me at one point between hitting the "end" key on his cell phone and hitting the "talk" key to immediately answer another call. Based on the fact that his phone rang more often than I'd imagine Heidi Fleiss' ever would, what could I say but, "Yeah"? Between all the phone calls, though, speakers and subwoofers get produced at regular intervals in the factory area. During my visit, one of the final Roc 2002 subwoofers was being boxed up and shipped out (the Roc 2002 was recently discontinued), and the new Roc 12s that replace it were being made. As well, some of the new Raven loudspeakers were going through production and soon to be on their way out the door to customers' houses. Like most companies, Talon tends to run their production by making "batches" of the same products in order to improve efficiency.
Technology During my two-day visit to the factory, Mike talked extensively about the design goals and technology of Talon Audio, some of which are common to many speaker companies, but there was some interesting other ideas that Talon employs to distinguish itself. Common through all the Talon designs -- from the Khorus X, to the new Roc 12 subwoofer, to the still-in-development, bookshelf-sized Falcon loudspeaker -- is the back-to-back woofer configuration inside each cabinet. Essentially, there is a sub-chamber inside the loudspeaker or subwoofer enclosure directly behind the front-firing woofer. Inside, facing into the cabinet, is another woofer operating out of phase to the front-firing woofer and that "sub-chamber" area between them is completely sealed. That inside woofer's output is then routed through the cabinet and out a vent. According to Farnsworth, the result of this configuration is better and faster bass, because the configuration helps the drivers start and stop more quickly, and also greater bass extension.
In terms of measurements, Farnsworth said that he's learned over the past few years that if there is something worth really investing in, it's good measurement equipment. "I have no trouble buying that," Mike said, when we talked about the very high price of one piece of test gear that they'll have in shortly. He explained that a company without any investment in research and technology will be nowhere at all, and he feels measurement equipment is vital to achieve that. Furthermore, he believes that measurements do strongly correlate with sound, and the back and forth between the listening room and measurement lab is his testimony to that.
Another important parameter is, of course, distortion. Mike, like many others, believes that for a speaker to produce material in a lifelike manner it must be able to play LOUD (which he amply demonstrated in both of the listening rooms). This is not just for home theater, but home audio too. After all, these are statement-level products Talon is wanting to create, and lifelike re-creation of music is the goal. Mike said that shortly they will have some new test gear to do hyper-accurate distortion measurements in-house. The future Although Farnsworth went through Talon's brief history earnestly and frankly, his interest was more in his company's future: Talon's products, technology, and target markets. When the company began just three years ago, Mike never anticipated that Talon Audio would be building speakers for other companies. The Chesky experience has changed that. He now realizes that not every company has the luxury of a large factory space and equipment like Talon has. Therefore, it's quite possible that work like this could become commonplace at Talon. Still, the focus has been, and will always be, on their own speakers -- and they have big plans. Two-channel high-end audio will continue to be a stronghold for the company, but so too will home theater and custom installation. Farnsworth knows that there is a big future for any speaker company in this. As a result, Randy Monsen, who has been with Talon since nearly the beginning, is national audio/video sales manager and devotes almost all of his time to developing the custom-install market. Of course, the products in all areas will be crucial. The $6950 Raven loudspeaker -- which Talon showed a prototype of at CES and is now shipping production units of -- is currently the lowest-priced floorstanding model. As I mentioned, Talon has the new Roc 12 subwoofer that's just been released, as well as the upcoming Falcon loudspeaker intended to bring the cost of entry to the Talon world down even further. And Mike said there will more speakers coming too. At this moment, though, he doubts that the other models in his current lineup will be revised. Instead, when their time is done, they'll simply be retired and other models, either more or less expensive, will be available for purchase. So what about the person who asks, "Do we really need another speaker company?" I would say that the answer is "no," we don't need just another speaker company -- we have plenty of those. What the audio world needs is a speaker company that will to take on the innovative marketing challenges of tomorrow, and that's what Talon Audio appears to have as its goal. To find out more about Talon Audio, visit www.talonaudio.com.
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| All Contents Copyright © 2002 SoundStage! All Rights Reserved |
Talon Audio Technologies Factory Tour
Quite quickly Farnsworth realized that if
he was going to make his dream come true, the company would have to set itself up for some
serious production, particularly if Talon Audio was going to produce the designs that were
to follow: the Peregrine and Khite loudspeakers, in addition to the Roc subwoofer. By
2000, Talon had a full-fledged factory.
After the visit to his office and
a bit of a back and forth about the C-1's sound, Mike showed me the rest of the
administrative area, including the accounting and sale areas. Along the way, though, we
stopped by the main sound room, which is mixed in with the offices. The room was equipped
with the latest version of the Khorus X driven by Edge electronics and an Electrocompaniet
CD player (the same equipment Talon used at the Montreal Son & Image show in March).
This is the area where Mike and the rest do the bulk of the critical listening. According
to Mike, the design process is a constant back and forth between the measurement area and
this room. They look for key technical parameters in the design and then listen to the
final result in the speaker (and it keeps going back and forth until both areas are right
for them).
In
fact, Farnsworth himself has a hand in almost everything, including design, and it's quite
common to see him talking business on his cell phone while a speaker is either being built
or designed! Heck, there was one moment where he authorized some financial transactions
for the bookkeeper, answered a couple of questions for an employee, finalized an order for
a client on the phone, and ran an impedance plot on the new Raven loudspeaker. In the
computer world, it's called multitasking; in the Farnsworth world, it's called a day at
the office.
Talon places great emphasis on the
impedance and the electrical-phase characteristics of their speakers. I was privy to watch
some of the design work in process, and during that time Mike illustrated by example what
they try to achieve in this regard.