Sound Corporation
March / April 2008
40 Years of X-Treme success
In the summer of 1968 Gianni Toschi was a young guitar player, passionately interested in hi-fi systems. He divided his time between working in a small sound-lab in Emilia and constant trips to swinging London.
He dreamed of playing with the rock stars he so admired in those memorable concerts held at the end of the Sixties.
Today, 40 years later, as President of manufacturing group Sound Corporation - with over 50 employees and a sales turnover of more than €11m - Gianni Toschi has the personal endorsement of those very same artists for his group’s latest brand-name: X-Treme audio.
Founded in 2001, X-Treme products are manufactured by one of Sound Corporation’s newer business units set up to deal with the production of concert, touring and portable sound systems. Their remit covers any professional audio systems suitable for concerts, live open-air events or indoor live music venues.
The Sound Corporation family includes well-established labels such as Peecker Sound (with more than thirty years experience in the fixed installation and club market) and XTE (primarily aimed at commercial sound).
Although X-Treme division is an independently registered company, undertaking its own R&D, production and quality control, in terms of personnel, technology and business strategic goals, it benefits from being able to draw upon the physical (carpentry, electronics department and electro-acoustic division) and intangible resources of its highly successful parent company.
As a result, the company has been able to build up a rich selection of audio products. In addition to traditional loudspeaker systems, X-Treme’s catalogue includes three different vertical line array ranges: the figurehead LSA (Linear Source Array); the MISITM (Middle-Sized Line Array), created to achieve similar sound pressure, but with a superior response speed; and the MLA (Mini Line Array).
In addition to these, the powered upper modules XTLSA/A-TWO, XTMISI/A-TWO and XTMLA/A-FOUR are all capable of piloting further passive units due to their powerful, fully programmable on-board DSP (Digital Signal Processor), bringing the quality of these systems in line with the latest digital electronic technologies.
However, the subsidiary sound comes from the XTI (X-Treme Installer) - a proprietary software which has been developed by Sound Corporation engineers in collaboration with the University of Parma to enable the correct installation of vertical line arrays and the other X-Treme standard loudspeaker systems.
Established in 1977, Peecker Sound has built a built a strong following in the installed and club sound sector thanks to its commited international distribution network. Apart from their legendary powerful sound reinforcement systems - installed in a host of respected dance clubs world-wide (Macumba in France, Girardilla in Cuba, Tatarstan in Russia and top music venues across Italy), Peecker Sound has patented an innovative double array system (named Double Array Series), able to concentrate sound emission into a well-defined area and thus significantly reducing noise propagation externally.
“Today this business unit faces two main challenges: firstly the maintenance of the competitive advantage achieved in the fixed installation sector and secondly the constant market share expansion, owing to audio systems produced according to the lean manufacturing principles and substantial investment in “smart” processors and controllers - especially towards emerging countries such as Russia, Korea or South America”, asserts Gianni Vandelli, Peecker Sound Sales Manager.
The final piece in the Sound Corporation puzzle, XTE, was established in 1992. Exclusive core competences, along with an extensive knowledge of the production processes, ensure the creation of electronic equipment is able to keep pace with the great technological evolution in the sector.
“Our reference market and, in particular, the sector of control electronics, are traversing a period that could be defined as both survival and transition. A survival period due to the pressure that troubles us from developing countries such as China or Taiwan and a transition period because the difficult shift to digital technology is being reached with notable efforts by all major companies in order to define shared standards”, notes Ivan Pellacini, General Manager of XTE division.
So, it seems that all the branches forming the Sound Corporation group are able to create, through their specific skills, technologically advanced sound reinforcement projects which fully satisfy the practical, aesthetical and economic needs of all types and kinds of customers.
“The business philosophy of the Sound Corporation group during the 40 years of its existence has always been the creation of audio systems with a successful trade-off between applied acoustics and audience requirements in the listening environment”, states Gianni Toschi, President of Sound Corporation. “Today the efforts of the entire organisation are directed towards a sole ambitious aim: a stable long-term growth achieved together with all the people we work with - our distributors, final customers, employees and future shareholders.” www.soundcorporation.it
