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Axiom Factory Tour 2004
Introduction
If I could ever describe what a wonderful tour we had at Axiom, there would be no need for words, rather just a picture of my silly grin.
The Axiom factory is set in the heart of Ontario’s cottage country also known as the Muskoka area.
It falls several hours north of the big city of Toronto yet several hours in between any other major centers, surrounded by nothing but coniferous forest and quiet lakes. The area is arguably more beautiful than the Axiom speakers
but paled in comparison to the generous nature of our hosts.
The People
Much like their business model, the Axiom folk we met were exceptional and genuine people, incredibly gracious (more so than most good neighbors) and very open to two strangers they had not met short of an email or a forum post. If you ever thought their customer service was good, you should really meet the people in person! Perhaps it is at this point I should mention how they offered my very pregnant wife a lovely deli sandwich lunch, something she sorely needed after having gone a whole hour without snacking and yet something she was too shy to disclose. They also welcomed two of my former university housemates into the infamous boathouse party with Boyce Road playing live at Ian and Amie’s place a couple of summers ago. Unbeknownst to me, the boys traveled across the lake with a friend of theirs who knew about the gathering. The last thing my friends said they could remember about the party was “cheesecake” and “free booze”. Now I’m jealous all over again.
Anyway, after being greeted by Amie outside the main building, we began our tour with a quick meeting of some people at the factory that day. Some of the office people were hard at work click clacking on keyboards or talking on phones so conversation was limited to quick waves. Amie brought us immediately into the listening room where Ian, Alan and Joe were deep in conversation over some idea while a sound clip was playing on the speaker setup consisting of M80s, a VP150 and surrounding QS8s. (If I recall correctly, the amps driving the system were 2 Yamahas and somewhere in the mix I also noted an RCA cd player lying around). Upon meeting Ian and Alan for the first time, I took a step back. I came to a huge realization that I had preconceived ideas about several things such as what people would look like or sound like, how the Axiom listening room was setup or for that matter, even how it was furnished and with what colours. These preconceptions were being crushed within the first minute of my visit. Ian is not nearly as tall as I thought he was. Alan does not have the mad scientist hair that is pictured in his forum avatar. The listening room is a lot more like a real person’s basement that I think anyone realizes and the full metal brackets are way tinier than I had imagined. I was going to have to re-evaluate everything from scratch!
Ian is a hearty, good natured and exuberant man who clearly enjoys his passion for improving the quality of audio products (of course while using both electrical and human research as feedback guinea pigs).
Amie is just as big a sweetheart in person as she is on the forums. Bright, cheery and intelligent, she makes a perfect match for Ian.
Alan is soft spoken and composed and indeed a highly knowledgeable expert, like there was ever any doubt. It was obvious that Alan takes great pleasure in discussing anything audio especially with Axiom’s latest addition, Tom Cumberland. We met Tom a little later in the tour when we sat down in the conference room. Tom is relatively new to the Axiom staff (he was mentioned in the
December 2003 Axiom Audiofile newsletter).
Tom is another electronics guru who speaks more like Ian yet relates personally more to Alan (something about age equivalency).
After a battle of friendly barbs between Alan and Tom came to an end,
I realized I knew a whole ton more about truly vintage audio (30-50+ years ago) and yet I never did find out who was older. The Axiom “elders” indeed love to reminisce.
The Factory
We started out on the tour by perusing the listening room where much of the audible research is done. It was a 15x25’ room (approx.) with nice pine finished walls, a medium thick carpet and track lighting that sent my camera into a horrible tizzy (note that I was not paying much attention to my camera settings at this point). The room was furnished with pictures, a comfy leather sofa, 2 listening chairs (approx. 12-14’ back from the main speakers), a coffee table, TV, speakers up front, QS8s all around hung by FMBs, and a control desk at the very back. Three doors split off of the room heading to various other areas.
Ian took us directly from the listening room into the main factory area.
The general layout was well designed.
Receiving of raw materials begins at one end of the factory while further at the other end is the warehouse and shipping area.
It makes perfect sense.
Sheets of Canadian made MDF are received and placed onto cutting machines that essentially act as large routers.
The speaker box ‘molds’ are cut down into the appropriate dimensions, monitored by techs on the floor and in the control booth overhead (see the picture of Jeff working on a grille design). Jeff was a nice guy who had bunches of great CAD like drawings to show us.
The large piping materials seen in many of the pictures are part of an immense dust control system that Ian has installed. This is something of a personal point that I really wanted to mention. Very few companies would be quite so concerned about destination of wood dust beyond the factory air compartment but this dust control system was beyond impressive. From an environmental perspective, I have to applaud the effort made by Axiom in controlling both dust and sound emitted from their workplace.
Continuing on, the receiving/cutting area curls around towards the back of the factory and eventually becomes the assembly area. There is a testing lab directly off to the side of this area as well, however I’ve been swore to secrecy about its contents. I believe a guy named Jim was inside though…(Jim also helped setup the photo hosting on the Axiom server, many thanks).
A metal machine shop is also on site and was most likely the birthplace of the FMB! The assembly area is one HUGE place (and EXPANDING SOON), far larger than the building appears from the front and far larger than I had imagined (another preconception shot down).
It houses stock materials including old speaker models left unsold or kept for auctions and charities. According to Ian, Axiom donates speakers of this sort to libraries and events as prizes and items for raising charitable organization dollars. More kudos to Axiom!
The assembly area begins with the cut speaker ‘molds’, with vinyl already attached to the backsides. Some components like the crossovers (also Canadian made) and ports are added before the speaker gets folded and sent forward.
Drivers are installed and remaining bits like grille plugs are put in as the speakers roll along the assembly line on wooden platforms. Unfortunately the factory was not running 100% on the day we were there so I could not see all of the working system in action. Apparently Ian has this crazy notion about giving his employees Fridays’ off. (I think they accept resumes at the front desk area).
It was also the reason I have very few photos of actual people.
Grilles and cloths are put together in a shop upstairs from the main assembly area. This is where they do a lot of the colour combo matching when a customer asks for an Axiom opinion.
It is interesting to note that the grille covers are actually melted onto the plastic rims rather than glued. This not only scores more points on the environmental front, but Ian stated that the grille covers actually hold better in place this way than with glue. The speakers continue to run through the QA/QC procedures (more below) along the assembly line and then on to the boxing and shipping area. Each individual custom box is stamped by its colour and the individual addresses marked with a tag while awaiting a courier pickup, which as all Axiom owners know is a trademark of their business design...superior quality shipping! Although this is a relatively simple chain of events, the details in the chain are impressive and I only wish I could have seen it in action.
The QA/QC and Axiom Products
One of the backbone policies of Axiom that has always intrigued me was their incredible attention for detail in research, the strive to link human sound preferences with measured acoustic properties and of course, the incredible customer service in regards to product issues and failures. I now have an even higher respect for the quality control and assurance of Axiom products after having witnessed first hand the number of steps taken to insure a quality speaker is built and delivered.
Ian revealed that the staff on hand in the assembly area all have over
10 years experience with the company!
Customers should take comfort in knowing the speakers are being built by very experienced individuals.
The Axiom staff maintains quality control and quality assurance checks as soon as drivers are received.
Each driver is tested for various electrical parameters before being placed in a speaker.
The vinyl finishes are reviewed during the entire speaker folding/building process for flaws.
Each and every speaker is tested in a small anechoic chamber against a reference unit for proper functioning and frequency response before continuing down the line.
Center channels are tested for magnetic fields. Anything over a certain level gets the boot.
Customers have often questioned the relatively pesky “max. power” ratings on speakers and the meaning behind this statistic seems to elude many. Power and speakers are tested in the extreme at Axiom. I now truly believe, if I never did before, that too much power is never too much (well, to a reasonable point). Ian has a sound proof room off the side of the lab that he uses to playfully (yet for QA/QC standards) punish his speakers. His agonizing test is to blast Slayer tunes for a solid 24 hours with over 700W of Bryston power amps hooked up to a pair of M80s! Yes, watching the driver excursion is really quite something.
The sound in that little room was deafening, the sound outside was deafeningly quiet.
Kudos Ian.
Dust control, quality control and sound control. In all due time you may also need crowd control if this tour description fans the drooling flames of the Axiom fan base.
The Research
All companies need to strive for new ideas and new methods of testing their products but sometimes the simplest procedures remain the most effective. Ian showed us one of the most low-tech systems for measuring a subwoofer. We proceeded back through the receiving/cutting area, up some stairs and outside. There was a pole with a swing arm and a metal platform onboard.
Ian described to us a high tech method for measuring subwoofers in what is called a ‘free air’ measurement. They place the subwoofer on the platform, swing out the arm, turn on the tones and take a measurement in the ‘free air’.
Considering the nature of low frequency notes (having much longer wavelengths), space is really a requirement in the sound analysis of a subwoofer, so this method makes complete sense. Other than some considerations with noisy Blue jays, Tom and Alan’s friendly jabbing and the odd gust of wind, this method is apparently quite effective. It is a good thing that Axiom is located in the Muskokas and not in the heart of downtown Toronto.
This is of course but one thing that Axiom has done in their research to design a better speaker. Most people know about the NRC and the anechoic chamber measurements used by several companies over the years to help design loudspeakers. Ian has recently revealed plans for building Axiom’s own anechoic chamber on the Axiom property. The primary idea is to create an experimental chamber closer to the Axiom facility for convenience. However, when asked, Ian also stated that Axiom would continue to use the NRC centre (but less frequently) to maintain a standard of measuring between both chambers. Aside from the free air measurements, this is certainly another added level in the control of the speaker design and testing phase. As the carpenter’s rule of thumb states, measure twice, cut once. Along with having his own anechoic chamber, the blind testing will of course continue in Axiom’s listening room as the research towards better sound never ends.
The Windup
As the tour started to wind down, we went back to the listening room so Ian could give us a display of something he has been tinkering with…recording some songs of his own. What you say? Ian singing? No, not quite, more like Ian doing the recording, but someone else singing.
Hmm, I think to myself, Axiom Records anytime in the future?
The song was from the lead singer of
Boyce Road and I’ll be darned if I had not heard anything more sweet. The two M80s playing at the front of the room made my M60s at home sound like they were inside tin boxes. The truly amazing thing is that the conveniently placed sound meter sitting on the coffee table was registering a smooth 106+dB!!
Do room acoustics really matter that much?
Oh you bet your sweet behind they do!
Alan even commented how much ‘hard’ he felt the Axiom listening room was in comparison to some other places, but then again, Alan has never been in my basement (not to my knowledge anyway).
So after the sound audition, we meandered over to see the construction of Ian’s new office
We then wandered into the Axiom conference room where we sat and chatted. This is about the point where they fed my wife, which basically brings us back to square one. We managed to kill three hours at the Factory, which to me felt like 30 minutes. I did not have nearly enough time to do or see and play with all the things I would have loved.
It was only after the tour was finished and we were on our way did I begin to recall the 546 questions that I had mentally prepared the previous week. At that point, I wasn’t even sure I managed to ask Ian, Alan or Tom any question that was really worth asking during the whole three hours. After realizing I shot nearly 2 rolls of film, many of which did not come out due to my lack of vigilance with the camera settings (possibly due to the general ecstatic fog hanging over my head), I finally remembered some things I REALLY, REALLY wanted to ask them.
It was only after we were in the car that I wondered if perhaps two bottles of wine was nearly enough to compensate for such a fantastic afternoon. I sipped a two hour bottle of Wolfblass 2001 Chardonnay that night myself to ponder the thought.
The drive in my spare time has now focused closely towards learning that much more about audio electronics and psycho-acoustic research. For this I have to thank and yet curse Ian. He has sparked an already burning interest into a snapping hot fire, which I’m sure, will be much to my wife’s delight. Incidentally, my wife was very impressed with the Axiom cables along with some of the newer custom speaker finishes. The Axiom cables are indeed audio jewelry, but cheaper than most cable jewels on the market, and I’m betting twice as heavy!! (The component cable could easily double as a medieval flail).
We are also now considering a change of colour for our home Axiom setup because of the factory tour!
Like I said at the beginning, if only you could see the silly grin on my face.
Our sincerest thanks for all that the fine folks at Axiom who guided us on the 2004 Factory Tour and a special thanks to Alan Lofft for coming all the way from Manhattan, even if it was mostly for business. Although this may not be an annual event for us, I have no doubt we will return for a second round sometime in the future. Perhaps I will start a rumour about a party in Dwight for the upcoming Axiom anniversary (an Axiom family reunion?)
We wish you and your company all the best and hope to continue to support some of the fantastic and exciting endeavors that Axiom has planned for the future.
