A-Line Acoustics' market includes regional and touring sound-production companies, auditoriums, arenas, theaters, concert halls, nightclubs, houses of worship, and other portable and fixed installation venues where clear quality sound and ease of installation are important.

"Outstanding audio was a baseline assumption for us," says Tony Faranda, director of engineering for A‑Line Acoustics, which designs and sells easy-to-install professional-level audio systems. "Mediocrity was never an option. At this level of the market, the differences in sound quality are relatively small—but professionals notice. We needed to go one step further."

Faranda, who built his first speaker at age 10 and started his own pro-audio rental company after college, knew the company had to make converts among the professionals who use and install sound systems every day.

The solution? The AL-10, a speaker system that is more efficient than the competition, providing better sound with fewer speakers for a wider variety of music. The system is also lighter and more compact to transport and, thanks to the company's patented rigging system, easier to install and faster to adjust than its competitors' systems.

Faranda credits BFTP with helping the Corry-based company understand their market and focus sales efforts accordingly. In addition to providing $68,000 in funding, BFTP supplied extensive business planning expertise. Faranda and his business partner, Rock Chase, met frequently with BFTP staff, who encouraged them to think of every aspect of their business—engineering, manufacturing, marketing—as a single, integrated unit.

"As a long-time small business owner, I may have figured out some of this stuff on my own, eventually," says Faranda. "But BFTP really helped us advance—far, far beyond the dollars they invested."

Building a Better Mousetrap
According to Faranda, the pro audio industry tends to be very brand loyal—until something better comes along. "Audio professionals are responsive to advances in technology. If somebody builds a better mousetrap, it will eventually catch on."

In fact, it was the most recent advance in pro audio speaker technology—the line array—that encouraged Faranda and Chase to start A-Line Acoustics in the first place. In a line array, speakers are stacked on top of each other, effectively creating one large, efficient speaker. This setup allows sound technicians much greater flexibility in "aiming" the speakers to different areas of the venue by adjusting the relative angle of each individual speaker cabinet.

That's the theory, at least. In actual practice, adjusting a line array has traditionally been laborious and time-consuming. Initial aiming of speakers is done mostly by software, but last-minute changes are common—and are usually dreaded.

"If you're flying a stack, you first have to lower it, then detach the speakers, adjust the angle, reattach cabinets, and fly it again. If you're only two hours from show time, you won't have time. You'll have to live with inferior sound coverage," says Faranda.

Another of A-Line's unique selling advantages is the patented EZAL ("Easy Alignment") rigging system, which integrates a mechanical lever into the rigging to allow installers to adjust the angle of the speakers under load. It's so simple that one person can lower an array, tweak the angle of a speaker and raise it again, all in a matter of minutes, instead of hours. Click here to see the system in action.

Most audio companies have to outsource the fabrication of their rigging, but Chase is a partner in family-owned Chase Manufacturing, also based in Corry. That means A-Line can build the entire AL-10 speaker and integrated EZAL rigging system completely in-house. (Currently the speakers are fabricated in 3,000 square feet of a 9,000-foot facility owned by Chase Manufacturing. In 2006, A-Line plans to move to a larger building that it will purchase from Chase Manufacturing.)

Thinking Small for Future Growth
Plans for the company include developing a less-expensive product line for smaller markets—musicians, smaller churches and theaters, local sound contractors and rentals.

BFTP recently facilitated a connection between A-Line and the Behrend College at Penn State’s Erie campus for help with product development, where investigating next-generation enhancements to the EZAL rigging system is now a technical research project for a student.

"Our success has been all about the good chemistry between people," says Faranda. "That's what makes A-Line so special, and that's what makes our partnership with BFTP so important."

 From the January/February 2006 Issue