Know any companies that will build a speaker stytem to my exact specs? Outsourcing?

Uncle Dirt

I'm looking to find a company that can build and engineer speakers to my exact specs and ship them to me so I can sell them here in the states.

I have some good ideas, Mainly I want to work on a bookshelf surround sound system that has multiple crossovers, good bass response and high dynamic range.

I also want to put tgether a behemoth cabinate speaker that can wollop a seriuos amount of bass and punch with nice high range sound and midrange sound.

I'm thinking of starting my own white van biz, but selling products that are actually high quality. This way people aren't getting ripped off and even if I can't get them to buy for about my own cost, I can still make a profit and sell a decent speaker.

I want to sell high quality gear at an afforc=dable price. I love cold sales. Its fun.

Anyb ody know who can make these for me?

obobskivich

uh, 1-800-china?

or try to start local distribution of an online dealer?

honestly, in my experience, outsourced speaker building normally doesn't turn out so well, like, when companies just phone in a design, it usually comes back sounding a lot different than the "designer" intended, but when the company actually designs and builds it in-house, and just passes that on to their factory, you get a great product

you might look at just starting your own little shop and hiring a few people to assemble your speakers in-house, so you can insure QC and whatnot

another thing to keep in mind, you want something that re-invents the wheel, or it won't sell, thats why Bose and Bang & Olufsen consistently outsell many competitors, at higher prices, even when their products aren't neccisarily better (while both make very high quality products, there are tons of other options, but Bose and B&O continually push the bar both in terms of style, and in terms of function, my point is, nobody wants behemoth speakers, americans are obsesed with the "cute" fad, if it isn't nano, micro, thin, slim, flat, or HD, it doesnt exist to them)

UNLIKELY1

HMMm. To me I would think the place to start would be with the specific drivers you intend to use. Wether it be you design them and outsource/insource to whomever and have them build them to your specific needs or you have an engineering firm design them and then source the menufacturing process.
one of the biggest issues in driver/speaker manufacturing is consistancy. That can only be acheived with Quality control and that is very expensive.
The best and most cost effective way would be to come up with your own design, ie driver selection, crossover component selection/design, and inclosure type. Using a quality driver from a company like Dayton, Seas, Tang band, or many others. Dayton outsources the manufacturing of some of there drivers to china and have had quality issues in the past but have invested alot of money in the QC to bring them up to standards that meat or exceed the europian companys.
This is a very interesting idea. one that many people have tried and failed at. Its a cut throut bissiness that requires a substantial up front investment. specially if you are going to design/build the drivers yourself from scratch.
I have hesrd of people building there own drivers with some success. In Seattle years ago we had Speakerlab, and they where/are very successful.
The internet has many upstart companys trying to build a name for them selves.
Like Obob said, you have to come up with a design that sets yourself apart from the rest.
As far as specific manufacturing companys,I am not sure. I still feel that the best and most cost effective way would be to design a system using someone elses drivers. Just my 2 cents.
By the way, dont use a white van. Blue or even brown would be better

OH and I have been wanting to tell you, It is good to see another Ron Paul beleiver.

department76

ya unless you're talking about building 10,000 units i doubt you'd be able to even strike a deal with an out-sourced manufacturer.



i myself have joked with friends about starting a business such as this and i'll tell you my own plan. realistically it will never happen outside a hobby for me so i'll tell you in detail what i've had in mind;

1) 100% of the speaker design i do myself including component selection, xover design, enclosure design, marketing (branding/naming), etc

2) i hire a competent local carpenter, kitchen cabinet maker, or anyone else someone with a big business and shop with many employees that could be reliable-- they get plans from me drafted in autocad and make a demo. once it's acceptable and i find it workable we make a deal for x number of units, and a contract for continuing business.
it's just way to slow for a person to build speakers cabs by themself, beyond very small levels of production would be out of the question. not to mention the quality control factor as mentioned above. it'd be awesome to get some automated construction of the speaker cabs, that would be far more reliable and easier than hand bulding everything unless it's by a reputable woodworkering outfit. then again you could always go the composite materials route but that'd take a factory to ever hit good production numbers.

3) i would assemble the speakers and crossovers myself/in-house;
it would be ideal to hire several helpers that would work for me at my side. this is where they would come in.

4) then from there you need to have some sort of retail location and local advertising, including hiring maybe a secretary and salesman figure. not sure on if i would oversee all operations or if i would hire a friend to manage things. it would be nice to sit in the office or shop all day toying with designs but that might not be feasible until you're completely established.
selling out of vans might work, as unlikely1 said: you might consider a color other than white that and have a mobile demonstration type of setup where you open the van up and can show off everything at full power. maybe that could open up a branch of your business to supply DJs with rentable or for-sale equipment in the pa field.

you will have trouble finding a good target market that will sustain your business in the long run i think. it is definately possible, Dr. Hsu started his own audio company in califronia with very similar ideals and goals and he is gaining national popularity now. it would be crucial to get your name out there and establish high quality at low cost, including local demonstrations, entering audio exhibitions, etc. it'd be perfect to make an impact at a show and get an article written about your work in a magazine or soemthing.

in the end for even a small start-out operation you'd have maybe half a dozen employees and put in more than 40hrs/week yourself to be close to effective. consider hiring someone to manufacture your cabs, have 2-3 helpers for assembly, 1-2 to man a storefront/showroom, and a secretary or accountant to run your financials. then after marketing and initial investments you'd be pretty good to go i'd imagine. it'd definately take some time to prototype all the designs into 100% working and flawless condition before you started production.

Uncle Dirt

I used to work for this guy who sold his own speakers and had his own vans and office. He made some serious cash running a white van business.

He had his own company name on the speaker boxes and he dealt with customers in a legit way. He even offered them refunds and replacements.

I've been wondering how he was able to get those speakers and have them stocked with his name and company on them. I've been wondering how much it actually cost him to set everything up.

That was actually a pretty cool job. The hing that sucked was working with retards who couldn't sell water to a fish in the desert.

I used to love doing that kind of work. Hustling was fun. I miss the hustle of cold sales.

Oh yeah... Ron Paul rocks!

Nicholas.Sexton

Home businesses rock. You can write off a new computer as a business expense=)

obobskivich

@ dept76, I know what you're getting at with wanting mechanized production, but in the modern era of society, wouldn't it market better if you could say "oh look this is hand crafted by our artisan woodworkers" (who cares if they're just a bunch of guys in dirty cutoff t-shirts listening to Skynyrd and smoking Marlboro's while they hack up flatboards and build your cabs, "skilled artisan woodworkers" sells)

to out-source to china or anywhere else, quality control is what gets you in the end, either you have to be capable of eating however many thousand units damaged out of however many produced, or you have to pay someone to sit and check everything properly, and you gotta be talking serious numbers (because you gotta be able to rent factory space on a legitimate level, for them to want to look at you, and then you gotta consider shipping costs (FedEx stops looking appealing, think Hanjin) and other largescale things like that)

its a good idea, if you're the kind of person that can do things like this (if you are, you know it already), but otherwise, I don't see it going all the way to completion