ANDY WHITTLE

Andy Whittle, who worked for Rogers in the early 90s before it shut down its UK operation and moved to China, is now back working for Rogers. Andrew Murphy asked him how it came to be that Roger is now once again manufacturing speakers in the UK.

Andy Whittle:

Michael O’Brien, who owned Rogers, sold the company to the Wo Kee Hong Group in Hong Kong. They ran it for four or five years before the big financial crisis in the late

90s when they pulled the plug on the UK manufacture. They weren’t making those products in Hong Kong or China, they were basically making their own products and introducing them to the domestic market; so they moved a bit more mainstream, doing more AV stuff. But that was all kept in the domestic China market.

After that (Rogers’ UK closure), I ran Exposure for about five years, and then for the past ten years, I’ve been working with Audio Note UK. I kept in touch with the Rogers people, and a few years ago they contacted me and said they were looking to make a small batch of speakers in the UK for Rogers’ 70th anniversary.

We got those made, then I said to Richard Lee, the chairman of Wo Kee Hong, ‘Why don’t you just start making the 5/9 and 3/5A back in the UK?’ My friend Kevin from Talk Electronics has a factory, so I spoke to him and that’s what we did. We have a BBC licence for the 3/5A and for the LS5/9.

Andrew Murphy: Why did you want to start making these BBC speakers again?

There still seemed to be an appetite for BBC-designed products. I was in the audio industry, travelling around to shows and, without being arrogant, most of what I heard didn’t actually sound that good.

I’d start listening to the older stuff and think, that sounds better than some of the newer stuff. Why not make the old stuff again? It has a certain character you don’t get with modern products. Maybe it’s a bit like driving a Morgan car: it’s not going to set the world alight with its 0–60mph stats or top speed, nor is it the last word in handling, but it still provides a purpose.

If you look at the quality of the R&D and the resources available to the BBC at the time, there must have been millions of pounds spent on developing the 3/5A — or certainly a considerable amount in today’s money. These days I wouldn’t know, but I don’t think so much is invested in the acoustics of the speaker.

Andrew Murphy: You talk about the character of these speakers; how would you describe it, and what makes that BBC character so special?

I don’t have a BBC background on the design side, but ultimately, it’s all about the vocal and the voicing. If it’s for an outside broadcast van and they are mixing, the vocals have to be 100 per cent spot on. If you get that right in the critical mid-band, the bass and top aren’t so critical. Get it right and you’re pretty much home and dry.

In terms of the driver development and crossover integration, it’s seamless and you can’t hear the join. So there’s no phase, there’s no funny off-axis performance, it’s easy to hear the layers — which, again, is quite important for recording.

It comes back to the tonality. It’s easy to design speakers to try and chase more detail and a brighter-edged sound, but it’s like putting more salt on your dinner — you just upset the balance of the flavours. Ultimately, it’s about that presentation, that tonality and the ability to reproduce the human voice. #