In the beginning, Meyer Sound bought drivers and modified each one to meet the company's specs. By the mid-1990s, with the company growing and introducing self-powered systems, this was no longer a workable system. So, Meyer Sound made a commitment to fabricating its own loudspeaker drivers. Since the company was already bursting at the seams in its original building, the decision to make drivers meant making a major expansion and constructing an entirely new facility.
Meyer Sound's steady expansion has led to making its products in several buildings clustered around the original building and named according to a planetary theme. Drivers are built in the Saturn transducer fabrication plant, systems are assembled in the Mars facility, a new engineering lab is in Luna, and other buildings house the service department and electronics assembly. Main offices remain in the original building, known as Earth. Still, Meyer Sound's growth and movement in new directions with its LCS Series products necessitated yet more expansion. In late 2006, a new facility, called Phoebe, was brought online.
Named after a small moon of Saturn, Phoebe is, mainly, an expansion of the Saturn transducer facility. Phoebe supplements Meyer Sound's existing driver production capabilities and adds new ones. Parts of the driver manufacturing process are being revamped as they are implemented at Phoebe in order to increase efficiency and consistency.
One of Phoebe's striking features is the reliability testing area. Here, rows of thick concrete chambers allow for extensive accelerated life testing of Meyer Sound products, ensuring that they can stand up to the workout they will receive in daily use. Each chamber is equipped with an identical test setup, in order to guarantee consistency in the test environment: a driver measurement will produce the exact same data regardless of which chamber is used. Engineering R&D also maintains two large chambers in this room for testing development prototypes.
Low-frequency driver and magnetic assemblies from subassemblies and components made at Saturn are being performed in one room of Phoebe, while low driver final QA (Quality Assurance) testing is conducted in an adjacent area. Newly designed test rigs have already increased capacity.
(Chris Henry)
