Well, I just couldn’t be more proud than this. Finally, a high end speaker driver brand from Indonesia. Call it SB Acoustics!

According to Stereophile, the Scandinavian Audio Research (ScAR) has annouced SB Acoustic. The people behind all of this are famous person in its world. Check the names below:
– Lars Goller (former directing engineer at Danish Sound Technology)
– Ulrik Schmidt (former ScanSpeak senior engineer)
– Frank Neilsen (former DST senior mechanical engineer)
– Benny Frank Pedersen (former ScanSpeak engineer)
– Alan Hydel Jensen (former ScanSpeak engineer)
– Torben Sondergaard (former ScanSpeak president)
– David A. Stephens (former vice-president of VIFA)

Maybe just former Peerless person is not on the list 😉 DST, Vifa, and ScanSpeak are there.

According to David A. Stephens:
“Lars and I are still dedicated to the system approach to hi-fi—to controlling the signal from its recovery to the time it leaves the drivers, but we felt a real void in our lives after Tymphany’s merger with DST. Deep down in our hearts, we’re old-school OEM guys and we missed that vigorous collaboration with manufacturers and the thrill of shepherding a product from conception to production. We’re problem solvers and, God help us, we actually thrive on deadlines, so we felt it was time to take all of the talent and experience we collectively have and find new challenges.

Manufacturers who can supply such challenges can reach Stephens at [email protected] or (262) 784-7852. The new drivers will be on display at CES 2008.“

A challenge from Stephens? 😉

As you may also have heard the news our there. After Tymphany took over the Peerles, Vifa, Logic, and ScanSpeak, many good drivers have been discontinued. Many good products have been phased out (like Vifa brand which changed to Peerless V-Series. But then due to some reason, Tymphany changed it back to Vifa again). This produced a lot of disappointment from customers (and also from the people who worked behind those famous brand).

So, finally the SB Acoustic was born. From the screen shot below (taken from Solen.ca), SB Acoustics is made in Indonesia.

The real manufacturer behind SB Acoustics was remain unknown for some people. Though it claimed made in Indonesia, we still haven’t received confirmation from our source. But I suspected one name, Sinar Baja Electric, a very big driver speaker manufacturer in Asia. I checked the Sinar Baja Electric website and found interesting news below:

03-08-2006
Sinar Baja announced technical partnership with SCAR (Scandinavian Audio Research)

It looked like Sinar Baja Electric has accepted David A. Stephens challenge 🙂

Some brief information about Sinar Baja Electric:
Starting in a humble way in 1980, CV. Sinar Baja Electric has now become a well-established company, focusing on the manufacturing and processing of loudspeakers, loudspeaker boxes, cone papers, T-yokes, automotive parts, plastic injection, DVD players, automotive brake ‘s pistons, and electronic parts assembly. These capabilities of producing products make the company one of the most complete loudspeaker manufacturers in South East Asia. Along with 1,900 employees, and 110,000 m² of total manufacturing facilities, we have fully integrated facilities in Indonesia and China, plus marketing offices in the U.S and Europe.
Whatever loudspeakers, loudspeaker boxes, cone papers, T yokes, automotive parts, plastic injection, DVD players, or electronic parts assembly, we always state our quality policy that everything is done for customer’s satisfaction. Customer satisfaction can only be met if we deliver good products at a good price and on time. Managed by board of executives stationed directly at the factory, we ensure that customers will get the desired feature, conforming to the standard of ISO 9002, ISO 9001, QS 9000, and TS 16949.

So finally, we can see the first line up of SB Acoustics drivers. This screen shot below was taken from Madisound.

And this one below from Solen.ca.

With the quite affordable price tag, and the background of people behind it, I surely will put these drivers on my shopping list next time (on my next speaker project) 😉