Robin Ashley: Behind the Gear with Phoenix Audio

Phoenix Audio , maker of Class A, high-end audio tools for the studio, seeks to, "embody the classic British tone, but with a modern twist," which they successfully do. Since 1998, Phoenix has designed quality preamps, compressors, equalizers, and summing mixers. In 2009 the company moved to the US, under the direction of Robin Ashley , in order to work more efficiently within the American market. 

What was your history, leading up to owning Phoenix Audio? What was your history, leading up to owning Phoenix Audio?

I was a producer, engineer, and DJ many, many years ago, in my early twenties. I worked in a Guitar Center-type store in the UK called Sound Control. It has now disappeared. I was the pro audio guy, so I hung around studios. I then went to Tascam and was the UK sales manager. Then I moved to another business, joining Alan Stewart with a company called ASAP Europe; a small pro audio dealership and distributor in the UK. It's traditionally been involved with Avalon gear and nice high-end mics — very choice, top-end bits. We were the European distributor for Phoenix Audio. Phoenix Audio's been around since '96, set up by Shaun Leveque with David Rees as a design consultant. Some of the units by Aurora Audio, which is Geoff Tanner's company, were badged at a very early point as Phoenix Audio US as Shaun and Geoff had some early collaborations on these units but decided to go their own ways. The two companies are different, and they have always made different products. There's always a little confusion about this! 

How'd you end up working with Phoenix?

I was the European distributor for Phoenix Audio. Around 2005 they had supply issues, as well as some reliability issues, from time to time. The company went reasonably big, then smaller, and then sort of lost their way on what they were doing. We decided to buy the company, but re-jig the whole thing. We knew certain products were very good. We'd give studios a unit, and they'd say it was fantastic. They'd love it. Dealers would say it was great; they'd sell ten, but then, when they wanted another ten, it took six months and they'd lose impetus. If you can give customers confidence in the product, and they know that they can buy it easily, and you make it an attractive business for the dealers, then you're onto a winner. We also knew that we wanted to be here [in the US] as well. This is the main market for these types of products. Americans are also a bit insular. They love American products. Customers get confused; if a foreign product breaks, would they need to ship it back? All those boring logistics that make people think, "Eh, maybe not." If you're here, it's easy. Customers can ring you up, chat about a project, and ask you to look after things. Dealers are very comfortable with prices in dollars. It's all easier. 

Did starting to run the company force you to personally move to the States?

Yeah. I've been here since 2009. I had to acclimatize and change my accent slightly. 

So there's a Neve heritage, of sorts?

Yeah. The Neve thing is really actually David Rees. David was a designer at Neve through the '60s and '70s. He's Rupert Neve's [ Tape Op #26 , #87 ] cousin. Rupert was much more of an ideas and concepts type of guy. He would go to the BBC, or studios for broadcasting, and come up with concepts and designs. David was like the technical and design manager, and would put that into practice. David designed the original Neve 2253 [compressor] and the resulting 2254 (limiter/compressor ) is pretty much his design, exclusively. He was part of the team that designed Neve 2264s, 1073s, and 1081s. As the design engineer, he was pretty influential in how all those were done. That's where that Neve background comes from. With what we try to be, as a company, the Neve thing is good and bad. In the early days, we probably made a bunch of sales to people who thought they were getting a 1073. You couldn't buy those types of products then. 

They weren't available.

Nowadays we've obviously tried to distance ourselves, as we're an original manufacturer and we'd like to be known solely as this. We do have that lineage, but we can do more. I guess it would be a similar conversation with Rupert Neve and RND, in the sense that they'd say, "Those products are great, but we can do a lot more. I didn't stop in 1973." 

And technology never stopped!

I think David would say that with the 2254, that he was very proud of the design but that he was probably hindered by the technology and manufacturing techniques of the time. As they knew more about what they were doing, the simplicity of the designs took over. The newer components allowed them to do a lot more. A lot of people say that those older products are noisy. If you think of the noise levels that we accept now, they're very different from what they were then. 

Is he still doing the design of new products?

He's into his mid-80s, like Rupert, but, yes he's still involved. We brought out a compressor, around a year ago, which was called the N-90 DRC-500. It was one of his products that he'd designed around 20 years ago. It's his evolution on from the 2254. It has a completely different design, but it's how he envisions the compressor going forward. It has a gate on there, which is fairly strange to bring out these days. No one really uses gates so much. 

I do, but I'm a weirdo.

It's an old-fashioned gate, so it sounds amazing on drums. It's almost more for shaping. When we tell him what we've done that doesn't quite work, he'll suggest, "Well, why don't you do it this way?" He consulted and designed for loads of other companies: Cadac, Tweed, and Shep Associates. Shaun, our lead designer, worked at Shep Associates in the early-'90s, where he joined as a prototype wireman and circuit designer. Shaun's training is as an electronic prototype engineer, specializing in communications and satellite systems. He doesn't necessarily come from the audio background, but he understands electronics design and engineering. Shep Associates were known for cloning Neve equipment and modifying consoles, and it was here that David was consulted on a console design and its dynamics section while Shaun handled a lot of the technical drawings. Shep disappeared around '95, and Shaun decided to set up his own company, refurbing and installing vintage consoles in the UK. They did Abbey Road, Konk, and Battery Studios, re-equipping studios with all those kinds of consoles. They knew quite quickly that the business model wasn't going to last forever. From that, Shaun and David collaborated and decided to design new equipment with a focus on Class A, discrete designs. To design this way, but not necessarily recreate old designs. New designs, that were simple, easier to make — in theory — and better sounding. 

That's the root of the whole company?

Yeah, that happened around '98. We started making our own equipment in '98. DRS-2, a dual-mono preamp, was the first product. That did pretty well, and is still available today. From that product, the same mic pre is found in our 8-channel preamp [DRS-8] and our 500-series preamp [DRS-1R]. We've kept the same preamp for 17 years. It's a teenager now! 

What's the best selling item you guys have?

Probably the 500-series products. Our 8-channel preamp is really popular as well. I think we're probably one of the few 8-channel preamps out there. There are several others, but they're typically quite a clean, transparent type of sound; like the Millennia and the Grace, which a lot of people love. Our sound is more of a charactered, colorful sound. Maybe the more rock 'n' roll or hip-hop people want more bite and color. We make a summing mixer as well, the Nicerizer [16 MK2 and Junior]. We were one of the first companies to come out with a summing mixer concept. Some people actually know the product name before our company name. It's kind of a stupid name, and people ask what it does. "Oh, it makes it sound nicer." 

There are obviously quite a few more summing mixers out now, but having the jump on it gives you an advantage.

It's been around for about ten years. Our product is an active product, using Class A, discrete input and output stages and a virtual earth mixing bus, rather than some of the other designs that are passive, with preamps to make up gain. That's where we come from. It's almost like a mini console in a two unit rack. That market's interesting, in the sense that it exploded at the start, with everyone that was probably working in smaller studios who wanted to get that sound and move away from digital. They'd say, "This is great, but I need auxes. I need inserts, and I need monitoring." You'd say to them, "What you need is a console." But they didn't want a console. They'd want something really small. It wasn't necessarily for those types of guys. Then, as customers became more educated, it took off again. People said, "Okay, it's not a console. It's really just a box to pass my audio through to give it some spatial width, or just make it sound bigger. 

You're based out of California now?

Yeah, we're based out of Costa Mesa. 

How many people work there full-time?

We've got about six or seven full-time employees. 

Is everything manufactured in the states?

Yeah, everything's manufactured locally in Orange County. We're passionate about manufacturing things in the States. I don't think we'd ever change that. I think, in the next few years, we'll actually benefit from being a US manufacturer. The China manufacturing thing is almost like the Industrial Revolution, if you think about how that was. Workers are starting to demand bigger wages, the currencies are less attractive all the time, and they're going to want to unionize. I think, in a general sense — for all US manufacturers, not just in this industry — we're going to benefit from that. A lot of people still like to support American brands. We're all benefiting from people supporting local businesses. Buying things overseas isn't necessarily a great idea. 

Do you get nervous about having a place in the industry, with more and more people making similar products?

I guess so. You should never take yourself for granted these days. 

What do you see for the future of Phoenix Audio?

Possibly making more products for the live market; and maybe broadcast, at some point. Our goal is always to make products that sound great and have character or soul. With a lot of guys who are front-of-house engineers, or live sound engineers, you see more and more of the analog, boutique gear in their racks. They'll have the Avid Venue console, but then they have a summing mixer or a nice preamp. That live market is so big. Our recording market is maybe a little bit saturated. You see a lot of DI boxes live now: Radial, Avalon, or the [A-Designs] REDDI. It's like microphones, isn't it? You have your [Neumann] U 47 and [Telefunken E LAM] 251 in the studio, and you have your $59 mic you sing through on stage. It almost doesn't make sense. You're seeing Telefunken bringing out their live mics. I think that quality of sound is becoming much more a part of the live market.