Not An Audiophile – The Podcast featuring YG Acoustics with Aurele Docquin and David Corazza. Aerospace technology combined with an astrophysicist engineer creating sonic excellence. Not your average loudspeaker brand.
Podcast transcripts below – Episode 041
TRANSCRIPT
Aurele Docquin: So
Aurele Docquin: So we have an 8kg billet core value of aluminium, that goes into one of our CNC machine and is getting milled all the way to 30 grams.
Andrew Hutchison: Welcome back to No An Audiophile. This is episode 41 season two. today we have another interview from the 2025 Stereonet HiFi and AV held in Melbourne each year run by the people@stereonet.com find your tribe. great forum over there. lots of interesting discussions about all sorts of things, hi fi and home cinema related and for that matter a lot of other subjects I’ve noticed. now we were very busy at that show and had to call in some assistance from our intermittent co hosts Brad Sirhan and David Corazza And this interview actually David did with Aurele from YG Acoustics. If you if you had an unlimited amount of money to build a loudspeaker that could sell for almost an unlimited amount of money, maybe YG Acoustics is how you would go about it. certainly, the definition of state of the art is probably to be found in their Colorado plant for the discerning audio enthusiast Performance and precision matter. That’s why March Audio employs purify technology to engineer award winning loudspeakers and amplifiers. They deliver sound that truly transcends expectations. All available at an entirely modest cost. Go now to marchaudio.com and check out more of Alan March’s engineering feats including a sale price on the 501amplifier. March audio for the discerning audio enthusiast.
David Corazza: Well, welcome to another podcast. We’re here in Melbourne at the stereonet show having a great old time and looks like Melbourne has turned on the weather. It’s okay, it’s actually not raining and I’m here with Aurele from YG and we’re going to talk about YG speakers and their incredible USB that they have in the market. Over to you Aurel.
Aurele Docquin: Good morning David. I’m really happy to see you again. I think we met last year.
David Corazza: Yes.
Aurele Docquin: Yeah, it’s just been a year but I feel like we’ve been a couple of times and yeah, I’m just happy to be back in Melbourne for the show. YG was founded in 2002, 23 years ago. it was founded in Colorado, it’s still in Colorado now. We haven’t changed the factory, we just expanded it as we grew. we’re M. Aluminium machinist specialists and that was I think interesting path where most of the speakers are Made of, wooden cabinets and different types of materials. I think aluminum was a challenge at the time. but we always had the vision to use the best of the technology available to produce speakers in kind of a different way. in 2017, there has been a change between the founder and our current, operations. We have a new, chief designers, we have a new, CEO. It’s completely new company. so we kind of look like a startup, if you want to say it. Because, our CEO, Dr. Matthew Webster, who has an. I love his background. I find it really exciting. He has a PhD from Cambridge University in astrophysics. And I found that super cool. and I think in a way, it goes exactly with the vision that we have now, which is doing everything we can to push the limits of technology. Would it be in CNC machining, aluminum, or in types of components that we use and trying to find. Always try to look for the best possible components or design internal, external to give the best sound performance ever, I would say.
David Corazza: Yeah.
Aurele Docquin: And, as you know, there is only the reference line, which is composed of aluminum speakers. Now it’s from the Carmel all the way to the XV Signature limited edition with four towers, which has been a success, interestingly, despite, the fact that you have to have four towers. So I don’t know if you’re familiar.
David Corazza: With, if you can speak to that, because I’m sure some of the audience would be fascinated about that product.
Aurele Docquin: All right, so up until 2022, we only had aluminum machined speakers. We still have them, and that’s still the core business of YG Acoustics. so we’ve been machining speakers, in Denver, Colorado, and since 2017, as I said, we invested a lot of money. There has been more than $8 million invested into R and D, which is something I also find really cool. It’s a lot of money, but that was because we had the capabilities and we thought we could, do it with the engineering. So the lab is in Cambridge, United Kingdom, where our CEO and chief designer.
David Corazza: There’s something really weird about Cambridge. We’ve been doing podcasts with other manufacturers, and half the time the conversation returns back to Cambridge and the brains trust.
Aurele Docquin: That is it.
David Corazza: It’s an extraordinary part of the world.
Aurele Docquin: Yes. And I don’t think it’s only for
00:05:00
Aurele Docquin: the, audio world. It also applies to Formula One, you know.
David Corazza: Exactly.
Aurele Docquin: World’s best engineers. You find them in Cambridge. So I guess maybe there’s a relation to that. so, yeah, all the engineering is now done in Cambridge and the manufacturing is in Denver, Colorado. but as I said, we invested $8 million. So we’re, I think one of the only audio company that has eight c CNC machines in the factory. We have. It’s going to be a bit technical, but please.
David Corazza: No, no, this is great. So for those of the audience who don’t know what a CNC machine, can you give a like a potted explanation what a CNC machine is?
Aurele Docquin: Okay. Basically it’s to make it simple. It’s a huge, it depends on the size. it’s a huge machine that has different types of tools. M We have different types of one that cuts different panels of aluminum in a multi axis. And the ones that we have, we have four DMG Moris the best of the one that you can achieve. Each machine has 50 dedicated tools to cut parts of our speakers. Internal, external, you name every part of the speaker has a dedicated tool. We also have custom made tools for YG that we designed. so on the CNC machine also. So when we put the panels inside the CNC machine, we also designed and machined the bolts and all the parts that secure the panels of aluminum before actually cutting them. So we do this. We have a water jet machine which as it says is cutting thick panels of aluminum with water high pressure with some I forgot the word in English. I’m really sorry. But it’s some sanding and some other chemical elements.
David Corazza: Sure.
Aurele Docquin: It cuts really thick panels of aluminum at an impressingly fast rate. so this is the water jet cuts m the vast majority of all our speaker panels. Then they go to the Moris where we can do the finishing. the front milling, the back milling of the panels, the edges, everything goes into the CNC Mori. Then we have a Gildermeister. We have another machine that cuts all the joints that you see inside the speakers. and then we have one really cool machine. Nobody knows about it. I like it. I like this cool machine.
David Corazza: Tell us all about it.
Aurele Docquin: So it’s a CNC machine that only two companies in the world have. One. I’ll start with us. One is YG. And the second who has the 99% of the CNC machines called Portatec is Airbus. And I found this super exciting when you think about our CEO who has a PhD in astrophysics. We’re using actually aerospace grade, types of aluminium with a machine that also is being used by Airbus. And I found this super cool.
David Corazza: That’s a great story, isn’t it?
Aurele Docquin: Yeah. And you see I’m smiling. It’s just exciting because nobody would expect this. You know, we’re an audio company. We have all this machines running 24 7, by the way, which is lots. but yeah, so this is the way we’re doing. We are very technology focused. Not in a bad way. People should not say that. You know, some people say we’re an audio company, but you’re using the technology.
David Corazza: To gain a better result.
Aurele Docquin: So what we sometimes say now, because Matthew’s vision, as I said, he’s trying to always push the boundaries of what’s available in terms of technology to achieve the best sound performing speakers. Now somehow we say, yg, we are a technology company that happens to do audio because, that’s what we do. Matthew is working on perhaps 20, 30 projects at the same time.
David Corazza: Wow. Are these audio projects or outside of the audio world?
Aurele Docquin: It’s in the audio world. Just trying to see which speaker, how we can do this, which technology, which components, any types of, you know, just trying to see what we can achieve with what we have and push it further.
David Corazza: So you do this amazing in house CNC machining of aluminum billets for the enclosures. But now we were speaking before about the drivers. Can you tell listeners about the drivers? Because this blows my mind.
Andrew Hutchison: Are you familiar with Edgar Kramer? Well, you should be. He’s Australia’s most renowned hi fi reviewer. and his website, soundstageaustralia.com is, well, quite amazing. Incredibly detailed, well written reviews on all sorts of interesting hi fi compositions, components, interviews with industry luminaries, factory tours and of course, news. Don’t forget, Soundstage Australia is part of Soundstage Global network. So when you’re finished with this podcast, go to soundstage Australia.com and check it out.
Aurele Docquin: It’s really. I’ll show a bit. I’ll show. I don’t have the billet core of aluminum with me, but later I’ll show you the hybrid lattice. Tweeter So you can wait a bit. I usually don’t do it, but I brought it for the show to a certain. To certain people because you have to be careful.
David Corazza: Am I certain people?
Aurele Docquin: Yes. No, I never. When I say certain people, don’t take advice. Just like to make sure if you make it move around, you have the risk of breaking.
David Corazza: Oh,
00:10:00
David Corazza: God, yes, absolutely.
Aurele Docquin: So, I’m just showing it from time to time and it gives the wow effect you’re looking for. So when we cut the panels of aluminium, we always cut the hole. You know for where you’re going to place the drivers. So we reuse actually that billet core, which is 8kg, let’s say it’s a lot of aluminium. That’s. Well, the panels are huge. And, well, you see the, the Sonja 3.2 that we have here is a 145 kilograms per channel. It’s heavy. so we have an, 8 kilogram billet core value of aluminium that goes into one of our CNC machine and is getting milled all the way to 30 grams.
David Corazza: Can you say that again?
Aurele Docquin: Yes. So we start with an 8kg billet core of aluminum and it goes. It’s getting milled all to 30 grams. So from eight kilos to 30, my.
David Corazza: Jaw’s just dislocated, that’s all. Wow. That’s. That’s, that’s dedication.
Aurele Docquin: Yeah. And if there’s a difficult part, technological part, which is maybe insane, but it’s going to be excellent. We’re going to go that way because why not? You know, we can do it.
David Corazza: Right.
Aurele Docquin: We try. so that goes for the, the drivers. We also do this with the tweeters. So the hybrid lattice tweeter that we have is also machined in house. same process, it’s a different type of aluminium alloy, but that’s 80 grams more or less of billet core. That again is machined to reach a final weight of 0.03 grams.
David Corazza: gentle listener, just in case you missed that, I’m going to ask Aurele to repeat that magnificent, reduction in mass. Yes.
Aurele Docquin: So for both or just for the.
David Corazza: No, just, just for the tweet. Because the tweet is very impressive.
Aurele Docquin: So we cut, you know, we cut the hole for the panels.
David Corazza: Yeah.
Aurele Docquin: Take the billet core of aluminum. Well, it’s not billet core. We take the aluminum, part from 80, grams. We mill it all the way. Well, it’s not just milling, you know, there’s cutting and.
David Corazza: Oh, yeah, for sure.
Aurele Docquin: All of the process that the machine is doing and it cuts it to a 0, uh,.03 gram tweeter.
David Corazza: That’s astonishing.
Aurele Docquin: Yes.
David Corazza: Yeah. So I would imagine the tolerances with the curvature on the surface and everything are just like, spot on.
Aurele Docquin: Yes. I think it’s surgical.
David Corazza: Yeah.
Aurele Docquin: I don’t know. Nanosurgical. I don’t know. That’s really precise. The tools that we use are extremely precise. And, No, it’s just. I hope you can have a chance to visit our factory, because it’s not. I mean, people would think it’s Humongous. It’s not that huge. It’s big. But then the magic is when you get in and you see all these machines working 24 7, changing tools, cutting parts, it’s really, really exciting. And then on the other side we have all the assembly. So you can see a full range of Sonias or Haleys or XXS speakers being built. So you can actually see from the start of the process when the panel sits on the water jet all the way to getting assembled in the other side of the room.
David Corazza: So is the assembly primarily human done or robotically done?
Aurele Docquin: It’s all humanly done. Good. So we use the CNC to cut the panels.
David Corazza: Yep.
Aurele Docquin: If one day we have superhumans that can cut panels the way the CNC do, maybe we will. I’m not sure. But yes. No. And so that’s the cool technology part back to the speaker line. So right now we have the reference, which starts now from the Carmel Then we have the Vantage Hailey Sonja 3.2. 3.2 because you have two modules, top module and base module. We have the Sonja A 3.3 which you just add another bass module to it. Which is cool because if you buy, let’s say you want to buy a Sonja A 3.2 and then you decide to add more bass or you want different type of speaker, you can just buy the upgrade to put.
David Corazza: So it’s a truly modular speaker.
Aurele Docquin: Yes, it is. Yeah.
David Corazza: That’s fantastic. That’s a great value for the end user. If they start off humbly with here’s a system that I can afford accommodate in this room, but if they move house or they, you know.
Aurele Docquin: Exactly.
David Corazza: Come into some money and think, you know, hey, I can enhance this.
Aurele Docquin: Yes. So you can do this. Then it goes to. We have the XX now, which we launched two years ago, which is my favorite speaker. It’s fantastic.
David Corazza: Tell me about it.
Aurele Docquin: So I’ll tell you about the next speaker and then I go back to the xx. Okay, let’s go. So we had the XV which is the top of the line. And this has four towers. So you have one main tower on left channel, one base tower on left channel, and the same on the right channel. It’s huge. It’s fantastic. The sound is amazing. But it’s four towers. So for some people it’s really difficult to accommodate. Of course not. You know, I can’t accommodate an XV at home for now, but I love it. It’s just fantastic. We have the limited edition which was, which is eight pairs. We’ve sold maybe pretty much six of them.
David Corazza: And may
00:15:00
David Corazza: I ask what’s the retail on that? Say in US dollars or euro, for the signature?
Aurele Docquin: Yeah, it’s just under half a million dollar us and you’ve sold how many now? Six. Because it’s. And they have a completely different type of design. I’ll go back to it. Yeah, yeah. So The XV is Four Towers. I think it was launched on the 15th and the, you know those numbers and xx for the 20th anniversary. And the vision behind this was. I think so you have at the time the best sounding performance in Four Towers. The pinnacle of what YG could offer in terms of sound performance, technology, etc. But we tried to make it so to fit in two speakers. Okay. Because people maybe want them but can’t put them in their dedicated room.
David Corazza: It’s simply a matter of space, isn’t it? It may not even be a matter of money for some people. It’s just like we don’t have the room.
Aurele Docquin: Exactly. I want this. But it doesn’t fit.
David Corazza: Correct.
Aurele Docquin: So Matthew went into designing the xx which to make it easy he will be. I don’t think he’ll be angry if I said it. But it’s basically trying to achieve the same performance in four towers but in two.
David Corazza: Yeah. And has that been achieved do you think?
Aurele Docquin: Yes. I used to love the Sonja. The XV is fantastic. But the XX is just pure pleasure for me. my favorite speaker at YG Acoustics. So it looks like it’s as big as the Sonja that we have in the room.
David Corazza: Yeah.
Aurele Docquin: there’s a different design, of course. The crossovers are completely different. Drivers are the same and any dual.
David Corazza: cross overs is in house, of course.
Aurele Docquin: Yes. But the XX has two added sub, drivers on the side panels and that was to achieve almost what you can do with four, but in two. And it’s a very versatile. The reason why I love it, it’s very versatile. You have a large room. We need, you know, energy, power. So you can put the speaker with the drivers facing outside. But it’s designed to fit smaller rooms. So for example, I was at the show in Taiwan and a customer came to me said, hey, I have a 24 square meter room.
David Corazza: It’s pretty small.
Aurele Docquin: do you think it would fit? And I said, okay, how high is your ceiling? So it’s above 3 meters. And I said it’s fine, it will work very well. We did some installs actually. And what you do is actually instead of Having the drivers facing outwards. You just swap the speakers and facing inward, and then it can work in a smaller environment.
David Corazza: Did the customer actually go ahead and purchase a pair?
Aurele Docquin: I think he did because he was. He was trading a pair. He was on the edge of trading a pair of speaker, and his only concern was, will it work in my room?
David Corazza: Yeah.
Aurele Docquin: And I had, and I did an installation at a customer in Singapore, similarly similar type of room xx, and it worked really well. Wow, that’s fantastic. For me. Hugh made the sale. I mean, he purchased the speakers. I just need to wait to hear from the distributor. But I think the guy was really excited. We heard them at the show and then just decided to, make the trade in. But anyway, this is an exciting speaker. We have it in passive and active.
David Corazza: Okay.
Aurele Docquin: We call it active.
David Corazza: Tell me about the active version.
Aurele Docquin: I’m going all the ways. I’m sorry, there’s no structure in how I’m talking.
David Corazza: No, no, this is great. Listen, we never have structure in our podcast, but that’s fine.
Aurele Docquin: Go ahead.
David Corazza: You’re perfectly at home.
Aurele Docquin: Okay, thank you very much. So that’s the passive line. I’m going really. I’m really going everywhere. Let me finish on the XV story, please, please. And then we’ll go to whatever additions of, speakers that we added since Matthew joined. So the XV is a standard model at YG Acoustics, and the Signature series is limited edition. And when I said that at yg, we really try to see what’s technically achievable. Matthews started working on pushing the limits on the crossovers for the xv. And then what started as a pure R and D, project that was never supposed to be released. Matthew loved the sound so much, we had the listening with the whole team in Cambridge. And then in the us it sounded so good that Matthew said, no, we have to release this in the market. And the crossovers are designed differently in a way that every driver has its own filter and all the crossovers. So when we test and measure the speakers, there are four iterations of testing, measuring, listening per drivers. We do this long process that’s iterated four times to make sure we can achieve the sound that Matthew said it should achieve on the existing Signature.
David Corazza: So this sounds like incredibly time intensive.
Aurele Docquin: R D. And that’s why. Yes, it is. And that’s why we only make eight pairs. Because the time you spend into crafting such a, delicate speaker, you cannot really focus on. I mean, you have less manpower to focus on the rest of the speaker.
David Corazza: Yeah, for sure.
Aurele Docquin: So. But it sounds amazing. It does. So that’s.
00:20:00
Aurele Docquin: And there’s a nameplate at the back of the, of the speaker hand signed by Matthew. The crossovers are hand side. Inside you have a 24 karat gold trapezoid in the front, with the YG logo. It’s amazing.
David Corazza: Okay.
Aurele Docquin: All right. That’s for the reference. Three years ago, we launched the, Peak series, which is the, wooden cabinet series. Their vision behind this was to try to have more people who joined the YG family in a more affordable line.
Andrew Hutchison: Of course. Yeah.
Aurele Docquin: People say we’re still expensive. but that’s a relative thing these days. Yeah, but.
David Corazza: So, I mean, I, I certainly know of speakers that are more expensive.
Aurele Docquin: Oh, okay.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Aurele Docquin: Well, I think for the value, it’s an amazing speaker.
David Corazza: Yeah, I agree. I’ve heard a lot of your speakers.
Andrew Hutchison: And I love them.
Aurele Docquin: So these are wooden cabinets. We don’t manufacture wood cabinets, but work with a really reliable partner. The front panels are aluminum and machined by us. And what’s really good with the peaks is, is they share the exact same drivers than a reference.
David Corazza: Okay.
Aurele Docquin: That makes a huge difference. Twitters are different, crossovers are different, but just having the same drivers. Yeah, it’s really good. That’s why they sound so good as well. and we have two bookshelves, three floor standing, a subwoofer just to appeal to different types of customer. We purposely tune them into. Some speakers will be neutral, some speakers. Speakers will be a bit more warm. So if you have a bookshelf, you can compare both and say, oh, I’d like a more warm speaker. And I go for this one. I’d like it a bit more neutral. I’d go for this one. We try to be open to as many.
David Corazza: Very interesting.
Aurele Docquin: That’s what we do on the reference line too. You have differences in being neutral and a bit more warm. then we launched the Live series, which basically is, active speaker. And you don’t see it on the podcast when I’m doing the inverted commas.
David Corazza: Yeah.
Aurele Docquin: Because it’s not wireless. We have a controller. So we work with Bel Canto for the electronics. It’s designed with Matthew. So you can’t find this, controller, anywhere. Even at Bel Canto, we have two optical cables that are connected between the controller and the speakers. And we decided to do this because when the signal leaves the controller, it’s not locked, it’s fast, there’s no loss, and it goes into the speaker the exact way it got out of the controller. So it’s really good. And we have only three speakers for now, which is the Vantage, the Sonja live version of what we have and the xx.
Andrew Hutchison: Wow.
Aurele Docquin: And what I love about the xx live is it has dedicated 700 watts of amplification per driver.
David Corazza: So we tried talking, tri-amped or bi-amped It would be tri-amped wouldn’t it?
Aurele Docquin: for the active. Yeah. Well, you have the controller. It’s all there’s 700 watts per drive. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
David Corazza: Okay. Right.
Aurele Docquin: Yeah. For channel. It’s insane. I love this one. It’s just amazing what you can achieve with this. It’s a speaker that you can buy passive and later upgrade as active if you same. If you want to change your lifestyle and etc. Peaks are also upgradable. Reference is upgradable because what we also want is to keep people happy with yg. You know, you have a power, speaker, you’ve been using it for a long time. You don’t want. Some people don’t want to change their speakers, they just love it. But you brought the new drivers, new crossovers, new Tweeter There’s a path to upgrade. So all our speakers right now at Reference, customers that have reference two and who want to upgrade to reference three, they can, they can say, I’d like the new drivers so you can get the new drivers. I like the new faceplates. So there’s a path for the newest faceplate which everything improved the sound, performance. I like the new Tweeter We recommend doing the Tweeter and crossover update at the same time because it’s going to be weird to have a new crossover with not the latest technology on top, but every split speakers upgradable.
David Corazza: All right, well that’s fascinating. I’m just wondering, with the upgrades, are they done, in field or do they have to be sent back to the factory?
Aurele Docquin: It depends. The easiest are done at the dealership or at the distributor level. Of course we provide full training. Sometimes I even come from the factory and actually not the factory. I’m based in Tokyo right now.
David Corazza: That’s right.
Aurele Docquin: I come and support the distributor and dealers do upgrades sometimes at the customer as well, you know, but for the most difficult one, if it’s a full upgrade, we usually ask for the speaker to be shipped back.
David Corazza: That makes sense.
Aurele Docquin: Yeah, it’s cleaned, upgraded, tested, measured, and when we’re satisfied, it’s shipped back to the customer.
David Corazza: That’s service plus, isn’t it?
Andrew Hutchison: Hey now. Hi Fi wowed music lovers at the recent stereonet hi Fi and AV show, the Fischer and Fischer loudspeakers, the Dohmann turntable, the beautiful sound sounding airtight tube amplifiers from Japan. Now all of this gear, along with Geoff’s other rooms that he had fantastic equipment in, is all back at the store ready for you to listen in store or talk to Geoff about an in home
00:25:00
Andrew Hutchison: demo. Geoff hey now. Hi Fi. Ring him today or email, sms, maybe smoke signals, pigeons.
David Corazza: So this is all very fascinating. You done a great job kind of weaving visual representation of the speakers and how they’re upgraded, the CNC machines. I can see these robotic arms whirling around madly carving out billets and everything.
Aurele Docquin: I’ll send you some videos. Yeah, that would be great.
David Corazza: I’d really appreciate that. it’s a pity we can’t show the videos on the podcast, but we might be able to put them up on YouTube. We’ll see what we can do. just getting back to more kind of macro level stuff with your markets and where you’ve had the greatest success. Can you tell us about how sales have changed over time and where your best markets are?
Aurele Docquin: Yes, sure. as we grew, well, we had the team growing as YG Acoustics and so the factory grew in Denver. markets have grown, especially in the past two years. I mean, the Peaks launch was fantastic.
David Corazza: Yeah.
Aurele Docquin: Because we, you know, it’s something which is out of our comfort zone, I would say. Yeah. Because we’re, aluminium machinist specialists. But when we launch something, we know it’s going to work and sound amazing.
David Corazza: So was there a bit of trepidation when you launched the Peak series?
Aurele Docquin: Were you unsure? Do you think we launched an entire line of speakers at once? Okay, so that’s a big challenge already. You know, usually you just start with one and then you go to etc. So we just went with a full range of speakers and what we did not expect is a huge demand for them. Really sounded so good at Munich and then there’s a lot of people asking for it. So we did not expect that. so that was a bit of a challenge at the beginning, but now it’s okay.
David Corazza: Yeah.
Aurele Docquin: Because you know, well, it’s not being arrogant. I think there’s a lot of demand for it. But.
David Corazza: Sorry to interrupt. The thing is, when you’re in manufacturing and suddenly you have a marketing success, like at a show and everyone’s putting their hand up saying, oh, I want a pair or I want 100 pairs or whatever, then you’ve got to satisfy that demand.
Aurele Docquin: Exactly. But that’s challenging. That’s great. And we did it. But we said, yeah, when we launch a new speaker or new line in the future, if we do, we’re not going to do a full range again.
David Corazza: You’ve learned your lesson.
Aurele Docquin: Exactly. So, yeah, the peaks was fantastic. We grew with it opened the door to customers who said, yeah, I like speakers, but, I’d rather wooden cabinets rather than an aluminum cabinet.
David Corazza: That’s interesting. So a lot of it was just, it was an aesthetic thing as much as was a cost thing.
Aurele Docquin: I think it’s a mix of both. We wanted to cater to different people. Of course, as I said, more affordable to have more people coming in. And I think it’s. Yeah, it just has like the live series. We’re catering to different types of customers.
Andrew Hutchison: Sure.
Aurele Docquin: so we just tried to broaden and as I said, the technology company that happened to do audio is to, you know, we expand our horizon, try to get new people in the YG family. This was a success. Then market, grew again because we’ve been on the field a lot. well, we’ve only met in Melbourne, but we’ve been doing a lot of shows. And I could see that grow within two years where Munich was getting bigger and bigger and all the shows started to pick up in Europe, in US in Asia, to the point that two years ago in Munich we had or last even last year There was only two rooms using YG acoustics, which, SolNotes electronics from Japan and US to this year we had five rooms with.
David Corazza: YG and maybe hopefully more in Vienna next year.
Aurele Docquin: I’m hoping there will be more. But what was fun is we’ve been doing a lot of social media marketing which we are not capable of before because we needed to be more on the field. And that’s, you know, we’ve been tackling this.
David Corazza: It’s.
Aurele Docquin: People are saying, oh, I saw pictures in Hong Kong. That’s amazing. I saw pictures in Tokyo, I saw pictures in Paris show. Now in Melbourne in the us to the point that last year to the Capital Audio Fest, there were eight rooms with YG acoustic speakers.
David Corazza: Wow, that’s impressive.
Aurele Docquin: That’s impressive. And it’s funny. It’s a lot. It’s difficult to man eight rooms.
David Corazza: See, people forget about this. They think it’s all beer and Skittles when you do shows. but it’s a lot of bloody hard work.
Aurele Docquin: Yes, it is. So you just. Well, luckily it’s not just yg. You, have all the people from different manufacturers that are here. But we have to juggle with all the rooms and just, you know, send a playlist, play, do a presentation. It’s fun. it’s good for your body and your health, by the way. Keep running around. And, at some point, I was. You just eavesdropped, listen to people talk and say, wow, it’s the YG show. Because we have eight rooms and everywhere going, there’s a yg. it’s cool. And then we decided to learn some colors. There was a beautiful green Hailey in Capital Audio Fest. It was in Munich as well. That was used by, Luxman for the 100th anniversary, which I think was an
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Aurele Docquin: honor for us to be the form unique for their hundredth anniversary.
David Corazza: That’s quite the accolade, isn’t it? I mean, a company with such a pedigree as Luxman chose your speakers.
Aurele Docquin: Yes. And we’re all excited and say, yes, of course we’re going to do it to support you with anything you need because, well, that’s. We’re good people. You try to. Yeah, I don’t know. It’s a. It’s an industry where sometimes, you know, people are a bit too serious.
David Corazza: Yeah, I agree.
Aurele Docquin: Not in an. I don’t want to be negative or pedalous. It’s just sometimes very serious. And people forget to have fun. And we have to.
David Corazza: Do you think this industry is about music or something? You’re gravely mistaken.
Aurele Docquin: You know, we have to have fun. You sit down, you listen to the music, you can be alone, appreciating your moments.
David Corazza: Correct.
Aurele Docquin: and you can also be having friends listen to a few tracks. If you’re an analog guy, just bring your, you know, your favorite record. You have a session, some people would stream, you know, just have fun listening to music. yesterday I had someone requested a track, I think it was shallow from Lady Gaga. And he said, no, no, don’t play. People are going to leave. Said, no, it’s fine. Let’s just listen to them. Why not? We have a playlist. But this track, I know sounds well played it. We both got goosebumps immediately and said, yes, that’s how it is. And yg, sometimes, as a joke, we say it means you’re a goosebump. It’s a terrible joke. We do it internally. I just released it to the world now. But, yeah, we have to have fun at yg. We also have lots of fun in the Factory. It’s really. It’s a young team. Everybody’s passionate about. Passionate about what they do. in our listening room, Actually we do something called, our listing room in the factory in Denver. Every Monday, 1:00pm, there’s something called Song and Slice. Okay. I love the concept. When I’m away, I join by zoom with a glass of something that I have by hand. But 1pm sharp, everybody in the factory goes into the listening room and then prior to that, three people are selected to choose a track to listen to. So the whole company comes, sit down, has pizza for lunch and someone introduced the track that he wanted to listen. And the reason we do it is to keep everybody involved in yg.
David Corazza: That is fantastic.
Aurele Docquin: And we rotate speakers and electronics that we have so you know what track sounds on the Talus on the Titan, which is the new speaker that we launched this year on the XX the XV with these cables, this electronics and that’s exciting. And if you’re away, you get a link say for the guys who are away, please zoom. And we zoom. You see people in UK or Cambridge me when if I’m here or somewhere else in Asia, I’m logging in. The guy who’s doing Latin America, he connects and just it’s fun and you’re having fun like this.
David Corazza: But this, this is such a beautiful story. And look, you know, it’s interesting how a lot of the time we are so furrowed brow about this industry and we’re all obsessed with specifications and this and that. And you know, sometimes we do forget at the end of the day we make these things to channel music. That’s their sole purpose. And it’s just lovely to hear that there’s a manufacturer that’s actually internally focused on having fun as well.
Aurele Docquin: Yes, yes. We design speakers, want them to sound the best possible and we’re having fun doing it. Honestly, just phone calls with the production, with the marketing, there’s banter as well between us. And what I like is actually there’s quite a lot of people like this. But you know, I don’t know if people express it the way that we express it. But for example, what I said I was really happy to be in Melbourne for the show. It looks like a Mini Munich for me. Really good atmosphere, really good people. The people at the show are amazing, honestly, really nice people. and then you see people industry more the same age. So you’re talking about Alisdair ah, yesterday, you know, watched the F1 qualifications with a few beers, bunch of guys from different brands having fun, Talking music, Formula 1 and just having fun.
David Corazza: Isn’t that great?
Aurele Docquin: Yeah, that’s it. That’s amazing. So we have fun in the industry, you make friends outside of the industry and just, just have fun, listen to your music, enjoy it, enjoy your time. And I don’t know what else to say. Just.
David Corazza: Yeah, that’s look. Or. I think we’ll end on that fun note. Okay. And, it’s just, it’s a pity you can’t see us listeners, because we’re both grinning like idiots. I think it’s a beautiful thing to remind everyone that the reason why we’re in the industry is actually to have fun.
Aurele Docquin: Yes. And on that note, I’ve got to.
David Corazza: Thank you for your time.
Aurele Docquin: Thank you, David.
David Corazza: And enjoy the rest of your show.
Aurele Docquin: You too. Okay, thank you very much. Cheers.
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