Rockford Fosgate said it is the first company to be certified in a new standard for manufacturing and quality control in speakers.
The company’s products going forward will bear the “Klippel Verified” label, which should assure consumers of the speakers’ quality in design and production.
“Unlike an amplifier, no one really supplies a tool for testing speakers. Speakers are heavily subject to how they are assembled. If they are put together a little off, the speaker can be affected. So we want to keep a tight hold on manufacturing,” said Jake Braaten, Rockford’s Director of Product Development.
Klippel, based in Germany, helps a supplier to produce speakers with a consistent level of quality. It supplies analyzers that can uniquely measure the behavior of transducers. And Klippel equipment can help the manufacturer verify sound pressure level, T/S parameters, coil position, and suspension non-linearity for every speaker and batch produced.
Rockford said it has been using Kippel equipment for a while, but its future products will now be officially certified as “Kippel Verified.”
Source: Rockford Corp.
So is this for each driver produced, or just for the “master” unit the rest are built from?
A lot of companies use Kippel, is this just a logo branding thing being offered/sold by Kippel now?
To clarify some vague points in the article:
This is a verification program from Klippel , not just a matter of using Klippel equipment.
To get the permission (certification) from Klippel suppliers must:
1. Develop their speakers with the KLIPPEL R&D SYSTEM
2. The speaker development engineer must participate in one of the following educational programs:
2 or 3 day University Lecture on “Sound Quality of Audio Systems” by Wolfgang Klippel
Open seminar, company seminar or user training on loudspeaker measurement presented by KLIPPEL engineers
Successfully solve 2 or more hand-on trainings at KLIPPEL’s website
3. The KLIPPEL QC SYSTEM must be used in the loudspeaker manufacturing
That’s a great process, but they are not the first. Hertz has been using Kippel equipment for years.
KLIPPEL was around before Hertz. KLIPPEL was founded in 1997 before Hertz became an established brand in 1998.