If the first decade of this century was about microphones, this next one seems to be about speakers. Neither trend fits exactly into such a neat chronology, of course; the explosive growth of the boutique microphone category was already underway when Prince was singing about the future of “1999.” But it certainly became fully formed in the aughts, when blinged-out handheld wireless mics became the must-have accessory for the fashion-conscious at the edge of the stage.
Though considerably less blingy, the phenomenon now applies to speakers — the wave of new brands and products into the market began in an earlier decade, but it’s in the last few years the scale of the transducer tsunami has become evident, riding on the shift in the music industry’s revenue base from recorded music to live.
The Winter NAMM Show, which some time ago evolved into a major venue for new high-end and touring microphone product debuts. This year was the venue for plenty of new speakers, from big names like D.A.S. Audio’s Aero 20A and RCF’s HDL-10 active line arrays to JBL’s SRX800 portable P.A. line and even Mackie’s FreePlay, the latter a DC-powered 300-watt system in an 11-pound, grab-and-go package. JBL also expanded its M2 reference monitor line with its 3-Series with the innovative new Image Control Waveguide, while other companies, like Sound Composites — a maker of carbon-fiber fingerboards for musical instruments — has translated that technology to live sound loudspeakers with its new Sonusphere line. We’ve now circumnavigated the signal chain, from its one analog end to the other, transducers without end, amen.
But are the economic gyrations of the music industry the sole force behind so many speakers? Much of the sector’s growth certainly comes out of the touring business, which despite some contraction in the last two years is still on a tear compared with other ways to consume music. But the installed-sound business has also blossomed in recent years, a big piece of what Accenture estimates is a $228 billion market (including sports and concerts), in no small part thanks to the renaissance in corporate event production, where no new-product introduction is now considered complete without at least a dozen subwoofers.
We’ve witnessed InfoComm, the core show in the U.S. for installed AV systems, become a huge venue for speaker product debuts and demos aimed at that market. Then there’s the growth in other areas of installed sound, including education, hospitality and house of worship, all of which have been using more audio — it’s hard to find a new hotel in Manhattan or Miami that doesn’t have a mini stage in the bar or lobby now.
Another arena that seen a blow-up in new-product offerings is in studio monitoring. Again, at the NAMM Show there were more new desktop and other near-field offerings than in previous editions of the show, with even guitar maker Gibson putting its brand (and a version of a Les Paul flametop wood design) on the housing of its new studio monitors.
This expanded need for audio has come at a time when the quality of sound has come to the fore. That’s why the recent CES Show in Las Vegas, a couple of weeks before the NAMM Show, also saw a slew of new speaker products come rolling out, from the white-shoe brands like Klipsch and Acoustic Research but also from edgier manufacturers, like Moshi’s new Spatia line, that are going after the burgeoning streaming market — a sonic quality-challenged sector if there ever was one.
All these factors have combined to expand the speaker sector substantially in the last few years. But one also has to take into account the fact that transducers seem to be the most addictive aspect of pro audio, because many of those who make their mark there tend to stick around, like Funktion-One’s Tony Andrews, EAW’s Kenton Forsythe and Ken Berger (the latter now with VUE Audiotechnik), Christian Heil of L-Acoustics and, of course, John Meyer.
“The thing which I’ve noticed for years is that people [and] brands rarely leave the business — it’s a hobby and a job and an avocation,” observes Jack Kelly, who as a longtime distributor of many pro audio brands once had U.K. icon Celestion in his stable. “If business is bad, move to a smaller house, seems to be the philosophy in our industry,” rather than leaving it, he says. “I think that part of the signal chain really attracts some clever people who love experimenting and fine tuning, so there are lots of them.”
Not The Whole Picture
There are a few mitigating circumstances, however. Here in the U.S., we do get a somewhat distorted view of the larger picture. As the single largest market for all shades of music but certainly live music, for live sports, for touring and certainly for high-decibel worship services, brands target the States more than any other geographical location. Most U.S.-based speaker brands do the majority of their business in North America, but overseas-based brands are compelled to look to the U.S. for their own market-share expansions. That was always a difficult and expensive proposition, as the success stories like L-Acoustics and d&b audiotechnik (and a few others that didn’t manage to hang on quite as well) will tell you.
However, international markets are now roiled by foreign-exchange turbulence. Triggered by the European Central Bank’s decision to implement quantitative easing (the same ploy the U.S. Federal Reserve has had in place for the last three years), the Euro has dropped to its lowest value against the dollar in 11 years. The implications of this sudden imbalance are complicated, but the simple version means that overseas products become cheaper to buy here and vice versa, a potential boon for European brands and a challenge for U.S. ones. On the other hand, the cost of doing business here goes up for overseas brands, too — you can’t fully compete here unless you physically plant a flag by opening offices and warehousing facilities.
All this is going to make for an interesting year for the economics of what is the single largest component of every sound system.
