April 2020

We Ask 10 Questions For High-End Audio Manufacturers
Featuring Yoav Geva, Chief Engineer At YG Acoustics
Enjoy the Music.com's 25th Anniversary brings you a new special feature!

  During Enjoy the Music.com's very special 25th Anniversary we're asking various high-end audio manufacturers to answer the same ten questions. Their answers may surprise you! This month we're featuring Yoav Geva, Chief Engineer at YG Acoustics. Founded in 2002, YG Acoustics is recognized as one of the most prominent companies in the high-end audio industry, a pioneer whose technical advancements remain unmatched. They strive to provide the best performance, cutting-edge technology, value, reliability and exceptional customer service. YG Acoustics are here because they make products that they believe in, and believe in perfection. Dedicated to top-notch craftsmanship and producing life-like sound, creating top-of-the-line speakers is the byproduct of YG Acoustics' passion. Most importantly, they are committed to long-lasting relationships with their customers and music lovers around the world.

Q. What is your first memory of falling in love with music?

Geva: Yoav Geva, Chief Engineer at YG Acoustics: When I was a little kid, there was a TV show all over Europe called "Once Upon a Time... Man". It used a shortened version of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor as its theme song. I remember thinking that it was the most beautiful piece of music I had ever heard.

Q. How did you first get introduced to high-fidelity audio gear?

Geva: My father had already been a casual audiophile, so we had a reasonably-high-quality system at home. But as far as "real" high-end is concerned – in 1996, a few months before I was enlisted for mandatory military service, my family offered me to choose a "going away" gift. As my present, I chose to travel to High End in Frankfurt (the predecessor of today's Munich show). I was 18 years old at the time, and as excited as a kid in a candy store.

Q. What is your favorite piece of vintage hi-fi, and why?

Geva: The Linn Sondek LP12. It protected audiophiles' investment by offering upgrades, so that even the original 1970s version could be brought up all the way to today's technological standards. This unwavering commitment to the customer inspired me to make YG Acoustics speakers upgradeable and expandable. This principle has since become a core value of YG Acoustics.

Q. When did you decide to start a high-end audio company?

Geva: My original plan was to create a company for crossover design software, based on my invention of DualCoherent– a proprietary algorithm for simultaneously optimizing a speaker in both the time (phase) and frequency domains. After writing the software, it quickly became apparent to me that in order to truly benefit from its unique technology, I needed to control the entire speaker design process rather than just the crossover. I changed my plans accordingly, and YG Acoustics was born in 2002.

Q. What, and when, was your company's first product?

Geva: The 1st-generation Anat Reference speaker (2004). I'm proud to state that even today, pairs of that model (with serial #036 and upward) can still be upgraded to today's technological standards, without the need to replace the product.

Q. What challenges did you face during those early years?

Geva: The greatest challenge in the early years was to be noticed. The high-end speaker industry is heavily fragmented, with numerous well-established brands vying for customers' attention. It took time for people to notice, since I was always much more of an engineer than a marketer. Once audiophiles started auditioning YG Acoustics speakers, things got a lot easier because it allowed my products and technologies to "do the talking" for me.

Q. How have your products evolved over the years?

Geva: YG Acoustics speakers are based on 8 key technologies. Every time that I created a new technology, the products benefited from it and changed dramatically. Here's a brief timeline:

• DualCoherent - the crossover coherent in both time AND frequency domains - started it all in 2002.

• Cabinet – Fully CNC-machined, aircraft-grade aluminum construction – 2004.

• FocusedElimination – Pinpoint elimination of resonances without loss – 2007.

• ToroAir – Leading-edge inductors without signal contamination – 2010.

• BilletCore – Revolutionary drivers machined from solid billet – 2011.

• ForgeCore – The ultra-low-distortion motor system – 2011.

• ViseCoil – Bass inductors optimized both mechanically AND electrically – 2015.

• BilletDome – Tweeters that combine the benefits of hard AND soft domes – 2016.

Q. What is your company's most popular product(s)?

Geva: If we look just at 2019, then Hailey 2.2 is our most popular model. However, if we look at the entire 18-year history of YG Acoustics, then our flagship lines Sonja 2 and Sonja XV, as well as their upgradeable predecessors Sonja and Anat (1st, 2nd and 3rd-generation) are our overall best-sellers.

Q. What is your next planned product offering and its' features?

Geva: We're just starting to launch InVincible - the world's first hyper-high-end sub-bass speaker. I'm very excited about it, because it involves the largest BilletCore driver ever at 53 cm (21") diameter. It was a large-scale project both literally and figuratively, and I'm extremely proud of the end-result.

Q. What advancements do you speculate high-end audio will offer ten years from now?

Geva: At the risk of sounding like a complainer – I hope that streaming will finally start to sound right... I feel that just like digital in its early days, or solid-state amplification when it just started, streaming will take some time to mature until we'll be able to fully enjoy its enormous potential.

Manufacturer
YG Acoustics
4941 Alison Street
Unit 11
Arvada, Colorado 80002

Voice: (801) 726-3887
E-mail: info@yg-acoustics.com
Website: www.YG-Acoustics.com