Hello and welcome to the Sound On Sound People and Music Industry podcast. I'm Sam Ingalls and I'm very pleased today to be joined by Adam Audio's Adam Sheppard.
Welcome Adam.
Adam Sheppard
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Um, let's talk a little bit about Adam the company. Adam has been around for more than 20 years now, but over the last five years you've seen quite a lot of growth following a bit of a crisis. Can you tell us a little bit about what happened and how you've steered the company in a new direction?
Totally. Absolutely. First of all, thank you so much for having me on here today. Uh, this is really cool. So I'm glad we can chat and talk a little bit about these things. Um, also my name is Adam, but there's no relation. Uh, I get that. I get that question all the time and it's a lot of fun. Sometimes I just lie and try and convince people that I started the company, but it just never works.
Nobody ever listens to me. Um, but yeah. Okay. So, so, so to your question there. Yeah, we've been around for about 20 years now. I've been with the company for about five, the last five. I can get into that a little bit here, uh, with this question. But, uh, what happened was really simple. You mentioned the crisis.
Uh, what happened was, was an insolvency in 2015. The company hit a little bit of a financial difficult place. Um, and the company went insolvent, and it was purchased by an outside of industry investment group, uh, in the middle of 2015. And that outside of the industry part, is, I think, a key element to this story, and I can, you know, talk a little bit about that.
Um, you know, not a lot of end users and R users really know What happened or that even anything happened we tried to keep it as seamless as possible Um, and and really our dealer partners were the ones who knew that there were some some issues going on on the back side So, uh, like you said it was a crisis in a sense, but where we've moved and the place we are now Today is a really cool one And the answer to how that happened is simple as well Simple insolvency and simple people.
So we moved into moving into kind of the people side of the conversation, that outside investment group that I mentioned that, that picked up the company in 2015, knew that it was very important to put the right team together. Um, and especially the right starting team. So they went to some industry of industry vets, especially here in the States, um, names like David Hetrick.
Previously with Biodynamic and KRK, David Angris, um, who's had, um, a very long, uh, long history within our industry from, from Guitar Center to, to JBL, to a lot of different companies, um, that investment group really knew that we needed some industry vets to, to sort of guide this process out of that crisis into, um, back to where the company really needed to sit and needed to be.
Um, as Part of that, the U. S. operation was completely shifted around, you know, and, and while I can, I can speak to a lot of the U. S. operation stuff because I was part of it for these last five years, um, there's a lot that went on outside as well, but at least here in the States, uh, the company really was a one man operation for, for a very long time, uh, which is very difficult with a growing company to keep it as sort of that one man operation who's, who's answering the phone and taking the orders and answering customer questions and packing the pallets and doing all that.
I mean, it's, It was a lot. So, so the first thing that was decided was that the U. S. needed to be a team, not just one person. Um, once, you know, I was added on and a couple other people, we started hitting the ground running. Uh, realistically, running probably isn't the right, the right way to say it. We, we hit the ground listening.
You know, we, we went into our dealer partners. We listened to the problems that had happened. We listened to the problems of the industry, of our, of our competitors, of, of all the things that, and that kind of, that make up our, our world with the manufacturer to dealer relationships. And we took that insight and redeveloped how Adam was going to be.
Kind of perceived here in the States. Um, and then we, we took some of those, those learnings and, and applied it across, across the whole company. Um, part of that product decisions, uh, taking some insight from, from, from our world, from our pro audio world, uh, around, um, here in the States and, and internationally, and some really key product launches at really key time to help us grow into where we're at as series in 2017.
Um. An entry level T series developed, uh, and, and, and released in, in 2018, uh, all the while rebuilding this team here in the States into something really cool. Christian Hellinger, I think you spoke with Christian Hellinger before, our CEO. He was brought on in, in 2017, I think it was. Um, our marketing team was completely, you know, redesigned and, and developed.
And, and one of the coolest things, especially over the last year and a half, two years, uh, some of the marketing staff here in the States, as well as as kind of a international effort have really created this awesome voice and this awesome visual representation of our brand that you see out on, on our socials, on YouTube.
Um, and I think that's been a really key element in how our brand has. Restarted speaking to the customer and, and restarted being, being a visible brand within the marketplace. And lastly, probably one of the biggest, uh, developments in the last five years was, was the purchase by Focusrite. Last year we've been, we've been with them for an entire year now.
It is a, a big family, a big warm family. Um, an awesome place for us to sit and, and a really cool thing for the future. Um, we've been, been really, really excited about, about the things that, that, that will happen now that we have a different investment. Uh, a different view on, on how our company, you know, can continue to grow within our industry that outside investment was super important with finding those business practices that needed to be changed.
Now that those are changed and we've kind of developed this team, we're, we're part of focus, right? And, and we're looking to the future to, to find ways to work together and, and, and grow. So it's, it's, it's a super
cool time. So how important was it for you to get that insight from a wider business perspective not just from within the audio industry
super important, um, you know, and and with that came The addition of people not just from the investment side, but the addition of of key members of our executive That are from outside the industry.
It's, it's, it's crazy what happens when, um, you bring people from an outside view and to look at business practices, logistical practices, system practices are international sales and marketing manager, uh, Alexander sack. And I'm not sure if you've met him. Uh, he, he comes from outside the industry, but now after, you know, five years with us, I mean, he's, he's, he's basically an insider at this point, but.
He comes from like the Bosch world and, and the, the large corporation world and he can, he can sniff out bad practices like that, you know, he um, he was a, a very big part in, in changing things to, to help the company run smoother, become more profitable, become more stable, um, and turn us into, to what we are
today.
And I guess in terms of public perception, there's probably some people out there who imagine Adam as this sort of global mega corporation. Bestriding the world like a behemoth and others who see adam as a kind of boutique german manufacturer with a handful of employees and a bunch of international distributors I mean, what's the true picture in terms of the size and shape of the company?
That is a that's a really good question. And I I think we kind of fit somewhere in between Um, i'll give you some examples. So so for the ax series in the s series our tweeters are still hand folded It's a super boutique thing. In fact, a lot of the people who are folding those tweeters now, um, have been with the company since the beginning.
So, so that's, that's not something that you do in, in some giant mega production manufacturing operation. You know, we really know how important that tweeter is to us and how important the, the precision is. Uh, and, and we've decided to continue to hand fold and, and have a really close. process with those tweeters for the, for the AX and the S series.
But at the same time, like you mentioned, I mean, we have representation over, I think it's like 75 countries now. So 75 countries we're in, we're approaching roughly 100 people worldwide for just the Atom side of things. We're, we're growing. Um, here's a good way to explain maybe. Have you ever been to Nashville?
I'm sure you've been to Nashville, right?
I've never been to Nashville. Really? No, not once.
No. We gotta come visit. You gotta come visit. Yeah, I would love to come to Nashville. So, so while, while, while the heart of the company, while the core of the company is in Berlin, I would, I would almost attribute Adam Audio to like what Nashville is as a city and any of the listeners here that, that have been to Nashville can probably attest to this or even live in Nashville can attest to this.
Nashville is sort of like that medium big city. With a small town feel, but that's growing every single day. Like that's a really good example of what Adam audio is. Cause we really try to have kind of that, that, that, that focus to our customers, that, that small business boutique business communication aspect, um, while still being a pretty, pretty large company.
And now that Adam is part of the Focusrite group, are we going to see a lot of knowledge sharing from Focusrite? Are we going to see other Focusrite technologies making their way into Adam products?
Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously as a manufacturer, uh, you know, speaking of small town... They're small time and big time.
I'm going to give you like the super corporate answer here, um, which is not me at all. But, you know, we're always developing new products and new ways to to serve our market. Uh, no, in reality that we really are. We're developing new things. Uh, the partnerships are being created. There's not a ton that I can talk about.
Um, but as you can imagine, there's Only ways that we can partner and be better, right? We're both playing in the same world while not doing the exact same things. You know, we're, we're creating loudspeakers in a studio monitoring environment. They're creating other products for, um, for the studio, but there's technologies, there's DSP, there's things that we can talk about and work together on.
And that's, that's, um, you know, something that, that may or may not be happening behind the curtain, uh, if you will, but you know, it's not just that, you know, I mentioned earlier. With a company like Focusrite and being acquired by a company like Focusrite, uh, they have so much knowledge in logistical supply chain systems, things that can help our company be better, not just from technology, but also from a business standpoint and growing and, and as we continue to scale, how we can do that from a healthy perspective and from a, from a better perspective.
So, um, absolutely. Answer is, is yes. And I try to be as vague, but still give you an answer at the same time.
Okay. Thank you. Well, you mentioned earlier the core technology that's always been at the heart of Adam's loudspeakers, which is something called the Air Motion Transformer, uh, popularly known as the Ribbon Tweeter.
Can you explain a little bit about how this works and what makes it different from a conventional
transducer? Absolutely. Um, I guess I should be the first to tell you that I, I am not the most super technical electro engineering guy, but I can tell you that, um, let's, let's just talk about, let's just talk about kind of like the basics of it.
So, so the air motion transformer is a folded ribbon. Okay, and it moves air in a completely different way than the piston standard piston tweeter would so we're we're talking what we talk about with our air motion transformers is vibration as opposed to movement of air via One piece of metal moving in and out.
So it's it's kind of a it's kind of a different way to move air And and that is kind of a key technology and a key part of our our brand and a key part of our products, uh, in addition to moving air differently, it also has more surface area. So in a typical, uh, piston tweeter, you're talking about like an, roughly an inch.
of material, okay? Um, an inch tweeter. With the, the, the ribbon tweeter with the air motion transformer, you're kind of more in like that four inch range. Now it's folded down, but that surface area allows you to, um, cross it over, uh, quite a bit lower. It allows for more dynamics. Um, and in the end, what you get is a much different picture.
Of the high end and anybody who's who's heard our products before, um, has really has really come to come to find that that that that's a super important part of the process. Um, the high end is more transparent. The high end is more detailed. It is definitely different. Um, and then from an ear fatigue perspective, we've we've definitely found that the movement of that air.
In a different way translates to less ear fatigue, um, and more time working and, and, uh, And that so it's it's just a whole different way to do things and we think it's the we think it's the better way Um, and, and we really like, uh, we really like what's happened with the Air Motion Transfer. I mean, from, from all the way back, you said we've been around for 20 years.
We have been around for 20 years, and, and that tweeter has changed, um, slightly over the years, right? But, but in reality, that technology is still pretty close to what we came to the market with. Uh, we've just, we've just kind of taken some feedback and, and, and redeveloped some things and, and tried to make it, um, um, even more transparent, even more dynamic, and even better from an ear fatigue.
So the air motion transformer is found in all of your products, but it's only used for the tweeters. Is there a technical reason why you can't use an AMT transducer for a woofer?
I think there are definitely limitations on the low end. Um, we actually did years ago, we had a few products in our mains category, um, that had, And air motion transformer as the mid range.
And it was super cool. It was really, really different. Uh, we, we chose to redevelop our mid range after that and kind of focus back on the woofer technology and, and some cool stuff that I can maybe talk about later. Um, Some other other parts of our company and development and R& D that have been really cool other technologies.
But um, but yeah It was really neat and i've spent some time on those those products were out maybe 10 years ago And and it's it's really cool But it was very different and and I personally could could see those limitations and hear those limitations Uh, and and I think that it took a certain It took a certain want and use case for that mid range air motion transformer.
Uh, so, so now we're sort of just still back to focusing on, on just using it as a, as a tweeter.
And is it hard to overcome sort of consumer skepticism about an alternative technology like the AMT?
Yeah, yeah, I, I, I think that it's probably less difficult than some other technologies. Uh, What I've found, let's say you have a diehard user of a, of a standard piston tweeter for, you know, 20 plus years of their careers and they want to try something different and they move to one of our products, I find that, um, I'll get a call within that first week or someone on our team will get a call within that first week.
With questions and trying to understand and figure out what's what's going on But but I would say that the transition time that adjustment is no more than two weeks for most people You're not used to hearing things up there in reality and you're going to hear more Um, you're going to hear a different high end and you will take a little bit of time to adjust you know it the the easy thing would be to say no you won't hear anything you'll You'll adjust immediately, but in reality, it's, it's not necessarily true.
Some people take a little bit more time than others. Um, I actually was one of those people to be quite honest. I was one of those people. Uh, but I know now, and it was pretty quick, um, in, in my workflow and how things go and how, what I listen for now compared to what I listened for before. It, it didn't take that long to realize that hearing what's up there is, is key.
And once you understand where that's at. You getting it to translate is
simple. So your initial reaction might be, Ooh, this is kind of bright. But then after a while you realize that's just because you're hearing information that other speakers aren't actually putting across to you. Yeah.
Yeah, I would even go as far to say, just like you said, Bright might be the word to describe it, but there's also a depth to that brightness that people might not be used to.
Now I don't even really consider them bright after years and years of working on them now. Um, but initially you might have that impression, but you've just, you've just never really heard it, heard the high end in that way before. And, and after, after a short bit of time, it, it, it doesn't really affect you anymore.
So you can encounter this tweeter in the three main product ranges that Adam currently makes, which is the T series, the A series, and the S series. How are those ranges differentiated? Don't
forget about the subs. We've got substituted. Now they don't have, they don't have air motion transformers in them.
Um, but, but we do make subwoofers as well. So, so yeah, let's start with the T Series. T Series 2018. It was in, uh, our first kind of entry level price point monitor. It is, it is a really solid monitor. For that price conscious customer, for that entry level studio, home studio, um, you know, whatever it may be.
That has three products in it, a 5, a 8, and then also a subwoofer, the T 10S. That's gonna be your, your, your first monitor, your secondary set of monitors. Um, it, it's going to be kind of where you start and where you become part of the Atom family. The A, A series, or it's actually AX series, uh, is, is our mid range kind of bread and butter.
Project Studio to Pro Studio has everything you need in it. You've got a, a 3, a 5, a 7, an 8, and a, and a dual 7 in a midfield. So you have near field and you have midfield. And that's going to be your, like I said, your Project Studio. Your, um, your Pro Studio, uh, maybe smaller control rooms or, or certain.
Control rooms. And then the S series obviously is our flagship, our highest end, the most discerning customer, the, the, the mixing and mastering folks. Um, but you know, after five years now, I've, I've come to find that you, you can find different levels of monitor in many different types of places and uses.
And we talk to people every day who use them for, for different things. So, um, but that's a basic rundown. So,
if as a user I was to move up from the T series to the AX series, or from the AX series to the S series, and keeping the same sort of equivalent size of monitor, what sort of improvements would I notice in the
sound?
So, let's say from T to AX first. What you end up with, um, is going to be probably first and foremost, you'll notice more headroom and with more headroom comes a lot more flexibility. It's not just about volume when it comes to headroom. It's just, it's, it's about, you know, efficiency. It's about not hitting the limitations of those components so that you can, you can have a nice, really good understanding of what's going on.
You know, a good test of that with your monitors is, is to play something that, that, that let's say has a really great bass. Baseline you turn those monitors down and that baseline will start to disappear the quality amplifiers the the moving up into the ax series Technology, you're gonna you're gonna find those things are much better As you move up.
I mean in reality these days It is one of those instances where you get what you pay for as you move up and as you move up in price points You're going to get higher quality amplifiers You're going to get higher quality components with between the t and the ax you move into the handmade tweeters more precision in the tweeters Moving from the AX to the S, you get our DSP heart or DSP platform in the S series.
And that, that adds even more flexibility. So you're getting more headroom, you're getting higher, higher end amplifiers, you're getting higher end woofers, you're getting that DSP platform with parametric EQ, with built in tunings. Um, with the ability to, to go in digital if you want to go in digital. Um, so you, you just, you just move up and you move up into different technologies.
And, and, uh, you know, the S series also has a software option to be able to do, um, your tuning adjustments. It's not room tuning, room correction, but you can, you can make your adjustments in software and push it up to the speaker. So, yeah, I mean, those are some, some basic differences. Did I, did I answer that, that well enough for you?
Absolutely.
Yes. Well, I'm interested in this question of. DSP because obviously it's one of those things that some consumers are still quite resistant to in loudspeakers and they want an old fashioned loudspeaker That's just a box that you plug your analog signal in it makes it louder But other people are beginning to appreciate the benefits that DSP can bring I mean, maybe you could outline a little bit what you see.
There's the key benefits there.
Absolutely DSP is really cool from a manufacturing standpoint. It's kind of a dream once in implementation It's a difficult process obviously to To, to develop that and, and figure out how to integrate that. But once it's there, once it's in the product, from a manufacturer's perspective, changes, running changes, things like that, that need to be done.
It's a dream from the end user perspective, it gives you more flexibility than you've ever had. And it also brings you more into what we, as people living in a digital world want to need. Like I said before, the DSP and that S series, the, that, that tuning, the EQ tuning, those are, those are. key places where DSP are needed.
Um, we can still do those analog knobs and dials like we do on the AX series. Um, but in the end, we know this world is moving digital. What am I talking about? It's already digital. You know, so, so those, those needs, those needs are changing and, and, and we're there to, to meet them with, with the S series.
And, and even the T series includes some of that DSP technology. It's not as accessible to the end user. Um, but as we continue to grow. It's gonna be DSP. There's just no way around it. Well, I guess
a lot of people would say that traditional electro acoustic engineering the actual loudspeaker design is kind of a mature technology And there's not really anywhere left to go with that So if you're going to improve speakers at all, you've got to do it by doing DSP correction Is that something you would subscribe
to?
Yeah, yeah, I mean I hate to put a limitation on something because obviously, you know, both of those things are part of our everyday product development life. You know, I don't really want to want to put a, we've hit our limit. We can't go any farther with, with, you know, electroacoustics or whatever, but we've found significant benefits with DSP.
Like I said, our world constantly requires more digital solutions. I maybe put it this way. When you think of the word e commerce these days, It's a word that gets thrown around. In reality, we can drop that E, right? It's just commerce. I mean, this is, this is how we work now. We can, we can drop that E, but, but in reality, like, EECOM is based on traditional commerce, just like the need and use for DSP is based on those electroacoustical engineering principles and those things.
So, so we need both as part of this situation. Yeah, yeah, we, we just, we need both. And I don't want to put a limitation on electroacoustics because I think there are definitely places that we can, that we can continue to develop and grow. Um, DSP is just a way to, to help us move forward even more.
So another thing I would like to ask you about, if I may, is headphones.
Because a year or two back, Adam launched your first headphones. And more and more music is being consumed on headphones. More and more producers seem to be working on headphones. Do you think loudspeakers are still... Do you still think they're still essential for music production? I mean, and if people have got the budget for, say, a pair of mid priced monitors, would they actually be better off buying really fancy headphones with that money?
Yeah, it's really funny you ask that question. Uh, our marketing team... was doing photo shoots and video shoots over the last two weeks and has literally been asking almost this exact same question. Um, I personally don't think it's, it's one or the other. I believe that both have a place and both have a use.
What I can tell you, the, the feedback we're getting from those professional users that we're talking to every day, and especially the ones we've talked to, especially in the last couple weeks, is headphones are a really great way to stay productive while in movement. Whether you're working remotely, whether you are working on a plane, it allows you to continue your productivity in a mobile workplace, in a mobile environment, but people are still wanting that experience.
Uh, people are still wanting, wanting a standard kind of stereo push sound into a room, feel it. You know, emotive sound movement, those kinds of things. It's still, it's still a part of the, of the creative process. And, you know, maybe from a, maybe from a solely a mixing standpoint, you know, from an analytical surgical mixing standpoint, you know, maybe, maybe there's something to be said about, about headphones eventually being something that, that become more commonplace in use.
And maybe you spend more time on headphones, but, but in reality, especially in the production and the songwriting side and the creation side, which are a lot of the customers we have. Um, I still think that the monitors are the emotional experience and the experience that we're still selling but what do you think man?
I mean, where where do you stand on that side? Well, I
personally would be pretty reluctant to send anyone a mix that I hadn't Played back on loudspeakers because while it whilst I think it's possible to mix on headphones It's also possible to go really badly wrong when you're mixing on headphones and not really realize so yeah I might personally I wouldn't be without loudspeakers, but I love headphones too.
Got it. Yeah, I'm with you You know and the double checking is something that's key to I mean it just With everything we double check on on in ears. We double check on on headphones and and the workflow to Yeah, I'm with you. Definitely with you.
And I guess another phenomenon that we're seeing at the moment is more and more people working in environments that are not sort of traditional acoustically treated studio control rooms, whether they're setting up at home, they've got home studios.
Does a monitor speaker for those kind of home environments need to have any different qualities from a monitor that's designed for use in a control room? Ooh,
that's a good one. That's a good one. I, I would say mostly no. With a couple caveats. Mostly no. So, there are definitely features and elements of monitors that can help you in different environments more than other environments.
Right. So the more fine tuning options that you can find in higher end monitors, you know, with, with us, like with the S series, you may not be able to fully realize those benefits in a room. Like I'm sitting in right now, my, you know, this is, this is our, this is our third bedroom. It's our studio. You know, it's, it's a, it's a small room.
We've done what we could with, with, um, you know, acoustic treatment. If I were to throw a high end monitor up in here and mess around with some of those tuning capabilities and some of those fine tuning capabilities, I may not be able to see as many of the benefits as I could in a really well treated traditional control room.
Um, with that said though, it's not like, it's not like it's, it's, these are only for this use. These are only for this use. You know, you know, vice versa if you were to take one of our T Series monitors and put them up in a, in a high end studio. Uh, there's nothing bad about that. There, it's not like you're gonna, you're gonna, they're gonna perform less or they're gonna be lesser than.
It's, it's just that, that maybe you don't have the flexibility that you could fully realize with a higher end set of monitors. Um, as opposed to that entry level with the T Series. Uh, but, but yeah, I, honestly over the last five years in talking to customers and going into people's spaces and spending time in studios from a bedroom to, you know, a high end.
Studio that's been around for 40 years or something like that. I've seen a lot of really crazy things I've seen a lot of uses that would not be traditional. I've seen you know subwoofers up on stands I've seen subwoofers in the back of rooms I've seen midfield and main monitors being used in near field positions and while we don't suggest it people do it and it works You know, it's what works for you.
I I wouldn't put limitations on on your room saying I can't buy this series of monitor because I'm only in a bedroom. You can see benefits in, in, in that either way. There's not a ton of downsides.
Well, let's talk subwoofers for a minute, if we may then, because that's another topic that really divides people.
You know, some people just seem to be sort of philosophically against the idea of subwoofers and they insist that they have to have full range main speakers. Other people think There's no way you can achieve the same performance without a subwoofer. Um, Adam seemed to be very much on the second side in this, uh, debate.
Tell us a bit about the advantages of a subwoofer and why, why you think they're necessary.
I can, I can totally speak from personal experience on this. Um, you know, I haven't mixed a bunch of records. I haven't, I haven't done, you know, I don't, I don't have a credit list to my name, but I've, I've spent a lot of time working on music and a lot of time in studios and, and I've.
I've, I've come to realize just how important a subwoofer is. Not only just to understand what's going on in the low end, but also to allow your biggest investment most of the time, your monitors, your satellites, if you want to call them if we're talking about a 2. 1 setup. Allow them to do what they do really, really well, right?
So if you have a seven inch monitor, a standard two way, seven inch monitor, like, like we sell, like a lot of competitors. So if you're not high passing everything at a certain frequency, what you end up is, is that monitor, let's say it gets down to 48, 42. Having to recreate those frequencies, but also recreate recreate like 2800, right?
The efficiency of the whole setup goes way down because those low frequencies require a lot of energy. The second you take that load off of those woofers and those amplifiers and allow that seven inch to just handle like 85, a hundred and up somewhere in that range. You get a lot of efficiency. We like to say, and it's a basic understanding, subwoofers are not for louder bass, they're for lower bass.
They're for extension. They should extend your setup. If you are someone who likes to traditionally work on just a set of near fields or just a set of mid fields and not mess around with a subwoofer, I would say that you're probably not getting the most out of your setup because if you use that subwoofer, you can really let your monitors shine.
And a lot of people, I mean, mains, like you said, I mean, mains there's, there's, there's dual fifteens out there, dual twelves out there. That's a lot of, a lot of dedicated woofer space. In instances like that, maybe you don't necessarily need a subwoofer when you've got dual 12s, dual 15s up on your wall.
But for the most and majority of us, it definitely, um, we think it's definitely a necessity, and I think so too. Yeah,
absolutely. And of course, if you do have these enormous main monitors... You end up with the other problem, which is that they stop being so much like a point source in the mid range and the high frequencies.
So you introduce other problems there by making them able to reproduce these low frequencies so accurately. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Excellent. So good case there for buying a subwoofer. And I'm sure you'll say we should all buy an Adam subwoofer.
Yeah, I guess that is that this is my time, right? Is now when I'm supposed to say that?
Well, it's been wonderful to talk to you, Adam, and I wonder if we could finish this discussion by talking about something that you said. I've seen you quoted a saying, which I thought was a really striking phrase, which you said, We have lots of competitors, and none of them suck. I think that's a really brave thing to say.
Absolutely. So, what's the thinking
behind that? Definitely. Who knows? Maybe I'll get some calls here, maybe I'll get in trouble. No, I, I've said that for a long time and it's the truth and I can't be the only one thinking it, right? Especially when you get into products like our AX range. When you start to spend 1, 500 on a set of monitors, everybody's pretty much making a great product.
Right? I can't, I really can't knock anybody at that point. It's, it's really a matter of preference. It's a matter of, do you like the, the voicing that, that, that manufacturer has chosen? Have, do you like the, the capabilities? Do you like the, um, the flexibility that they may give you in tuning? Do you like?
A DSP platform, as opposed to an analog platform in reality, though, everybody's making pretty good monitors. It's a really tough game out there. Luckily for us though, like we've talked about a lot in this conversation, we've got that air motion transformer to talk about. Most people are dealing with in reality.
The same basic technical, physical things, a box with a couple holes in it, and a wooer and a tweeter, a standard piston tweeter. We, we don't have just that to talk about. We, we do have that tweeter to talk about and some other technologies as well. But, but yeah, that, that's the basis of it. You know, I, I really, truly believe that, and I, and I think that when you, when you, when you really get to looking at what's out there and the companies out there, you'll find that there's a lot of great things and, and you have a lot of great choices as an end user today.
Um, and a lot of great options to, to look into. And I like to adopt that, that viewpoint. Nobody in this world that we're playing in makes a bad product. So we have to set ourselves apart in other ways.
And that forces you to try harder, I guess.
Absolutely. Absolutely. From a sales perspective, from a product development perspective, for everything.
Um, it really breeds, uh, innovation and breeds new ways to talk about things and do things and build things. Well,
it's been fantastic to watch what you've achieved with Adam over the last five years and, um, I hope and I believe that you'll continue to grow in the future as well. So, thanks ever so much for taking the time to talk to me today, Adam.
It's been an absolute pleasure and thank you very
much. Are you kidding, man? This is awesome. Thank you for having me. This has been great and I'm glad we could, we could chat and talk about some of these things and, and, uh, yeah, I'd love to do it again whenever you want.
Wonderful. Thanks ever so much. I've been Sam Ingalls.
You've been listening to the Sound On Sound People and Music Industry podcast with Adam Shepard from Adam Audio. Thanks, Adam. Thank you. Thank you for listening and be sure to check out the show notes page for this episode where you'll find further information along with web links. And just before you go, let me point you to the soundonsound.
com forward slash podcasts website page, where you can explore what's playing on our other channels.
