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View Full Version : Made in N. America: Boulder Amplfiers



2ndRick
07-26-2013, 10:38 PM
In this profile, I was able to reach out to a company who has not yet participated in the ManufacturerZone at IntegrationPros.

I was able to chat recently with Rich Maez, Director of Sales - Boulder Amplifiers, Incorporated.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-fJZhYMq5Rlw/UfM8GeG_hYI/AAAAAAAAGAw/K2Zcl9r9VwM/s640/Boulder.JPG

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Rick Murphy, IntegrationPros:
First question: How long has the company been in business?

Rich Maez, Boulder Amplifiers, Inc.:
We were officially incorporated as Boulder Amplifiers, Inc., in May of 1984. Prior to that we did a little design and manufacturing for a couple of years without incorporation, so we've been around for approximately 30 years, more or less.
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Rick:
2): Where are the locations of your production facilities?

Rich:
At the present time, the factory resides in Boulder, Colorado. In July of 2013 we purchased three acres of land in Louisville, CO (about 10 minutes east of Boulder) in order to build a new facility that will double the size of our existing facility. At that time, we'll close the existing location and move into our new one. We expect construction to be completed by the end of summer 2014.

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Rick:
3) How many people are employed in total?

Rich:
At the present time, we employ 27 people, which is a little larger than we've been for a while and the largest we've ever been. Our production and machining operations are very efficient, so we haven't had the need to increase our staffing much. With the expansion of the factory and the increase in digital development that we see around the corner, there may be a slight rise in personnel in the next year or two

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Rick:
4) What percentage of the SKUs in your product offering are produced in North America at some level?

Rich:
100%. We're the last American high-end manufacturer that does everything in all of our products in-house: we don't subcontract any manufacturing, production, design or engineering to any other firm and all products are hand-built at our factory. Everything from machining our chassis and casework parts to engineering, CAD design, circuit board manufacturing and assembly is done at the factory.

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Rick:
5) In the spirit of the American Automobile Labeling Act, requiring automakers to report what percent of the parts by value in any given model hail from both the United States and Canada. What is the rough percentage of N. American content of the components and materials of your products?

Rich:
100% of our raw metal, circuit boards, wiring, cabling, transformers, glass, and even external electrical connectors are American, both sourced and finished. Individual parts on a circuit board, though, may vary: while we always look for and specify American made parts whenever possible, individual resistors or capacitors or ICs may be hard to procure with any certainty. For example, Texas Instruments or Motorola may have multiple manufacturing houses for the same part in different parts of the world, depending on the demand for that particular part. Even though the parts are the same and of the same tolerances, they may come from different places each time we order them. This is just the nature of world of electrical parts and is beyond control. It can change at any given time based on world-wide supplies and inventories. What we do NOT do is find cheaper, third-party sources for parts. Our job is to make sure that there we're buying parts from known, reputable local (whenever possible) and factory authorized vendors in order to maximize parts quality control and eliminate counterfeiting. Buying from third-party vendors increases the odds of these things occurring, so we simply pay more to be sure to get exactly what we need and guarantee we pass that quality control on to our customers. In the end, I'd estimate that approximately 60% to 70% of our individual component parts are sourced from America at any given time.

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Rick:
6) What would you say is the difference in the value proposition that you offer to the dealers and end users compared to your peers who utilize off-shore production? (materials quality, labor force, logistics, JIT capabilities, etc.)

Rich:
We could most certainly decrease the cost of production by moving manufacturing offshore. Harman and Equity International have moved in that direction for full production and assembly and quite a number of other manufacturers have gone to sourcing circuit boards from overseas in order to decrease their costs, which is essential to control costs when you get to much greater volumes than we ever plan on producing. It's a necessity in low to middle priced products. Since we occupy a position of higher performance and higher priced products, we're somewhat insulated from the kinds of factors that determine where or how our products can be developed. Reliability, quality, fit and finish and not least of all, outright performance are much more the determining factors for purchasers of our products than price, so we have a lot more leeway in the way we choose to do things. It's a bit of a clicheŽ, but the phrase, "You get what you pay for" applies to customers in our segment of the market.


Over the years, we've brought more and more processes internal, which has actually increased our production costs but increased our quality at a much greater rate. As a result, our sales number will never be in the hundreds of thousands of units per annum, but our customer loyalty and repeat purchase rates are exceptionally high. In the end it comes down to deciding if we can deal with the lesser quality of outside suppliers or if we need to bring a process inside rather than try to teach or negotiate with someone else as to how we want work done. In a few rare instances, such as circuit board production, we've actually saved money by bringing the process in-house because of the costs of rejects or reworks, even though though we had to invest hundreds of thousands in manufacturing equipment and the personnel to run them.


We've also found that in certain overseas markets, the "Made in USA" label is actually a luxury selling point. Specifically in China, products that are made in America have a higher cachet than products made there. Buyers will go out of their way to purchase upscale products made in the US and those products are held in high regard, which dovetails nicely with our design philosophy.

def90
07-27-2013, 08:59 AM
Those guys are down the street from me. Have always meant to go in and check the place out.

sirroundsound
07-28-2013, 10:05 AM
They have very nice gear. The million$ + Cedia award theatre we did a number of years ago used their amplifiers and JM Lab Grand Utopias.

Audiophiliac
08-01-2013, 09:41 PM
Boulder is on my "to own someday" list! Along with a Ferrari. Sadly, the Ferrari may be cheaper! ;)

I wonder how the Boulder amps would pair with a set of Zu speakers for an all american beast mode 2 ch. setup!