This summer my wife and I decided to take a trip to see Niagara Falls CA side. We live in WI and its about a 11 hour drive one way. So I made the hotel reservations and then about a week later I got to thinking ML is made in CA somewhere. After a quick look at the map I saw that we were passing by Mississauga, ON within about 1/2 hour - with CA being so large I would have never guessed. My wife accused me that I had this planned all along...... Any way we stopped by this past Thursday and were given a 3 hour tour of the facility. As many of you know this plant produces Paradigm, Anthem and ML products. A couple of years back I was in the Kansas area and so I called in to the ML facility and was totally disappointed that manufacturing had moved to CA and there "was nothing to see here". So now that I'm in CA what did I see?First off it was hard locating the plant. Not that the address was wrong they do not have a sign anywhere that I could see to identify this plant. They are located in a very large business district and all others proudly displayed their names but not Paradigm. We arrived the night before and there was a person eating at a picnic table on the grounds and we asked if this was Paradigm and yes indeed it was.
The next morning around 9am we were greeted and then proceeded with the tour. First the display room which I have included some pictures. In the display room were the two new speakers that Paradigm have been working on for a couple of years to be revealed at CEDIA. Sorry no pictures but they did look cool! Then to the theater room and had several ATMOS demos - all also very cool.
The tour started at the wood plant and showed all the various milling, routing and drilling that were used to make all the various boxes for all the products. For those that maybe missed the "How things are Made" on TV the boxes are all one piece that are routed and then folded up in once piece. Not four individual pieces but one. They also have presses with male and female dies that can form more complex shapes. Moving on to painting and finishing there is a 11 day process with various hi quality checks along the way before the finishing is done. With many of the boxes having a high gloss finish these is a lot of buffing like you would do on a car and even a robot buffing.
Once out of paint then we moved into cone assembly which they do mostly a direct mold to the cone with no glue. Plastic injection molding direct to a cone using various dies that they manufacture themselves. Coil winding is very precise to within one half turn in a machine of their own design leading to a better consistency and eventual sound quality. Also some very cool stuff they do with Beryllium but that is all I can say about that.
Then into assembly which is where we got to see how my recent purchase of Anthem AVM60 goes together. The boards are a combination of auto insert and manual. They have what was described a "bed of nails" that with an appropriate template perform tests along the way not just at the end. That way fixes can be done way before a complete board is complete. Neat! Also all finished units are "burned in" without the top covers at full power to basically try and break them there instead of at your home.
Then we finally got to the ML section. A lady was in the process of making the electrostatic sandwich for some new 13A's. They were being done in a pair. We saw them putting the clear spars across and completing the sandwich. Next to this was a template which must have been for a Neolith - just huge. Then a little further I go a good look a new center channel. Looks pretty cool and very impressive! I wish I could say more but all will be revealed at CEDIA. Also saw the latest addition in the ML line the Impression being assembled.
We then proceeded to the sound room. Apparently this was the first structure that was built on this site. It has a completely separate foundation and is separated from the main building by about 3" all around. Inside it’s a maze of fiberglass triangular wedges. The wedges are about 3' on the base and form an equilateral triangle that is 7' long. So if you can imagine a room with all sides, top and bottom with them that is what it looked like. As we entered we were on like a cat walk mid room with a turn table that one of the new speakers from Paradigm was sitting. Ahead of it was a microphone that could be moved up and down and the speaker on the turntable could be rotated in 1 degree increments. This is how they test for dispersion etc. Also on each side of the room but outside the chamber were smaller so call "normal rooms" that a house would have to do final tweaking.
Also went through R&D saw also more that I can't talk about but needless to say some exciting things coming. From there to the prototype room that had various mills, lathes, EDM etc. for making all the tooling etc. Also interesting were 3 - 3D printers. We were told that they have been 3D printing for about 10-12 years which would put them doing this way early. The engineer downloads his part before leaving that day and in the morning he can pick up his part. Larger parts can be attached. All very cool. They had a model of a new ML motion speaker sitting there to view.
Also they are very clever to make machines or processes that do what they want done if there is no commercial machine available or accurate enough. All and all I can see this company is very vertically integrated and does most things itself. Some outsourced but not much.
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