Some of the History of Stage Sound Ent Ltd. 1973 to 2005.
Paul Johansen went into business in NZ in 1973 and began trading from the kitchen table on a miniscule opening bank balance of $300. He had no commercial experience at all and should have collapsed in flames within 6 months but fate was to play a hand. The market entry products were to be duo horn speaker enclosures molded in fibre glass. There was nothing wrong with the idea itself but trying to make it all happen on virtually no money was absurd. This was to be a story about passion and self belief rather than what was or was not theoretically possible. Paul simply did not realise it was not possible or he would never have tried. Fortunately however no one ever told him it could not be done.
The company originally subsisted in a home garage and working with basic tools the first prototype horn flares were made. These were unique to Australasia and in fact the only other operation in the world that was also going down this path, apparently at the same time, was Community Sound in the USA.
The new company ran on the spot on almost zero profitabillity before eventually moving to small commercial premises in Hillside Road in Glenfield during 1975. A simple assembly plant evolved from very humble beginnings held together only by Paul's enthusiasm, determination and an uncontrollable lust for design and new product development.
The first product to be manufactured in any real quantity was the highly advanced DTH200 Duo Horn loudspeaker enclosure. This endeavor was to be the first of many innovative products that were to follow over the next 15 years. Beginning with a modest assembly plant most of the early product was sold through the then very high profile shop, Kingsley Smith Music. It was largely thanks to Allan Kingsley Smiths faith in these early efforts that gave the then Sonic Sound Systems Ltd as the company was originally called, the kick start it needed. This small cash flow enabled the company to gain some market credibility and hence the small toehold it gained through Allan's support made it viable. If it had not been for Allan the company may well have failed. In order to satisfy his insatiable creative bent Paul Johansen churned out a whole host of electronic products (see this early promo shot) between 1973 and 1985. Some were good and some not so good, depending largely on how quickly they were fast tracked to the market to ensure the sales enabled the survival of the company. The big weak link was the lack of a good marketing company but Paul was to engrossed in the creative side of the business to focus on this aspect and this oversight greatly hindered the evolutionary process.
The second product to show any notable success was the tiny 100 watt multi purpose SA100 so called Slave Amplifier of which many hundreds were made. Ever the incorrigable innovator, self taught designer Paul Johansen thought the tiny SA100 may well have been the smallest Pro Audio multi purpose amplifier in the world at the time. The vast majority of the early models were sold through Musicways Ltd by Ricky MacDonnell. Paul had met Ricky through Peter Torchler who at the time owned and managed Beggs Music in Takapuna.
The SA100 was followed shortly afterward by an advanced technology guitar amp which was probably the first fully solid state amp top made in Australasia called the Sonic Silhouette and it was produced from 1974 until around 1978 and also sold quite well.
Martin Winch used one for several years and his good friend, the late Andy Brown proudly sported an SA100 for many years.
Paul soon realised that it would be necessary for his fledgling enterprises to begin producing PA systems to compliment the MI amplifiers and the first challenge was to be a solid state power amplifier. No one was making these in NZ at the time for retail sales so it was expected to be a good seller. The original stereophonic power amplifier was called the LSS200 and had 2 x 100watt RMS channels and this again was a first for NZ. It was designed to mount into a speaker box and the idea was years ahead of its time. These were undoubtedly Australasias and possibly even the worlds first self- powered speaker enclosures. Unfortunately no photos were taken to record these unique enclosures and only a few were made as the idea was to far ahead of its time to be acceptable.
This was followed with the SRA200 and the more powerful SRA400. Many of these are still in use today.Several hundred of these amps were made and many found their way into the numerous nightclub and bar installations that were done by Sonic Sound Sytems Ltd during this very busy period. These amps were very reliable because Paul had the foresight to mount the heatsinks on the outside of the chassis which meant a good supply of cool air was always available to the output transistors, unlike most power amplifiers produced today. Amplifiers that are reliant on internally mounted fans for their cooling only work untill the fans get clogged up with dust and then shut down, if you are lucky. If you are not so lucky they over-heat and fry the output transistors and then its all over Rover! Most modern power amps use this cheap method of construction.
At this stage, mixers were also being produced including the popular LS-8 and the much larger SM80 modular mixer. The LS-8 mixer was one of very few small mixers made in NZ during this period and sold well at a retail and trade level.
Built during the same period were preamplifiers, feedback-stabalisers, electronic crossovers, light controllers, and various versions of the dual horn RDTH tractrix fibre glass speaker enclosures culminating in the very nicely designed blue colored Mk-2 RDTH400 very few of which were made unfortunately. The novelty of the design had run its course by 1985 and made way for a more conventional approach untill 1995 when it was reborne again as a superbly designed coaxial horn. (See 'Our Products') Some overly ambitious products such as the GE28 and the SM80 modular mixing console were completed though hurriedly. The company also made many types of bass reflex speaker boxes beginning with the popular and widely accepted DRA100 and DRB100. These were made with 1 x 15 and 2 x 12 inch loudspeakers and they built dozens of them. The DRA and DRB boxes were eventually superseded by the highly advanced (for those days) HPC400 3-way enclosure that brought the company into a new era as it marched onwards towards becoming a pro-audio rental company. The last of the enclosures that were made in any kind of quantity was the SFW400 2 way multi purpose design that used a single 15 inch woofer and a two way constant directivity horn. This was also made in a twelve inch version as a stand speaker. They also made numerous types of wedges.
The long spell in manufacturing was brought to a resounding end in the mid eighties when Rob Muldoon and his enlightened cronies deduced that it was better for NZ to become a consuming nation rather than a producer. This sadly was to bring to an end an amazing period when along with many other dedicated New Zealanders Sonic Sound Systems Ltd helped to reduce the balance of payments issue rather than cause it! So much for creativity. Paul and many others like him became Rob Muldoons 'blood on the floor'.
Going back to 1977 after the first oil shock, SSS went through a very depressed period and were effectively dead in the water but fortunately had not yet laid down. Luckily Paul had hung in there long enough to see the Disco era take off. He scraped enough money together to build three SD5C stereo disco mixers that were built for a guy called Tom Anderson in Taupo. Without his order SSS may well have been history but the small amount of money earned enabled them to gain just enough forward momentum to build first DJ console. It combined an SD5C mixer with two belt drive turntables. Paul didn't like the result so he built another version based on an English console he liked the look of. Sonic Sound Systems Ltd built somewhere around 40 of these Dee Jay Consoles over a two year period and this took them into the eighties. The result was a revelation for the company and shows the benefits of stubborn perseverance. This period proved to be a joy ride doing numerous nightclub installations with almost no competition. Oceania and Live Sound did not make their presence felt until much later and so SSS had it on their own for nearly ten years. The company moved from premises it shared with Music Ways into a two story street front building in 1978 and began selling direct rather than seeing all the profits go to a marketing company. The business had a shop like appearance that proved to be a mistake and a waste of time and money. This was because we were primarilly a manufacturing company and had no experience in operating a shop.
A rehearsal studio was added later which proved to be a very good move as it provided an endless though modest cash flow during lean times. From here such high quality products as the SMA series of mosfet power amplifiers were made. These had three variations, the SMA400, 800 and the massive 1400 which did around 1000wrms into a 4 ohm load. This was another very successful item as they not only looked good but were extremly reliable and very powerful. It was later realised that the SMA1400 version was quite safe into a 2 ohms load and produced 1500 wrms! Hundreds of the smaller models were made and many are still in daily use. The last of the power amps made were the unsuccessful Sovren series amps. These were far to complicated and very difficult to build. During this period the beautiful modular SM85 Mixer was also made and many of these went into nightclubs, schools and churches along with some very innovative centre speakers. The SM85 product was also made in a music playback version which superseded the over complicated SD5C concept. A whole raft of customised speaker enclosures such as this very nice 15" 3 way design that used EV components were manufactured durring this period as well. Many highly customised enclosures were also made for various applications some of which never saw production in any serious quantity. The companies abillity to build specialised speaker enclosures for unusual auditoriums gave it an edge that has endured to this day.
The first serious professional touring sound work undertaken by SSS came in 1976 via the late Phil Warren who at the time was using his promotional company Prestige Promotions Ltd as a vehicle to stage several international live show artists in nation wide concert tours. These included some stand up comics such as Reg Varney and Patrick Cargill. SSS also supplied the audio for a John Hamlin tour and another with Marc Williams also sponsored by Phil and his company. This work was done with a unique incremental power amp rack that had 10 modules in one case and sat flat rather than vertically. It had a single large power supply and again the concept was well ahead of its time. The entire PA was custom built by Paul and used for about 3 years prior to the eventual demise of Prestige Promotions. Wonder what happened to soundman come roadie Barry Davies? Five of these systems where made in total.
Many different audio products were produced during this time and most were distributed across NZ by the very successful Musicways Ltd who are still in business and doing very well under the skilled management of the highly renouned brass band musician Ricky MacDonnell. Rick is a very astute salesman and once reportedly sold a dead horse to a stud farm!
During the 1980s SSS did numerous audio design and build installations mainly in Bars and Hotels for Dance Floor applications. Thirty five hotel installs for Lion Corp alone. They were without doubt New Zealands most prolific builder of these systems over a ten year period with the unique record of having done most of this work with sound equipment the company had manufactured in NZ. More than 200 installations were completed between 1978 and 1990.
In 1987 the company was joined by Canadian soundman Brad Bailey who was to have a substantial impact on the hire division which coincided with a change of name change to Stage Sound Enterprises Ltd.
Brads influence injected badly needed new energy into the Pro Audio hire division and although SSE was only fourth in the pecking order behind Oceania, Bartons and Live Sound, they were a major force in the regional market and had many inhouse fixed installation systems that were looked after on a term hire basis. In one situation SSE were lucky enough to do a nightclub concert for none other than the great Stevie Wonder who had been rained off an outdoor show. They also did some tours for such artists as Jan Helregal, Moana and the Moari Hunters and Supergroove as well as some very big university concerts including several international acts such as Throwing Mews, Jerry Harrison and the Mutton Birds. We also did the outdoor sound for North Harbours NPC rugby matches. At the time Brad joined, the companie's A Rig consisted of a motley collection of the famous 4560 type speakers and Altec 511B one inch horns. This was replaced by a combination of 18 inch W Bins and SFW400 composite speakers, which in turn were superseded by the dual 15 and 2 inch horn type that were in use as FOH systems by SSE Ltd, Live Sound Ltd and others during the late eighties. The main PA rig grew substantially in size and complexity and was used in many of Auckland?s biggest venues. This picture shows the Chris Tate who was working for Stage Sound as a learner at that time, before leaving to work for Live Sound. Here he is shown running up our main PA for a large show in the Turners and Growers building. The FOH speaker stack was a 3 way system using W bins, mod bins and 2-inch horns. The fold back system was very large and cumbersome but very comprehensive for the era. See also this view. By now SSE was operating from much larger premises at the lower end of Barry?s Point Rd in 4500 square foot premises and the hire dept was still growing fast. A rehearsal studio was again included. It was at this point that Paul invited Bill Flemming to join the company and he did so as the first debenture holder SSE had ever had. Bill injected some much needed money the bulk of which was used to buy and build more Pro Audio hire gear. The direction and expenditure set up the company for an ever increasing work load.
Paul picks up the story in his own words:
In 1988 I was contacted by a guy called Richard Holden from Lion Corporations head office in Auckland. Richard was one of those guys you loved or hated. He had an aura of arogant self righteousness about him and he just oozed confidence. This proved to be one of those rare lucky breaks and we went on to do no less than 35 hotel installations for Lion Corp. I was flying all over NZ at their expense doing one installation after the other. Many of these systems were really nothing to get excited about as they were only a combination of Teac domestic gear and some little custom built 4 inch woofer and paper cone tweeter type two way wall speakers, but we made hundreds of them. I came up with a cunning way of hooking these little speakers up in series parallel using load spreading pad resistors to balance the load and set the levels so all things became possible at a very low cost. The good thing was that each time Lion Management put me up against competition I managed to keep the contract so I must have been working fairly cheaply! What a joy ride it was. It actually helped me buy my second house. I can remember flying into Christchurch once to investigate a new job with the local area manager and 'pub crawling' our way from the airport through every Lion bar between the runway and the hotel we were staying at. When we finally staggered into the hotel foyer virtually paralytic and barely able to stand upright, the first thing the manager said when he saw us was, Shit! You guys look like you could use a drink, follow me!
All good things must come to an end and so did this. One day a rather fed up Doug Myers apparently decided he had had enough of managing a chain of hotels and so he sold them all to his local managers, restructured the Auckland based A team, fired most of them and went back to concentrate on making booze. Wise move Doug. He didn't ask me what I thought though and the amazing joyride was finally over! I will never forget that era.
This hectic period was followed in 1989 with the advent of the Karaoke era and this was to be another free lunch, at least it was while we were the only game in town, but that didn't last either. We had anything up to five Karaoke Systems and singer operators out on a Saturday night. The dry hire, studio and term hire added substantially to this and it ran on until it dried up in 1992 when everyone was sick to death of Croaking and it so it croaked.
In 1992 I was approached by the music chains Just Sound Ltd and Electric City Music with a request to design build and manufacture CD listening posts. These included the CDSA-6, and the Solo single disc type. I went on to make over four hundred devices collectively and made around half a million dollars. These things have been spread around numerous NZ music retailers. Five different versions were made and the larger users were joined by Real Groovy in 2001 who owned more than 50 of these headphone based auditioning units. We tried to build them as strongly as possible but wear and tear was a constant challenge, especially broken headphone cables, over which we had little control other than to replace the damaged ones.
The CMS Era: Computer Music Systems Ltd
In 1995 I came up with the idea of combining an MP3 player with a database to function as a sophisticated PC based music presentation system that could be easily programmed to run without an operator. Thus the amazing DMC2000 was born which was yet another NZ first for Stage Sound. A huge R and D effort ensued and I sank far to much money into it, around $180,000, a totally stupid move. In 1997 we began doing a field trial with three units in The Brownsy, The Glenfield Tavern and The Esplanade in Devonport. They loved the concept and I must admit it did look like it might take off into something worthwhile. CMS Ltd grew gradually to become possibly the largest supplier of background audio video playback music in the country and has turned over millions of dollars. It has a well set up workshop and editing suite in Hillside Rd Glenfield and is managed by Sam Donaldson.
One year after the Computer Music System concept was established (now CMS Ltd) Brad Bailey and our then debenture holder Bill Fleming decided they wanted Stage Sound to relocate to the city side. I did not apparently fit into their plans for the future so a deal was negoiated and I sold out the Pro Audio side of the company and College Hill Productions was then formed. I find it regretable that Bill did not have the foresight to hang in there with me, he could have run CMS Ltd and with his valuable accountancy skills could well have made the company work. CMS has turned over a veritable fortune, (millions!) it just needed some good financial control and it was that increment that seemed to me to be so badly lacking.
Ian Robinson made the decision to join me shortly after the departure of Bill Flemming and Brad Bailey and together we began the long and very difficult process of trying to build the company client base back up again. This worked to a point but Ian was no Brad in terms of his bussines development skills and as I had lost so much of my customer base, recreating the heady days of the past when we were big, bold and very busy proved difficult for us to achieve. In 1995 a car dealer by the name of Ovlov who was located on the floor below us in Barrys Point Rd offered me a large sum of money to vacate the building. This proved to be rather fortuous because apart from the fact it was directly under a 120,000 volt power line I didn't like very much, it was almost empty now having been evacuated by Brad and Bill. After a look around at what was on the market I decided to purchase a brand new 3000 sq foot factory building in Porana Rd and a year later we moved into it. I then reinjected another $100k back into equipment and effectivly started from scratch. Ian pushed for event company work such as that given to us by Madant Productions and slowly we increased the cashflow again. I was very much distracted by the CMS project though and so Stage Sound was unduly penalised by this and Ian felt frustrated by my apparent lack of commitment and probably thought he was doing it all on his own. Added to this, the political problems associated with CMS left me washed out and I was not behaving in the way a good leader should. By 1999 Ian decided he had had enough of the hire industry and with persistent back problems becoming worse every year he bailed as well. I was very sorry to loose Ian because apart from the fact he was a better front man than me, he had an awesome ear for balance. At least as good or perhaps even better than Chris Tate in my opinion. He was also the best cold start engineer I had ever heard. Ian can start a band off with no sound check and within a couple of bars you would swear he had done one. He now works as a theatre technician for Kristin School which to me is a huge waste of a great talent. Ian could have owned Stage Sound outright but he either did not believe this or did not want to. If I ever wanted something done well, I knew he had what it took to make it happen right first time, every time.
My attempts to find more good staff proved fruitless and after employing several total duds with the exception of Adam Houston (an ex Kristin student who left me to fly militaty helicopters) I resolved to slog on alone and work with variuos ringins, contract sound engineers and labourers. As they say, the only way to get a job done well is to do it yourself. It does get a bit busy at times though and rather lonely at others. I try not to dwell on all the things I got wrong and instead keep an eye out for good opportunities if they should happen along.
With Ian gone, Stage Sound entered a prolonged period of stagnation for the next 5 years while I worked the gear as best I could on my own and did not loose any sleep about the slow growth I was getting. By juggling our finnances around I managed to get my factory unit freehold and this served to build my sense of security and self confidence up somewhat and I began to feel the urge to grow the company again.
The most recent loudspeaker product that involved any serious research and development was the highly innovative CFH 400 coaxial horn concept. This product had international potential but lack of financial resources made this impossible and as to many were made and sold in NZ a world wide patent became untenable. By 2006 the A rig and general inventory quota had reached approximatly to same level it was at when Bill first joined in 1993.
Another person to make more than a small contribution to the continuing saga of Stage Sounds existence was Bob Campbell. Bob, an experienced bass player, first appeared around 2001 and not only had a good ear for balance but brought with him an amazing amount of work. It would be true to say that had Bob not wanted to be a part of my now diminished existence, I probably would not have continued doing high level out door sound reinforcement. Bob's enthusiasm for recording also resulted in our studio booth being constructed and it was his carpentry skills that made this endeavor possible. Bob is always on the lookout for bands wanting a hire PA and it does not matter to him what type of music they play, he will be out there doing it for them.
Mike Dodds hapened along in 2004 as is another very capable and experienced engineer I am proud to be associated with. We have also had the privalege of having Paul Crowther work at FOH on a number of our larger shows and his technical abillity has been a welcome relief at times and helped reduce the stress levels involved in these big events.
Going Forward.
This web site may yet herald the beginning of an exciting new era for Stage Sound. Indications are that it is being hit a lot already which bodes well for how it will go when completed. If I ever complete it that is!
As far as the hire division goes there are three obvious possibilities. I can sell it. I can run it down and sell off the equipment through this site or I can find a good engineer with some money and some good business acumen, who would like to gradually take it over and eventually own it outright. Unfortunately good engineers who also have the ability to run companies are very rare in this business and don't happen along very often at all. My approach will be to keep an open mind and be receptive to any viable offers that emerge as time goes by. My inclination is to do more installation and equipment sales work and take the future as it comes. The North Shore certainly has all the right ingredients for substancial growth and as Stage Sound is the only serious Pro-Audio company between the Harbour Bridge and Kaitaia it has the stability and dependability that many companies lack. I would welcome an approach by any individual or company interested in an ongoing involvment in Stage Sound from a commercial point of view.
Well, as fate would have it and for no apparent reason that I can put my finger on, things really took off in 2006. If anyone had told me last year that the annual turnover was about to DOUBLE I would have laughed in their face, yet that is exactly what happend. We began getting jobs that would have normally have gone to College Hill or Oceania and in the process attracting the attention of some of the top bands.
However one of the major problems facing our industry is the shortage of competant and experienced personal. Having a good work load is one thing but finding staff who can help you get the job done well is another story. The hideous employment contracts act does nothing to help the situation either. Instead of promoting full time employment it actually discourages it. It is also very hard indeed to find young people who are actually passionate about pro audio. I would go so far as to say they don't seem to exist. You have to be really keen to be packing out heavy equipment in the rain at four in the morning when you would far rather be asleep in a nice warm bed. Who can blame anyone for feeling like this? If you want to get into this game it is a really good idea not to actually have a life, because you can forget having too many weekends off. And forget about having a wife or girlfriend because when she realises what your job is all about there's a good chance she won't hang around very long. Unless that is, she prefers a guy who is not around very much and she hates taking holidays. The Technical Institutes churn out young people who think that its all about sitting behind a mixing console and thats what we do all day. Well, I've got news for these guys and it's all bad. Mixing sound is probably around 2% of what we do and thats being generous.
Now nearing the end of 2007 we have added a lot of new gear and are well positioned going forward as far as our inventory is concerned. One problem I do have is the size of our factory! Either it is shrinking or the equipment pool is getting much larger! So much for retireing!
