STANTON
ACQUIRES ASSETS OF CERWIN-VEGA
The Stanton Group
has announced the purchase of the assets and brand name of
Cerwin-Vega Inc.
Confirming the
company's successful bid, Stanton President and CEO Gerard Cohen
stated, "We are very excited about this opportunity to grow and
expand our business portfolio. We feel that the strength and
heritage of the Cerwin-Vega brand name will be a strong complement to
our existing businesses and create synergies in the future.
"We also
clearly recognize the value of the existing customer base and are
committed to maintaining strong business partners going forward.
Stanton will stand strong behind the Cerwin-Vega product and brand name."
Recognizing the
difficulties Cerwin-Vega had faced this past year - requiring them to
solicit protection from creditors - the Stanton Group had become
instinctively attracted to owning one of the greatest names in the
speaker industry over the last 30 years, with the obvious synergies
this would bring.
"Cerwin-Vega's
technology is perfectly complementary to the current audio lines
owned by the Group - namely Stanton, Pickering and KRK," said
Mr. Cohen. "The customer base is very much the same in the pro
audio industry, with Cerwin-Vega's primary markets being DJ's and musicians."
During the course
of this year Cerwin-Vega's management had already reduced the head
count from 250-plus to around 80, and after completion the plans are
to retain most of the existing staff. Although Gene Czerwinski, who
founded the company in 1954, is expected to retire from the business,
his support and advice will continue to be sought out and welcomed in
the Company's new development program.
Cerwin-Vega will
continue operating from its main Simi Valley facility, with Stanton
Group introducing new management, reporting directly to Mr. Cohen.
Cerwin-Vega's
blueprint will be to restore its distribution and reputation as one
of the finest audio producers in the world, to keep the name
integrity and to use all synergies between the other lines at Stanton
Group to design, produce and distribute more efficiently, which may
involve some changes in their sales network.
The Stanton
Group's immediate aim is to continue addressing Cerwin-Vega's core
markets of professional sound, hi-fi, home cinema and car hi-fi - but
it will review all business activities carefully before making any long-term
decisions.
The Company will
be examining all facets of the current operations including expanding
its existing operation and manufacturing facilities to include other
areas of the world. "The research of the right global partners
is going to be one of our priorities," stated Mr. Cohen.
The acquisition is
expected to bring a wealth of benefits to end users - including
faster delivery, better back-up, and onsite service - as well as many
new competitive products to be launched in 2002 and 2003.
Mr. Cohen states,
"The aim is simply to return Cerwin-Vega to profitability, to
build the finest loudspeakers in their core markets and regain all
market share lost over the last few years."
2002 PLASA
Product Excellence Award
The
DENON DN-D9000 twin CD player won the 2002 PLASA Product Excellence.
Award for Design Excellence in the Sound category.
Simon Curtis
(Sales & Marketing Manager) of Hayden Laboratories, DENONs UK
distributors collected the Award, at the 4-day PLASA exhibition in
Earls Court, London, on Tuesday.
Curtis comments,
Its great to win the award. The D9000 is an excellently engineered,
well designed and feature packed product, and its great to have these
elements recognised by an organisation like PLASA.
Denon is a world
leader in the manufacture of DJ equipment. With the D9000, it again
raised the stakes the twin CD marketplace, a machine designed as the
ultimate creative tool for DJs of all genres.
Just two days
before the PLASA Awards were announced, the DN-D9000 also won the DJ
Magazine Award for Twin CD Player of the Year - in a world-first
double. The DJ Magazine award a readers poll - was presented at the
DJ Magazine TSCAN (Technical) Awards held at Momos in London.
For all its
complexity and innovation, the DN-D9000 is simple, user-friendly and
logical to operate.
The D9000 utilises
high-speed PC Drive technology and internal processors, to offer many
groundbreaking digital features. Its streets ahead of the competition
and has already become recognised as the worlds most advanced twin DJ
CD players across the globe.
The DN-D9000
features several world firsts including the Alpha Track facility that
allows DJs to play two tracks off the same disk simultaneously. The
D9000s digital user-replaceable ATAPI drives will reliably playback
CDR, CD-RW and now mp3 disks, they are also the first ever User
Replacement Drives (BU-9000) for site swap-outs. Extensive
arrays of effects
include Delay, Flanger, Filter (2 types) and Transform
http://www.denon.com
DN-D9000 New Plug-in
DN-D9000 dual CD
player, Denon has now made available six new plug-ins, free of charge
to registered users. The plug-ins provide new playback and sound
enhancing functions previously unavailable in the DN-D9000.
In addition to the
extensive feature set of them DN-D9000, including several
"world's first" features for DJ's, the newly available
plug-ins can be used to create new sounds and effects not possible
with other units. Denon's revolutionary ALPHA Track mode,
allowing independent and simultaneous playback of two tracks from the
same disc, now incorporates ALPHA Scratch (Both/Forward/Reverse),
ALPHA Pitch adjustment of ±100%, and ALPHA "Play
Change" to Main with dual output swapping. Other new
plug-ins give users a Back Spin effect and a realistic Vinyl Scratch
sound for adding realism and new effects to performances. A new
2 Mode Search (Jog Search and Jog Scan) addition is also available.
To obtain the free
DN-D9000 Plug-in software and detailed installation instructions by
mail, users may fill out the online registration on Denon's website
(www.usa.denon.com). An easy-to-follow MPG video of the installation
procedure is also available online. The new plug-ins are
available immediately to all U.S. and Canadian customers.
http://www.denon.com
1,000,000+ Watts of Crown
Down Under
SYDNEY,
Australia - March 2002 -- After purchasing 28 more Crown amplifiers
earlier this year, Sydney-based Jands Production Services now owns a
grand total of 200 Macro-Tech 5002VZs collectively delivering over
one million watts of power.
Jands exclusively uses
the Crowns to drive its JBL and L-Acoustics line-array systems, and
has taken the amplifiers out on recent tours for Ricky Martin, KISS,
Bon Jovi and Australia/New Zealands huge Big Day Out festival.
Peter Ratcliffe, JPS head
of sound operations, notes, The Crown 5002VZ provides a high
output in a compact 3U package. That combined with its reliability
and industry recognition make the top-of-the-line Macro-Tech our
preferred amplifier of choice.
Crown International, a
Harman International company, manufactures amplifiers, microphones
and systems control products for professional audio markets
worldwide, with corporate headquarters located in Elkhart, Indiana, USA.
Stanton Scooped
the Pool
Stanton
Magnetics scooped the pool when one of the world's leading dance
trade journals, DJ Magazine, announced the winners of its T-Scan
Awards, in fashionable London restaurant, Momo, recently.
The
ground-breaking Final Scratch - the unqualified star of the PLASA
exhibition at London's Earls Court, with which the awards coincided -
won the top accolade in both the 'Most Innovative Product' and 'MP3
Hardware' categories, and Stanton Magnetics' Senior Product Manager,
Laurent Cohen was on hand to collect the awards.
Final Scratch is a
unique and patented technology that allows real-time manipulation and
even scratching of digital music files such as .wav and MP3 - from
conventional analog decks. Using any standard turntable and
mixer set-up, a DJ can manipulate digital sources just as he has
always done - by hand and with vinyl - while out on the road a DJ can
now carry his entire record collection to a gig in a simple travel bag.
Certainly Final
Scratch proved to be a popular winner, as DJ's continued to flock
onto the stand - which Stanton shared with their UK distributors,
Lamba - throughout the four-day PLASA Show. Among those who saw
Stanton's B-Side and John Acquaviva put Final Scratch through its
paces were Roger Sanchez, Grandmaster Flash, Cutmaster Swift and
XPress 2 - who recently enjoyed a huge UK chart hit (Lazy) with
former Talking Head David Byrne.
Commented Laurent
Cohen, "We are delighted that DJ Magazine has recognized what we
already know - that Final Scratch is setting a major global trend and
will truly revolutionize the world of DJ'ing."
15th
anniversary of Sound Dynamics
Sound
Dynamics, the specialist sound installation company based in Belper,
Derbyshire, is celebrating its 15th anniversary - thanks in part to
the UK's obsession with health and fitness.
Steve Porter and Gerry Cornell
founded the company in 1987, just as the aerobics boom was getting
underway. By carefully tailoring equipment packages to the
specific needs of gyms, exercise studios and sports centres, Sound
Dynamics rapidly gained a national reputation. The company
sells standalone systems and self-install wall-mounting kits as well
as commissioning full installations; Sound Dynamics has also ventured
into manufacturing, producing proprietary "user-friendly"
amplifers which have the minimum of fascia controls.
Today, their customer database
holds more than 10,000 names, and the list of recent projects
stretches from the Falkland Islands to the Maldives, with systems in
prisons and police training centres as well as sports and fitness
chains such as the JJB SoccerDomes and David Lloyd Centres.
"The acoustics of sports
halls are almost always awful! One of the worst things you can
do is put in multiple sources so the choice of a speaker with
all-round performance is critical," says Steve Porter, Sound
Dynamics' Technical Director. "Over the last 18 months,
our most popular loudspeakers have been the Wharfedale EVP Series,
which have a good flat response and a punchy presence which isn't
excessive in any one part of the frequency spectrum.
"As with all the products we
sell, we took the EVPs apart, and were very pleasantly surprised by
the build quality. You don't often get high quality at
reasonable prices these days, but the superior build of the EVP is
reflected in its reliability." Featuring many proprietary
Wharfedale Pro purpose-built parts and fittings, the EVP series is
made for the demanding professional user. High efficiency HF
and LF drivers give long-term high output with a minimum of power
compression, while the trapezoidal design gives low resonance and
sonic accuracy in the low frequency range.
Having built its business in a
niche market, Sound Dynamics has no immediate plans to
diversify. "This is our forte," says Steve
Porter. "We're specialists, and we've built up a good
reputation through specialisation. It has led us to a highly
streamlined and efficient business model, one which we'll be happy to
stay with for another 15 years!"
All Wharfedale products are
supplied to Sound Dynamics by Nottingham based CIE Audio.
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