Manufacturing Issues
15/04/24 16:02
Controversy has persisted over whether hand-made is simply an affectation and not to the same quality as automated mass-production techniques. We spent a decade experimenting to determine the best way to make our products — mass production or hand made?
The answer wasn’t so cut-and-dried.
Some things must be mass produced to be affordable yet high quality, such as semiconductors, electronic components, fasteners, mechanical parts, and most materials. Think about it: screws are cheap and yet quality because they’re mass produced.
However, at a certain point mass production demands uniformity, and uniformity requires compromise. Here’s where hand-made has the edge. Whenever you deal with one of the human senses, you’re dealing, ultimately, with perceptions and opinions. Ask a hundred people what the best tasting ice cream is, you'll get a hundred different answers. It’s the same with sound. Everyone has a different perception of what is “the best sound.” Mass produced audio equipment has to make assumptions and then cater to broad generalities. The “average listener” concept is flawed. What’s an average listener?
In contrast, hand made audio equipment or music instruments can be made to satisfy a specific listener’s tastes.
Here’s a good analogy. It’s the difference between off-the-rack clothes and custom-tailored. Both use mass-produced fabrics, threads, buttons and zippers, but off-the-rack clothes are made in a few sizes based on manufacturer’s assumptions — and which may not fit you well — but custom tailored clothes will fit you perfectly.
We strive to strike a balance between the efficiency of mass-production and the uncompromising quality of hand made. So, you’ll find that we make only one-off unique products, bespoke products, and limited-run “almost mass produced” products. This lets us give you the highest possible quality at the most feasibly-low cost.
The answer wasn’t so cut-and-dried.
Some things must be mass produced to be affordable yet high quality, such as semiconductors, electronic components, fasteners, mechanical parts, and most materials. Think about it: screws are cheap and yet quality because they’re mass produced.
However, at a certain point mass production demands uniformity, and uniformity requires compromise. Here’s where hand-made has the edge. Whenever you deal with one of the human senses, you’re dealing, ultimately, with perceptions and opinions. Ask a hundred people what the best tasting ice cream is, you'll get a hundred different answers. It’s the same with sound. Everyone has a different perception of what is “the best sound.” Mass produced audio equipment has to make assumptions and then cater to broad generalities. The “average listener” concept is flawed. What’s an average listener?
In contrast, hand made audio equipment or music instruments can be made to satisfy a specific listener’s tastes.
Here’s a good analogy. It’s the difference between off-the-rack clothes and custom-tailored. Both use mass-produced fabrics, threads, buttons and zippers, but off-the-rack clothes are made in a few sizes based on manufacturer’s assumptions — and which may not fit you well — but custom tailored clothes will fit you perfectly.
We strive to strike a balance between the efficiency of mass-production and the uncompromising quality of hand made. So, you’ll find that we make only one-off unique products, bespoke products, and limited-run “almost mass produced” products. This lets us give you the highest possible quality at the most feasibly-low cost.
Philosophy
15/04/24 16:02
The distinctive sound of our products is defined by our underlying design philosophy that audio equipment must not rob the music of life. This is not just empty words. Think about it: a live musical performance has an energy that touches each member of the audience, involving them in that same energy, sharing the same emotions evoked by the music.
Music can move an audience into action, otherwise music would not be a part of almost every human experience from marriages to celebrations to political movements and even wars. Audio equipment affects more than the sound of recorded music, it can rob the music of the life it had when performed live. It is that unbelievably elusive balance everyone seeks that, once found, changes recordings into live performances appearing magically before the listener. Every nuance, every detail of the music must be let through unaltered, otherwise the delicate balance is lost.
KVG Laboratories demands that its designs allow the listener to experience that rare experience of losing themselves into the music, forgetting that they are listening to a recording, only to be jarred back to reality with a pang of sudden loss when the recording ends.
Our underlying philosophies are:
• Good enough isn’t good enough. Without high quality, nothing else matters.
• We first identify a common problem of music instruments, audio equipment or technique, or a desire expressed by many musician, listeners or operators, then solve the problem or satisfy the desire.
• Our objective is to give the musician, listener, the audiophile, or the sound professional a level of quality, a range of musical expression, or a listening experience, that is otherwise unobtainable, unaffordable or impractical; and a capability that is otherwise not available to them. It’s our passion to create things that enable everyone to discover new artistic expressions, create new sounds and tones, record with low noise and wide dynamic range for unprecedented fidelity and musicality, enhance any sound for richness, definition and clarity; and create new sounds or highly modify existing sounds in ways you might not have thought possible.
Vacuum tube amplifiers are a good example of our passion. The big electronics companies quit researching tube electronics since tubes were pronounced “dead” around 1965 but KVG Laboratories never stopped its research. We have been able to advance the design of vacuum tube audio, overcoming many of the adverse perceptions about tube sound and solving many of the limitations of transistorized audio equipment.
The distinctive sound of both our tube designs and our transistorized designs ensures that they do not rob the music of life, of emotion.
This is not just empty verbiage.
Think about it: a live musical performance has an energy that touches each member of the audience, involving them in that same energy, sharing the same emotions evoked by the music. Music can move an audience into action, otherwise music would not be a part of almost every human experience from marriages to celebrations to political movements and even wars.
Audio equipment affects more than the sound of recorded music, it can rob the music of the life if had when performed live.
It is that unbelievably elusive balance everyone seeks that, once found, changes recordings into live performances appearing magically before the listener.
Every nuance, every detail of the music must be let through unaltered, otherwise the balance is lost. KVG Laboratories demands that its designs allow the listener to experience that rare experience of losing themselves into the music, forgetting that they are listening to a recording, only to be jarred back to reality with a pang of sudden loss when the recording ends.
Finally, we strive to strike a balance between the efficiency of mass-production and the uncompromising quality of hand made. So, you’ll find that we make only one-off unique products, bespoke products, and limited-run “almost mass produced” products. This lets us give you the highest possible quality at the most feasibly-low cost.
That means you won’t see cheap mass-market products coming from us. They’re not our competition anyway. Those of you who want better than the same-old same-old mass market, big box store products are our customers. We look forward to serving you.
Music can move an audience into action, otherwise music would not be a part of almost every human experience from marriages to celebrations to political movements and even wars. Audio equipment affects more than the sound of recorded music, it can rob the music of the life it had when performed live. It is that unbelievably elusive balance everyone seeks that, once found, changes recordings into live performances appearing magically before the listener. Every nuance, every detail of the music must be let through unaltered, otherwise the delicate balance is lost.
KVG Laboratories demands that its designs allow the listener to experience that rare experience of losing themselves into the music, forgetting that they are listening to a recording, only to be jarred back to reality with a pang of sudden loss when the recording ends.
Our underlying philosophies are:
• Good enough isn’t good enough. Without high quality, nothing else matters.
• We first identify a common problem of music instruments, audio equipment or technique, or a desire expressed by many musician, listeners or operators, then solve the problem or satisfy the desire.
• Our objective is to give the musician, listener, the audiophile, or the sound professional a level of quality, a range of musical expression, or a listening experience, that is otherwise unobtainable, unaffordable or impractical; and a capability that is otherwise not available to them. It’s our passion to create things that enable everyone to discover new artistic expressions, create new sounds and tones, record with low noise and wide dynamic range for unprecedented fidelity and musicality, enhance any sound for richness, definition and clarity; and create new sounds or highly modify existing sounds in ways you might not have thought possible.
Vacuum tube amplifiers are a good example of our passion. The big electronics companies quit researching tube electronics since tubes were pronounced “dead” around 1965 but KVG Laboratories never stopped its research. We have been able to advance the design of vacuum tube audio, overcoming many of the adverse perceptions about tube sound and solving many of the limitations of transistorized audio equipment.
The distinctive sound of both our tube designs and our transistorized designs ensures that they do not rob the music of life, of emotion.
This is not just empty verbiage.
Think about it: a live musical performance has an energy that touches each member of the audience, involving them in that same energy, sharing the same emotions evoked by the music. Music can move an audience into action, otherwise music would not be a part of almost every human experience from marriages to celebrations to political movements and even wars.
Audio equipment affects more than the sound of recorded music, it can rob the music of the life if had when performed live.
It is that unbelievably elusive balance everyone seeks that, once found, changes recordings into live performances appearing magically before the listener.
Every nuance, every detail of the music must be let through unaltered, otherwise the balance is lost. KVG Laboratories demands that its designs allow the listener to experience that rare experience of losing themselves into the music, forgetting that they are listening to a recording, only to be jarred back to reality with a pang of sudden loss when the recording ends.
Finally, we strive to strike a balance between the efficiency of mass-production and the uncompromising quality of hand made. So, you’ll find that we make only one-off unique products, bespoke products, and limited-run “almost mass produced” products. This lets us give you the highest possible quality at the most feasibly-low cost.
That means you won’t see cheap mass-market products coming from us. They’re not our competition anyway. Those of you who want better than the same-old same-old mass market, big box store products are our customers. We look forward to serving you.