Audio Products International Corp.

How many Canadian companies can you think of when it comes to audio visual products? Probably not many, unless you work in the field or one that's closely related. Most people tend to think that giant electronics companies are based in other parts of the world, like Asia, and their products are manufactured yet elsewhere overseas. This is true in fact, for the most part: a lot of well known electronics companies' head offices do reside in Asia. Their products are manufactured all over the world, wherever it is least expensive to do so. However when it comes to high-end audio and video products, many of them are designed and manufactured in North America. In fact, a notable Canadian company - Audio Products International Corp. (API) - resides right here in Toronto. Located in the east end of the city, API is North America's third largest speaker manufacturer. Though you may not be familiar with the name API, you've probably heard of the Athena, Mirage and Energy speaker brands. All three brands are designed and manufactured by API.

API came to life in the 1980s and was formed by acquiring multiple small speaker companies. Like many other Canadian-based speaker companies, most of API's research began at the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). Today API houses over 300 employees in two modern buildings and all research is done on the site. Although high-end manufacturers of audio visual products are usually small, API is hardly that. Covering an area of 165,000 square feet API pumps out close to four thousand speakers every day, and distributes their products to 52 different countries.

Mirage speakers are designed to maximize the dispersion of the sound in a room, while minimizing interaction with the room. This is accomplished by having drivers firing not only forward but to the back as well. The result is a much greater sense of realism and the creation of a virtual soundstage. The unique styling and performance of these speakers earns them much respect among audio enthusiasts.

While Energy speakers don't employ the same dispersion characteristics of the Mirage brand, other features and a slightly different philosophy makes them a high profile brand as well. These front firing speakers focus on three parameters of loudspeaker performance: the ability of a speaker to reproduce the entire audio range in a uniform manner, wide and constant dispersion, as well as low distortion and resonance. Energy speakers feature some very aesthetically pleasing designs and the latest technical innovations.

Athena Technologies is a very trendy and popular brand and is aimed towards a more main-stream market. The line-up's robustness allows the speakers to be played at high volumes without getting damaged, so if your kids blast the volume when you're not at home you won't have to worry about it. The materials out of which the drivers are made, are also strong and cannot be easily damaged. While innovative and contemporary, these speakers are very modestly priced making them accessible to everyone with a taste for quality sound, not just audiophiles. Very often Athena speakers are compared to much higher priced speakers made by other companies. But, perhaps the greatest thing about Athena speakers is that the same quality materials and construction techniques are used in this brand as in APIs' two other brands. The speakers go through the same quality assurance as the company's high-end models and the same design principles are applied when developing new products in this line. Athena products exhibit efficiency, power handling, and bass response generally found in much higher priced products.

Speaking with Senior Designer Gord Van Kessel, we got an insight into API's state-of-the-art design and manufacturing capabilities. API has a dedicated research and development team that does nothing but design, develop and experiment with new driver designs, materials, and assemblies to continually improve speaker performance. With the evolution of powered speakers and powered subwoofers, electronics have also become an important part of speaker design. The anechoic chamber permits all the research and testing to be done at the API site, without having to take new products for testing to the NRC. The R&D team is constantly hard at work improving amplifier platforms to produce the best possible performance while keeping the cost low to the consumer. The important thing to remember is that all three brands benefit from the research done at API, so all new improvements will eventually be applied to all the brands. Of course a lot of research and design is done based on the demands of a new product's unique requirements. A good example is the patent pending SCT (System Creation Technology) that was designed specifically for the Athena brand.

In addition to its' own R&D, API collaborates with other speaker component manufacturers to develop and manufacture new proprietary designs. Kevin Gabriel, the Director of Marketing at API says that three main factors influence new product development: market trends, unique customer requirements and new and exciting research and development innovations.

API's manufacturing plant is a very clean, modern area with many state-of-the-art machines that allow precision and mass production. Close to four thousand speakers can be manufactured daily on four production lines. As Van Kessel noted, the day we visited API was a "Mirage Day". All production lines that day worked on Mirage speakers only - this is just one of many inventive ways that helps API keep the production costs down. Based on demands each day could be a different brand day, but many days are also "mixed" days with multiple brands manufactured at once. Almost all cabinets across the three brands are made out of dense particle board and MDF (medium density fibreboard) with various black and wood-like finishes. High-tech machinery allows very precise cuts, trims and grooves to be made in these boards to produce four-sided cabinets that literally fold into speaker cabins. With strict quality assurance all along the production line, API employees ensure that all speakers leaving the plant are in an immaculate shape and perfect working condition. After each speaker is visually inspected, it's then placed inside a special acoustic chamber and tested for phase, frequency response, impedance and rattle against a reference speaker that is permanently inside the chamber.

The final moments of our tour of API were appropriately spent in their home theatre room. Here we had a chance to sit down in a comfy couch and preview an exciting new Athena product. With today's Plasma and LCD technology, televisions have become very thin and the need for a suitable speaker system has been on the rise. In-wall and in-ceiling speakers may seem like a good solution, but can be costly and difficult to install. Large speakers that sound good tend to be visually overwhelming when coupled together with flat-screen televisions. Smaller, cube speaker or home-theatre-in-a-box packages on the other hand, fall short when it comes to performance. So, unless you go for the in-wall solution, you'll be sacrificing either ergonomics or performance.

API plans to address these new market trends this fall by introducing a new lifestyle speaker system, the Athena Micra 6. The system combines 4 M-S satellite speakers, with a centre channel M-C and the M-225 subwoofer. The speakers are very small and can be mounted on the wall or on optional matching speaker stands sold separately. The attractive grey-coloured cabinets are made out of thick-wall injection molded ABS - a very rigid material that allows the design of lifestyle shapes. The system is designed in such a way that it performs to its' best ability right out-of-the-box, no tweaking required. This is very important for those who are not experts or audiophiles, since configuring the subwoofer to perform at its' best with satellites can be quite challenging and is often done improperly. On the performance side, we first listened to a stereo music CD. Without much bass on the tracks we listened to, the sound coming out of the speakers was very clean and crisp. The female voice was reproduced with incredible clarity. This wasn't much of a surprise, as most satellite/subwoofer packages can reproduce higher frequencies pretty accurately. The surprise came when we watched a few scenes from the Lord of the Rings DVD. The Micra 6 delivered an incredibly powerful sound experience for its' size. The satellites brought forward all the character's voices very clearly, while the 75 watt powered subwoofer produced powerful bass. In fact, the subwoofer played very loud and reproduced low sounds impressively. The sound from the satellites and the woofer blended seamlessly, unlike many other speaker systems we've listened to in the past - this was a feature of the system the designers were very proud of. Overall, the Micra 6 sounds and looks very promising. Check out upcoming issues of Toronto HiFi for an in-depth review.

For more information on the products detailed above, please visit the Athena, Mirage and Energy websites.www.athenaspeakers.com, www.miragespeakers.com and www.energy-speakers.com