Honing your craft

As you might tell from our last few blog posts, I've been thinking about Cathode Bias as a business and where I want to go next. We (Eylin and I) decided to scale things down and head back to FL, but that will be a slow process. I'm also only taking work that I'm interested in or want to do. I'm not going to force myself into a project because I think I should do it. As a result, I expect our production to be pretty limited.

When I decided to start making speakers, I originally thought I would outsource most everything except design, final assembly, and tuning. I did not plan on building cabinets myself.

Last year I wanted to experiment with some simpler, more cost effective designs, which eventually became La Modesta, but didn't want to wait for the cabinet maker to free up, so I rolled up my sleeves and built the cabinets myself. Those first cabinets were a lot of work, but I got hooked on the process.

My background is in software development. In software, there is an objective called DRY - don't repeat yourself. What that means is similar code shouldn't be duplicated. Instead it should be written once and reused. But building physical goods is quite a bit different than software. The value is in repeating the process and improving it. The Japanese refer to this as Kaizen – the business philosophy which encourages ongoing improvement, or "change for the better." This is one of the foundations of the success of companies like Toyota.

Over time, I've become obsessed with the Kaizen of building speakers. One incremental improvement I've made, for instance, is the use of rabbet joints instead of butt joints in our outer cabinet construction. The rabbet creates a stronger joint which is easier to align. To optimize this process, I purchased a small, dedicated saw for cutting the rabbets into our cabinets.

So from a business perspective I've resigned myself, at least in the near term, to keeping Cathode Bias as a serious hobby. Realistically I'm not going to abandon audio altogether, so if Cathode Bias can pay to sustain the rest of my hobby, then I'm satisfied.

As always, thanks for your support.