By Walter Mirauer
I can say with absolute certainty that every one of you reading this has listened at some time or another to an RCF loudspeaker. This is not the only fact which makes this Italian company, based in Reggio Emilia, unusual, perhaps unique, but it is very much at the heart of this story. Prior to my recent visit in May, my last venture to Italy's number one sound company was around twelve years ago. In the interim, some things have changed a lot, some have remained unaltered, and in other ways, things have evolved. Not too long after my earlier visit, RCF was acquired by the then rapidly burgeoning Mackie empire, a move which subsequently put it into the same stable of ownership as one of its most high-profile customers, EAW. The commercial logic behind the decision to buy one of the group's key component suppliers seemed (certainly to the remote venture capital investors in Mackie at that time), if not inspired, then fair enough. In reality, it rapidly turned out that the Mackoids had bitten off more than they could chew, not just vis-a-vis RCF, but globally. As the cracks began to appear in the re-named Loud Technologies firmament, RCF endured turbulent, and for the people at Reggio Emilia, frustrating times. Thankfully, a saviour was at hand in the form of Arturo Vicari who, with the committed support of the RCF workforce, a factor never to be underrated in business, was able to effectively reclaim the company for La Scuderia Italiana. So, for the past four or five years in a long and distinguished history, it has been back to business as usual. The results have been nothing less than outstanding.
Today, RCF manufactures high-spec drive units, commercial loudspeakers, electronics, sound systems for everything from airports and railway stations to the most demanding dancefloor, theatre, concerts and music festival events and applications. Now that they have their own cabinet shop on site in Reggio, the vast majority of this is done in house. Electronic components are very important in the RCF scheme of things (the company was an early pioneer of powered loudspeakers, and as such, has a large appetite for custom amplifiers), and in the main, these are produced in India. Some other components are sourced from China. Everything conforms however to the rigorous standards imposed by and checked at, Reggio Emilia. Despite the influence of mechanisation, and the increasingly widespread use of industrial robots, many aspects of drive unit construction, especially delicate, high-precision HF compression drivers, require high levels of manual dexterity and, dare one say it, skill. With more than half a century of experience, this is something RCF and the Reggio workforce possess in abundance. This is also why they continue to supply some of the world's leading brands in quality pro-audio. Quite simply, these companies, like the aforementioned EAW and d & b audiotechnik know that, for the last word in performance, there's no better place to go.
With resources like these at its disposal, it was no wonder that RCF would begin manufacturing leading-edge, high performance sound systems of its own. It was probably essential for the company's survival. It has certainly generated a succession of remarkable products, each of them bearing the RCF hallmarks of constructional strength, audio integrity and overall fitness-for-purpose. Much of the responsibility for this lies with RCF's head of R & D, Alessandro Manini. He learned much of his craft at the feet of George Krampera (now of KV2 fame) and, loudspeakerwise at least, is assisted in his efforts by Giancarlo Gandolfi, whose background includes both pro audio and a generous helping of esoteric hi-fi. These guys are not going to release a bad sounding product onto the market, and voicing of loudspeaker products is very much a serious business at RCF. Interestingly, nothing passes from prototype into production without the nod from Arturo Vicari. This is not because he has golden ears, or even the Midas touch. It is because he is the boss, and that is the Italian way.
Being blessed with glorious weather during this visit, we were able to assess the virtues of RCF's flagship products, al fresco, in the field behind the factory. I was joined for this demonstration, ably staged by TT+ product manager, Emanuele Morlini, by Derek Blair and Gavin Jenkinson from the Warehouse in Edinburgh and Glasgow respectively. Listening to powerful speakers in this way, demonstrating what is termed their 'free-field response' can be very instructive, and so it proved here. This is because there is no room to reverberate, reflect and generally alter the speaker's output, and therefore no need to adjust any settings to compensate for the room characteristics. We started with the TTL31 mini line array, both with and without sub-bass reinforcement, and were immediately impressed. Although these boxes are truly very small, their reach and power was clearly apparent, but the most striking feature of the sound was its openness, a warmly enveloping characteristic which yet retained both detail and punch. The 31's, even when pushed to their limits, remained elegant and unstressed. This is in sharp contrast with the performance of some mini-arrays, from which the sound seems to be being forced, squeezed, and hurled at the listener. The difference is rather like that between listening to an MP3 track via an i-Pod, and hearing it direct from CD on a proper pair of headphones. Leaving the good basic design and sheer drive unit quality apart, this is largely down to the highly refined software package controlling the system. RCF maintains a dedicated team of software engineers, both in Reggio and Bologna, which is an essential part of ensuring the company's continuing success in the digital era.
Back indoors, in the large RCF demo room, we continued with the other TT+ products (TT, by the way stands for Theatre and Touring), and revisited the recently updated Art Series. Art was the first product innovation under Arturo Vicari's regime and has become one of the most widely used powered loudspeaker ranges, worldwide, with applications in clubs and entertainment venues of all kinds as well as in the M.I. field. Interestingly, despite the considerable strengths that RCF possesses in digital technology, these latest Art Series models remain stubbornly analogue. As Alessandro Manini explained, "This is because entry-level DAC's (digital-to-analogue converters) and DSP's (Digital Signal Processors), which we would have to use in order to meet the Art price points are just not yet good enough. To use them would lower the performance of the speaker, and we wouldn't want to do that. Of course, when that changes, and it surely will, we will look at it again, because there are things we can do in the digital domain which we would like to do, but only if there is a clear advantage, and if it sounds better." As comprehensive expressions of corporate design philosophy go, they don't come more reassuring or succinct than that.
Over an exquisite lunch, expertly choreographed by RCF Managing Director, Fausto Incerti, highlighting the numerous local specialities, we were able to discuss many of the company's other products, markets and ambitions. These include distributed sound systems and several ranges of passive loudspeakers, none more relevant to Night readers than the Monitor Q Series, compact, elegant, affordable units that grace many a bar throughout the UK and Europe, combining as they do commercial clout with hi-fi accuracy and refinement. Originally conceived under George Krampera, these latest Monitors, refined by Giancarlo and Alessandro continue to punch above their weight. Nobody was saying so, but I think I know what the next RCF product to appear might be. The company makes classy amplifiers with all the digital bells and whistles. It makes classy, highly accurate, yet robust drive units. It has long mastered the art of producing hi-fi sound quality from a wide range of sound reinforcement products. It cannot surely be long before it launches a state-of-the-art studio monitor. Perhaps we were distracted by our lunchtime surroundings. We were eating and drinking in a C16th villa, complete with vaulted ceilings and frescoed walls, set in grounds landscaped and laid out centuries ago - in the middle of an industrial estate, just like you wouldn't in Wolverhampton, which is about the same size as Reggio Emilia. Lambrusco, made in paradise, or Lambrini, made in Liverpool? No contest.