I pride myself on being a pretty good designer, but last week I got a disturbing phone call from Los Angeles concerning a new studio monitor speaker I had designed for a company out there. Seems they heard a peak in the response where there shouldn’t be any peak. So Saturday morning, I hop in the car and head for California. I get there late Sunday and listen to the speakers again. Nope, no peak. But now, there’s uncertainty at the company - maybe it does need tweaking.

This calls for damage control, how to turn their concerns around. So I place a few phone calls and arrange a private showing for a few of the top producer/engineers and studio designers around. We agreed to meet at one of the best studios in California for a listening test. I invite one person from the company to listen to what these producers and designers think of the prototypes.

After listening to all kinds of music for several hours, they all agree: “These speakers are amazing!” I went to another producer who was a friend of the company and got the same response, “Amazing!” Now together, their musical credits cover eleven pages on allmusic.com. Not only that, but the studio owner came in, and he wants multiple pairs of speakers - a set for each of the studios in his complex.

All in all, I got there pretty much on Monday morning and left Wednesday afternoon. A hectic three days indeed, but it was well worth the trip. And it’s a big ego boost when some of the people you admire most in the industry give you a big “thumbs up” on an original design.

And that’s how I spent last week. (Harvey Gerst), ITR Studios, http://ITRstudio. com