MI Pro

The moulded plastic loudspeaker has been with us for many years now. In its earliest incarnation, it was a pretty spartan product with really only its light weight in its favour. Now it’s evolved into a sophisticated piece of audio equipment and, increasingly in the case of the active varieties, become the obvious choice for bands and entertainers and others who need portability, ease of use and, in the best instances, extremely high sound quality.

The problem faced by retailers is which of the many competing brands on the market to stock. Italian acoustic specialist dB certainly has a claim on your attention here as it has over 25 years in the market and a strong presence in the UK.

Though the parent company is based in Bologna, dB’s UK operation is controlled from Cologne, Germany, where it is managed by dB’s Harald von Falkenstein, who explains the company’s impressive technological background and, particularly interestingly, the link with one of the other great names in Italian audio – RCF.

Current president Arturo Vicari, who founded the parent company AEB (Acoustic Engineering Bureau) back in the 1970s, bought RCF in 2004, from Mackie, which was something of a homecoming for the brand. Mackie had bought RCF in 1998 – a move the American company found problematic pretty much from the word go – when Vicari was managing director and eventually sold the company back to the Italians, this time with Vicari at the head of the purchasing consrtium.

While this might seem to place dB and RCF head to head in the market, in practice, von Falkenstein says they tend to focus on different areas and both benefit from the other’s technical expertise – AEB having a strong background in electronics and RCF in speaker design.

“People often get the wrong idea, believing that RCF is the mother company, but that’s not the case,” explains von Falkenstein. “The way it has been set up is that the RCF Group is effectively the holding name, with RCF, AEB and dB within it. Obviously, it made sense to use the RCF name when it was floated as a public company in 2007, as it has been in business for 60 years, is well known round the world and is the better known brand.

“As a group, last year the total turnover was €63 million, but that will change because recently the RCF group acquired the lighting company SGM, so next year will see us having a larger turnover because of that.

“As far as the UK is concerned, that is closely connected with the way the German operation developed. That was founded in 2000 and the managing director of the German company became sales and marketing director of AEB, and at that stage I became responsible as European sales manager for distributors in West Europe. Since then, the operation has grown to become a very important part of the structure of the organisation. From here we take care of markets where we go direct, with sales representatives employed by us – which is in the UK, France,  Benelux and most recently in Spain, where we opened an office not long ago. Then there are another ten distributors in the other European markets. So from where we started in 2000, with just three people, we now have an organisation here in Cologne with nearly 30 people, which is quite significant growth in eight or nine years.”

Having established that dB is a sizeable concern, one other important thing to know about the operation is the depth of AEB’s background in technology. Unusually, von Falkenstein explains, the company began life as an OEM supplier in the wireless microphone business.

“AEB started in that market in the late 1970s, making some very interesting wireless systems, and in fact was the only manufacturer that was able to make an affordable wireless system at the time. Back then, a wireless system cost at least €1,000, but Arturo Vicari realised that he needed production facilities outside Europe, so he and some partners opened production facilities in India and China – these two factories are still owned by him today and supply a lot of our components.

“Having these production facilities enabled AEB to produce systems at very affordable prices and it sold systems to microphone companies like AKG, Beyerdnamic and others. So that’s where AEB started and out of this development, next to the wireless R&D, we started our first active plastic speaker R&D, at the beginning of the 1990s. We were the first manufacturer to bring out an affordable active plastic speaker and that’s what became the foundation of dB Technologies’ reputation today.

“We started with one or two models and now have expanded the range with a lot of very professional products – and that’s where the synergy with RCF lies. With us having a very good R&D department for electronics and amplification and with RCF acknowledged as one of the world’s best speaker chassis manufacturers, we have synergies where we supply all the electronics for their active systems and in our more professional products, like the DVA range or the DVX range, we use RCF chassis speakers. This gives us a good advantage over some of our competitors as it means we are doing everything in-house, we don’t need to buy from any outside manufacturers and that is reflected in the price for the end user.”

Distribution of dB in the UK was originally in the hands of Beyerdynamic until the decision was taken to go direct to the UK market. From 2004, the company had an office here, but now operates direct to Cologne, with two sales reps in the field – a sales manager, David Kelland (who handles the North, Scotland and Ireland) and Richard Soper, who joined the company last month. This gives dB a competitive edge as it is operating centralised distribution in various European markets, reducing overheads and reflecting that economic advantage back into end-user pricing.

“The goods are all stocked here, in 1,600 square metres of warehouse, and we supply Germany, the UK, Benelux, France and Spain,” von Falkenstein says.

Of course, this raises inevitable questions in a retailer’s mind about how quickly dB is able to service rush orders, but von Falkenstein says modern logistics mean that if an order is received by dB, either direct to one of dB’s reps or via freephone number to their office, or via email or fax, the product can be delivered to the shop in two days.

Service, on the other hand, is undertaken directly in the UK, so effectively, dB feels, it is little different from dealing with a UK company.

While in the past dB was relatively easy to pigeonhole as a supplier mainly to the MI end of the market, with the company’s well-liked active, plastic, Opera range, today it has broadened its range to such an extent that it serves a sector of the traditional pro audio field, too. This is particularly true of products like the DVA line array, which was introduced three and a half years ago.

The DVA system has been a revelation for many and has become dB’s most successful ever product – not surprising as it has brought the line array concept down to an affordable level for many who would otherwise have been confined to cumbersome point source systems. It does this by using plastic housings with 420 Watts of digital amplification on board, coupled to RCF neodymium speakers. The DVA system effectively opened the door for smaller rental companies to be able to offer a usable line array system at an affordable price.   

And if that seems a bit exotic for a music shop – even one with a PA department and some expertise in the market – it might be time to take a close second look. A DVA T4 unit can retail for just £1,125, which suddenly opens up a range of markets beyond rental companies. There are many entertainers and bands that will spend that sort of money – let alone educational establishments, companies and organisations.

“We will be selling our 10,000th DVA T4 unit soon, probably this January – and not a lot of manufacturers could say something like that,” von Falkenstein says with justifiable pride. “Again, our advantage is in the production, the price and the flexibility of the system, you can use it as a ground stack, you can use it flown – it is a tremendously versatile system.”

However good a manufacturer’s products, the plastic speaker system market is tremendously crowded, with just about every PA manufacturer offering something – so why does von Falkenstein feel retailers should look to dB as opposed to some of its competitors?

“In the nine years of dB Germany, we’ve reached the position of market leader and we intend to do that in the UK as well – particularly with our new approach of having two reps for the country. The dealer doesn’t merely need a good product for a good price, but also support and efficiency in delivery and with warranty issues. That is one of our most important goals – we want to make sure that even if there are problems, we are able to help the customer immediately.

“I think where we stand out falls in three areas: quality, reliability and flexibility. We don’t only do plastic boxes, we offer a flexibility where you can constantly update. So if a small band buys a pair of new digital Opera speakers and then discover they are getting more gigs at bigger venues, it is really easy for them to expand the system, first with sub-woofers and then, if they find they need more than that, they can use the Opera digitals as monitors and add a larger speaker system out of the new Flexsys range that we have introduced.

“You never need to get rid of something from us – you can constantly upgrade your speakers – and that is another way we stand out from our competitors. We thought this out from the start. All of our boxes are multifunctional – you can use them on speaker poles or as monitors. The more professional speakers, such as the DVX range, have rotatable horns. They can be mounted on the wall, or flown, which for rental companies is a very attractive feature. This means the market gets a good, reliable product with high flexibility for an affordable price.”

One recent feature of dB’s operation in the UK that will reassure dealers is the way the marketing is now better directed at getting the word out to the street. Consumer advertising appears in magazines such as Performing Musician  and reviews across several titles are helping spread the word. This is no small issue, as dB doesn’t have the same benefit of cross-recognition from other products as some of the giant MI manufacturers – nor the decades of brand recognition held by some other players, among them, of course, sister company, RCF.

Assisting this, von Falkenstein says, are the activities of the UK reps, who are keen to arrange in-store demos. He is also very aware of the role the internet is playing in promoting products via user forums and groups and points to the success of the DVA line array as being, at least in part, due to the enthusiastic reception and recommendation that system has received online.

“For the dealer, the most important thing is that the customer is happy with what he has been sold and I think we offer the right tools for that. Because it’s flexible, customers can use it in different ways at different gigs and the only time they come back to the retailer is to say ‘thank you for selling me dB – now I would like to add a sub-woofer, or I would like to add something else’. We want to avoid stress for our dealers and our customers – that’s what we do.”

This brings us to price and the ever-present concerns about products and brands when end users can scour the internet for cheaper prices from continental retailers, also taking advantage of modern logistics. It was partly to counter this, von Falkenstein says, that dB decided to go direct to retailers – so that they had control of pan-European pricing and could try to contain the often distributor-driven discounting which leads to retail price chaos. 

“The only way to do this is to deal direct, but the overheads of doing that are enormous, of course – a lot of people don’t realise that. We make sure that the message and our philosophy gets across the way we want it and, yes, pan-European pricing was there, too. In Germany, we have two very large retailers that influence the rest of the European market, so we said if we want to grow our business in the UK, we have to make sure a good dealer is buying for the same prices as a dealer in Germany. Obviously, the conditions can be the same, but we can’t influence the margins the individual retailer works on. But we can ensure that everyone is able to be competitive.”

For retailers that have traditionally shied-away from selling PA, von Falkenstein is sure that his UK reps are in a good position to help. “The job of a modern sales representative is not just to sell, it is to act as a consultant. Obviously, for a shop that just sells guitars, basses and strings, it is difficult, but we are happy to come in and offer advice about what you could do to set up a department and how to make it work.

“PA selling is different to guitar selling, with different customers and issues. We are happy to share our experience there and help – and that is how we have grown in the past, because dealers have seen that we are reliable business partners. We’re not just there for their money, but to form lasting relationships with them and their customers.” 

And the future? Bear in mind that AEB started life as a manufacturer of affordable wireless mic systems for other manufacturers. On the way, von Falkenstein hints, is a return to that market, but this time with a groundbreaking product under the company’s own name. One more reason, you might think, that now could be a good time to take a closer look at this enterprising manufacturer.