11 Questions with Roland Stenz & Kerstin Mischke May June 2017 Issue!

1. What were the deciding factors that made you break away from Adam and set up your own professional company for monitor speakers?

I was one of two founders/shareholders and CEO of ADAM Audio from inception in 1999 till 2010. In this time, we established a very successful brand. After a while different opinions about products and how to bring the company into the future showed up and we decided to go separate ways. With EVE Audio, I could realize my own ideas. A complete range of studio monitors and subwoofers could be delivered already in spring 2012. Working in my own company allows me to follow my long-time experience in pro audio business since 1983.

2. Since its inception, what has been Eve’s core management and production philosophy?

There are two sides important. The main questions are what the internal and external effect of my own work should be. Generally, I don’t want to act against people. I need to be welcome in my own company. A very friendly working climate is essential for good results. Of course, the respect is offered also to our customers and partners. Related to our products I would say – a speaker is a technical product which can be defined in technical parameters like frequency response, distortion etc. But immediately when music starts to play, a speaker changes to a very emotional product. I like it very much during listening sessions to talk also about music, artists and the process of recording.

3.How much would you say you employ “state-of-the art design” in the Eve brand of products?

EVE Audio products are developed to get best possible information about your music. This is not easy to archive because every speaker is used in different rooms. It is very important to have the complete product carefully designed. To say it is a good sounding speaker because of the used tweeter etc. is not helpful. To find a very good balance between all technical parameters is most important. EVE Audio is established as a very serious player in the world. This results in a very successful growth over the years. All different types of speakers have the same balanced sound. From my opinion, it does not make an real sense to develop speakers which are designed for a special type of music only. To have very good designed speakers in combination with best customer support (social media, print media, web, education …) has built this “state-of-the-art design”. The complete package of a company must be right – from products to customer support.

4. If you have to name one single differentiated technology in Eve Audio monitor speakers that distinguishes it from other monitor speakers, what would it be?

I don’t really like this view to products. But our self-developed air motion transformers offer the next level in high frequency resolution. Unfortunately, a single part in high quality doesn’t mean so much for a final product quality. I spend a lot of time to combine all parts of a speaker in the best way. EVE Audio has all needed tools like a huge anechoic chamber and a huge echo chamber. This allows to measure all needed parameters of a studio monitor. We can measure frequency response, energy response, distortion and others. Not all manufacturers have these rooms. Beside these technical parameters, we spend a lot of time with listening music to balance the sound carefully to the best result.

5. Tell us a little about Eve’s R&D process and production facility?

I have mentioned before that EVE Audio has all tools to develop studio monitors on highest level. We control the complete chain from R&D, production and quality control.

During our R&D process all aspects of development are taken care of in-house – including 3d-construction, electronic design and driver construction for woofers and tweeters. Beside electronic measurement systems for amplifiers (frequency response, distortion, power handling, EMC etc) we also have a huge anechoic chamber and an echo chamber. In an echo chamber we can measure acoustical systems without any room effects (reflections from walls, defractions). A massive turntable allows turning also heavy speakers to get results in all needed angles. The total energy emission can be measured in our echo chamber. This information is very helpful because a speaker delivers frequency depending sound to all sides of the speaker cabinet. This has an effect also in a normal room because reflections come back as additional energy to the listening position together with the direct sound of a speaker. We built prototypes here to get best results. When the prototypes full-fill all requests then we shift our work to the suppliers. There is an ongoing quality control for all components there and in addition every speaker is finally tested and adjusted here in-house in Berlin/Germany.

6. Which was the first major studio that you supplied Eve monitors to?

Well, one of the first studios, maybe the first of all, was Pughouse Studio in Melbourne in Australia that bought a pair of SC307. They were so pleased with the sound of a brand they have not heard about before that they send us a very happy user report.

7. Which is the biggest market for Eve Audio worldwide?

At the moment our biggest markets for EVE Audio are China and Japan, but also Germany, Netherlands and Scandinavia are strong markets for EVE.

8. Which product is Eve currently pushing most aggressively in the global pro-audio market?

We consider our desktop loudspeaker SC203 to be a product that deserves more attention and that’s why we are currently pushing it. For its size it’s a very powerful desktop loudspeaker with a tiny footprint and ideal for all workspace applications with limited space. Listeners usually do not expect such little speaker to reproduce such frequency range, especially such low end.

9. And any new product launches planned for the near future?

Sure, there are always plans for future products and the R&D team never sleeps. But it’s too early to reveal any details or release dates.

10. What are your impressions about the Indian market or what are the peculiarities of the Indian market and which are some of the studios in India where Eve monitors have been installed?

The Indian market is very crowed and the local brands are naturally very strong. For us as a foreign brand, it takes some efforts to bring people´s attention to EVE. The key for that is to create an on-going visibility by being present in trade shows or doing demos. Because we feel EVE is still not as visible in India as it is in other countries we also did a road show last year and travelled together with our Indian distributor Modi Digital to Chennai to conduct EVE seminars. The purpose was to push EVE further into the Indian market and share first-hand information. Our impression is that Indian people are very open-minded, curious to learn more and attended the seminars nicely.

Some of our projects include:

Eve Audio SC205 - Rohan Puntambekar(Music Composer, Music Producer, Programmer, Sound Engineer and also the proprietor of Seven Sounds Productions); Eve Audio SC305 - (Northpole Magicworks Studio, which produces music for movies and television commercials); Eve Audio SC307 - Bodhi Sound Studio (Satish Chakraborthy); Eve Audio SC407 - Raghav Sachars Studio(Need Studio Name) (Indian singer, composer, Music Director and a Multi-Instrumentalist); Eve Audio SC305 - Shadab Rahims Home Studio (songs final mixing and mastering - Dangal, songs final mixing - Dear Zindagi); Eve Audio SC203 - Abhijit Tenny Roy (Director at Junk ‘n Genius Studios (J’nG); Eve Audio SC203 - Vishwas Nicholas (CEO/Founder/Owner at Nicholas International ProductionZz); Eve Audio SC203 - Sunny Sanour ( Indian composer, Music Producer, Sound Engineer and Playback Singer); Eve AudioSC305 - Nitish Kumar (Mixing engineer, Sound engneer for A. R. rahman); Eve Audio SC407 - Luke Ashirwad (Mix engineer); Eve Audio SC205 - Sanket Kale (Music Programmer); Eve Audio SC205 - Nishant (Music Programmer); Eve-audio SC407, SCS307, SC307, SC305, TS112, TS110 - Knack Studios; Eve-audio SC205 - YuVan (Music Director); Eve-audio SC407 - Sai Thaman (Music Director)

11. What are your short and long-term goals for the India market?

The short-term goal is to increase brand awareness and brand visibility, to bring more EVE´s into the eyes of potential customers and let people constantly know about EVE Audio. The long-term goal in India and worldwide generally is to be recognized as one of the major brands in the monitor market.