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Spotlight: A Look Inside B&C Speakers
By Mike Klasco
(Editor’s Note: Voice Coil, the periodical for the loudspeaker industry, graciously provided this article and photos for PSW readers.)
Click here for an overview of the B&C Line
B&C Speakers is not just another Italian speaker company. It is fabled among pro sound speaker system designers for the best-sounding compression drivers in the world. Yet aside from this bit of legend, B&C is relatively unknown in the U.S.
B&C’s worldwide customers have “extreme” regard for its high-efficiency cone speakers; the most recent development is its HPL high-acoustic output neodymium woofers. B&C Speakers established its own office and warehouse in the U.S. four years ago, in Ramsey, N.J.
Fernando Borrani and Roberto Coppini established B&C Speakers S.p.A. in 1945 in Florence, Italy. At that time the company was called BBS Speakers, but the name was changed in 1985 to eliminate confusion with the communications giant in England. The new name brought a new effort and direction to the company, which had been known in Italy and parts of Europe as a small but very high quality designer and manufacturer of loudspeakers, drivers and, in the beginning, microphones.
Their early customers (only European, now worldwide) were, as today, the very best high-quality OEM companies in the business. Roberto Coppini, the younger of the partners, had always been responsible for sales, while Borrani concentrated on design. Coppini dreamt of expanding the company and realized they had to move it from its downtown location in a 400-year-old palace to a “real” factory.
Exterior view of B&C headquarters ensconced in the Tuscan hills. |
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In 1988, they bought a small factory on the outskirts of the city, in an industrial area, and began to expand their sales horizons. With fresh forces to increase management staff, including Lorenzo Coppini as VP for Int'l sales, the business experienced exponential growth, and in 1996 B&C had to move a second time and built a new factory, in the magnificent Tuscan hills.
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The super-modern facility covers three floors. The shipping department for inbound materials and outbound finished products, along with the tooling department, is on the first floor. The second floor and half of the third are dedicated to manufacturing; however, they also have a modern R&D lab and administrative offices on these levels. There is a second satellite factory nearby, where certain drivers are assembled.
The woofer assembly line. |
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The production lines are semi-automatic, and are tuned for the precision products being assembled. Automation is used with it provides tighter consistency; manual work is done when it yields the best result. Custom machines, jogs and fixtures are used rather than conventional production equipment.
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Low turnover and long-time workers characterize B&C’s operation. Instead of the usual just-out-of-school production-line workers, I saw many mature and skilled craftspeople assembling drivers with care, attention to detail and pride. The emend result is high-quality speakers and drivers made by artisans, yet with the consistency demanded by today’s high-volume OEM consumption rate.
B&C has succeeded, at least partially, because all critical aspects of design, finally assembly and quality control are done in-house. At thee end of the production line is a custom-modified Clio analyzer performing automated QC of all speakers. On the other hand, casting, mechanical parts, surface treating and other functions best left to larger, specialized operations are outsourced.
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Workers on the compression driver assembly line.
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Woofer quality control
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This approach is in direct contract to the larger Italian speaker manufacturers, who were traditionally vertically oriented and are now staggering to support non-competitive and obsolete. Meanwhile, B&C is in the ISO 9000 certification process, upgrading their QC department already noted for consistency and low-failure compression drivers and speakers.
B&C is more of an ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) than an OEM. The level of development going into all products is evident in their distortion and response curves, which can be viewed at www.bcspeakers.com.
As you will see, the speakers combine smooth response, exceptional sensitivity, high power handling and low distortion while being free from premature failure modes. Woofers go up to the top of their usable range and then smoothly roll off without a peak.
Michael Klasco is the president of Menlo Scientific Ltd in Berkeley, CA, a consulting form to the loudspeaker industry. He is the organizer of Loudspeaker University seminars for speaker engineers. Mike contributes frequently to Voice Coil and specializes in materials and fabrication techniques to enhance speaker performance.
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