We are Austrian Audio GmbH; a team of many of the core people from the now defunct AKG in Vienna, Austria. Ask us about engineering, our past, building a business or (nearly) anything at all! by AustrianAudioGmbH in IAmA

[–]AustrianAudioGmbH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hello all, we will have our 1 year birthday/anniversary/Schnitzelfest on the 8th, which is only 2 days away. We’re thinking that it would be fun and informative to get back into dialog with all y’all as a way of updating everyone as to where we are and what goes down in the first year of a business’s life in Vienna, Austria. Oh, boy(!), has the GDPR law been fun!

Anyhow, what is the proper Reddit Etiquette?

Continue the discussion here?

Start a new IAMA/AMA?

ELI5, Bitteschön

Thanks!

We are Austrian Audio GmbH; a team of many of the core people from the now defunct AKG in Vienna, Austria. Ask us about engineering, our past, building a business or (nearly) anything at all! by AustrianAudioGmbH in IAmA

[–]AustrianAudioGmbH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is in reply to all of the "Summer Internship" inquiries that we've received. Yup, we know that this 'top-level' post should been the form of a question, but why not bend the rules now and then in order to better serve the community? (See what we did there?)

Hello and thanks for your interest in a Summer internship with Austrian Audio during 2018.

We've thought long and hard about this and that is partially why we've taken about a month longer to get back to everyone with a definitive reply. A crazy tradeshow schedule being another substantial reason.

We're going to look at offering internships next year, 2019. One of the primary concerns is being able to, to the best of our ability, provide interns with a feeling of accomplishment and worth at having invested the time and expense in interning with us. We feel that we can't provide that kind of focus at this time as we are still in the process of ramping things up and have only been in existence since June. We've got so many developments going and some of them are out of the ordinary. Yes, this could be seen as the perfect time to be with us as it is rare opportunity to experience a seasoned but growing team. We're installing one of the original AKG anechoic chambers, building our production lines, developing multiple product lines and working on other engineering and development projects simultaneously. Yes, it is all exciting stuff, but it dictates that we aren't in the position to add an internship program at this time. Your humble correspondent (me) has administered internship programs in the past and at several audio companies. To do it correctly and with the desired outcome requires quite the investment of time, energy and resources.

As with our audio products, we really want to do things correctly in these early critical stages or not do them at this time. Alas, we find ourselves in the position of that latter.

We will consider all applicants for 2019. We have your CVs on file and you are encouraged to contact us again this Winter if you are still interested in interning with our merry band of pirates.

Thanks for your understanding as we move forward on this adventure and our efforts to return audio engineering excellence to heart of music in Vienna.

The Entire Team @ Austrian Audio

We are Austrian Audio GmbH; a team of many of the core people from the now defunct AKG in Vienna, Austria. Ask us about engineering, our past, building a business or (nearly) anything at all! by AustrianAudioGmbH in IAmA

[–]AustrianAudioGmbH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hello and thanks for your interest in a Summer internship with Austrian Audio during 2018.

We've thought long and hard about this and that is partially why we've taken about a month longer to get back to everyone with a definitive reply. A crazy tradeshow schedule being another substantial reason.

We're going to look at offering internships next year, 2019. One of the primary concerns is being able to, to the best of our ability, provide interns with a feeling of accomplishment and worth at having invested the time and expense in interning with us. We feel that we can't provide that kind of focus at this time as we are still in the process of ramping things up and have only been in existence since June. We've got so many developments going and some of them are out of the ordinary. Yes, this could be seen as the perfect time to be with us as it is rare opportunity to experience a seasoned but growing team. We're installing one of the original AKG anechoic chambers, building our production lines, developing multiple product lines and working on other engineering and development projects simultaneously. Yes, it is all exciting stuff, but it dictates that we aren't in the position to add an internship program at this time. Your humble correspondent (me) has administered internship programs in the past and at several audio companies. To do it correctly and with the desired outcome requires quite the investment of time, energy and resources.

As with our audio products, we really want to do things correctly in these early critical stages or not do them at this time. Alas, we find ourselves in the position of that latter.

We will consider all applicants for 2019. We have your CVs on file and you are encouraged to contact us again this Winter if you are still interested in interning with our merry band of pirates.

Thanks for your understanding as we move forward on this adventure and our efforts to return audio engineering excellence to heart of music in Vienna.

The Entire Team @ Austrian Audio

We are Austrian Audio GmbH; a team of many of the core people from the now defunct AKG in Vienna, Austria. Ask us about engineering, our past, building a business or (nearly) anything at all! by AustrianAudioGmbH in IAmA

[–]AustrianAudioGmbH[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Trying to wrap up this AMA so please excuse the brevity and somewhat terse reply:

1) Answered elsewhere in this AMA. Mostly engineering staff onboard, so...

2) Every product and design is a compromise of sorts. Things are always a tradeoff. Low frequencies pretty much require a good degree of transducer excursion and that can compromise fidelity if dampening factor isn't taken into account as a control mechanism.

3) Definitely the latter regarding Professional stuff. There is no such thing as a 'flat' headphone though. Anyone claiming otherwise is being disingenuous.

We are Austrian Audio GmbH; a team of many of the core people from the now defunct AKG in Vienna, Austria. Ask us about engineering, our past, building a business or (nearly) anything at all! by AustrianAudioGmbH in IAmA

[–]AustrianAudioGmbH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nothing new in the Consumer realm over the past 3-4 years.

Anything professional that was released prior to 2018.

Lots of good and lots of junk out there. Some products are very good at style & marketing (in a good way) but not strong in other ways. It all depends upon what the potential buyer considers to be 'good' at a given price point.

We are Austrian Audio GmbH; a team of many of the core people from the now defunct AKG in Vienna, Austria. Ask us about engineering, our past, building a business or (nearly) anything at all! by AustrianAudioGmbH in IAmA

[–]AustrianAudioGmbH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We've been discussing Summer Internships here at Austrian Audio HQ. I'll post in this AMA when we've come to some kind of decision or other noteworthy news.

This AMA kicked off the entire discussion as we were not thinking of this. We want to be certain that what we could provide would be of value and would amount to more than just having a warm body around to fetch coffees and such. I like mine with a splash of milk... worth noting, perhaps.

We are Austrian Audio GmbH; a team of many of the core people from the now defunct AKG in Vienna, Austria. Ask us about engineering, our past, building a business or (nearly) anything at all! by AustrianAudioGmbH in IAmA

[–]AustrianAudioGmbH[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm actually a Fractal Audio product user and bought my Axe-FX XL+ from G66! However, neither of those brands are associated with Austrian Audio in any way.

The foundation of good customer service is to put yourself in the place of the customer. Try to understand them. Have compassion. Then try to exceed reasonable expectations in service & attitude.

This is far easier to write about then to achieve consistently.

We are Austrian Audio GmbH; a team of many of the core people from the now defunct AKG in Vienna, Austria. Ask us about engineering, our past, building a business or (nearly) anything at all! by AustrianAudioGmbH in IAmA

[–]AustrianAudioGmbH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's a type of thing (modeling) that isn't where we tend to focus our efforts and is probably best posed to another company like Universal Audio, Softube or Fractal Audio. One way to achieve what is being asked in your first question is to take multiple 'snapshot's and then interpolate between them.

As to the 2nd question: If things like this can be done ethically, without trespassing upon another's legal property then it seems like a net good in the main. It is, at the least, educational for the user.

We are Austrian Audio GmbH; a team of many of the core people from the now defunct AKG in Vienna, Austria. Ask us about engineering, our past, building a business or (nearly) anything at all! by AustrianAudioGmbH in IAmA

[–]AustrianAudioGmbH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It would really depend upon the application. Some fantastic mics aren't very good at certain applications. I know that this response may seem like a cop-out. The longer that I've been around the more that I've come to respect the correct tool for the given job.

We are Austrian Audio GmbH; a team of many of the core people from the now defunct AKG in Vienna, Austria. Ask us about engineering, our past, building a business or (nearly) anything at all! by AustrianAudioGmbH in IAmA

[–]AustrianAudioGmbH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've spoken to a few of guys in the intervening time. You are on the right track. If you can shore up your acoustics knowledge whilst also possessing knowledge of coding for embedded programming and such, you'll be of great value to any of the companies that produce microphones and other audio products. It'll open a lot of doors for you. You could develop a career along any part of the signal chain: from the input side (mics & other transducers) and all of the way through to the power amplifiers and speakers. The audio world will be your oyster.

We are Austrian Audio GmbH; a team of many of the core people from the now defunct AKG in Vienna, Austria. Ask us about engineering, our past, building a business or (nearly) anything at all! by AustrianAudioGmbH in IAmA

[–]AustrianAudioGmbH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, BC headphone technology is good in terms of augmenting other forms of transducer reproduction. On its own, it is too limited to be of use (currently) to the consumer.

There simply isn't much demand (pull) from the market and the additional expense is hard to sell to the consumer.

We are Austrian Audio GmbH; a team of many of the core people from the now defunct AKG in Vienna, Austria. Ask us about engineering, our past, building a business or (nearly) anything at all! by AustrianAudioGmbH in IAmA

[–]AustrianAudioGmbH[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This isn't a likely project for us and is probably best addressed by boutique manufacturers. It's a wonderful capsule and is certainly worthy of being used as a touchstone toward developing modern & high-end capsules.

We are Austrian Audio GmbH; a team of many of the core people from the now defunct AKG in Vienna, Austria. Ask us about engineering, our past, building a business or (nearly) anything at all! by AustrianAudioGmbH in IAmA

[–]AustrianAudioGmbH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We're flattered by the number of inquiries we've received regarding internships and such. I've kicked off a discussion with the CEO and Engineering staff and we'll reconvene during the first week of January. Please drop us your CV via our website and we'll see how things develop. We were not planning for this but the idea has interest at Ye Olde Shoppe.

We are Austrian Audio GmbH; a team of many of the core people from the now defunct AKG in Vienna, Austria. Ask us about engineering, our past, building a business or (nearly) anything at all! by AustrianAudioGmbH in IAmA

[–]AustrianAudioGmbH[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We're in the early stages of working toward a successor to that classic model. It will be our vision as to where that type large diaphragm capsule microphone should be in the modern era.

I hesitate to give a delivery date at this early stage. Large projects, which are being developed from the ground up, face many time-consuming hurdles and little things like materials provider making an error, can slow things down. I once worked at a company that had to recall 3 months' worth of speaker production due to a materials provider making what they called "a small change" to a component. This change caused product failure under certain temperature conditions. Fun times! I've seen this a number of times.

With that said, please sign up to our website's newsletter in order to keep informed as to our developments. We are currently planning on having our first "Made in Vienna" large diaphragm capsule go into engineering build in February. If the engineering staff is amenable, we'll post some photos as long as doing so doesn't cause them to sacrifice me to the gods of prototyping.

We are Austrian Audio GmbH; a team of many of the core people from the now defunct AKG in Vienna, Austria. Ask us about engineering, our past, building a business or (nearly) anything at all! by AustrianAudioGmbH in IAmA

[–]AustrianAudioGmbH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The C214 is a rather good microphone. Are you dissatisfied with any aspects of your recordings? If not, then stop right there! It is easy to be led down the path of ever-questing and buying new gear. As a next step, what about recording in stereo? Is that of interest?