Contract engineering & manufacturing for audio brands
Your name on the faceplate. Our hands on the rest.
Since 2009 we've designed and built tube amplifiers, speaker cabinets, pedals, chassis and circuit boards — for our own brand and for more than twenty-five others. Wood, metal, electronics, finish and QC, under one roof in Middletown, Ohio.
- Model
- HX-50
- Serial no.
- 26-0142
- Power
- 120V ~ 60Hz 250W
- Fuse
- T2.5A SB
- Established
- 2009
- Shop floor
- 18,000 sq ft
- Location
- Middletown, Ohio
- Brands built for
- 25+
- Units serialized
- 7,000+
What we build
If it plugs into a guitar, a rack or a speaker, we've probably built it.
Send the whole product or just the part that's giving you trouble. Tags show the departments each kind of job moves through on our floor.
-
Tube amplifier heads & combos
Hand-wired or board-based, lunchbox size up to 100 watts. Built, wired and bench-tested before they leave the floor.
- PCB Assembly
- Electrical Assembly
- Metal Shop
- QC
-
Power amps & rackmount gear
19-inch rack chassis, power stages, front and rear panels, and the cabling that joins them.
- Metal Shop
- Electrical Assembly
- Laser Marking
- QC
-
Speaker cabinets
1×12 through 4×12, horizontal and vertical. Cut on the CNC router, assembled in our woodshop, covered to your spec.
- CNC Cutout
- Woodshop
- Tolex / Finish
-
Head shells & cases
Shells sized to your chassis, with roundovers, piping, corners and handles fitted.
- CNC Cutout
- Woodshop
- Tolex / Finish
-
Pedals & preamps
Enclosures drilled, powder coated and laser marked; boards stuffed, soldered, tested and boxed.
- PCB Assembly
- Powder Coating
- Laser Marking
-
Chassis & panels
Formed on a press brake with a CNC back gauge, milled, coated and marked — ready for your parts or ours.
- Metal Shop
- Powder Coating
- Laser Marking
-
Circuit boards & harnesses
Pick-and-place, wave and selective solder, hand finishing. Cables, field panels and wire harnesses built to drawing.
- PCB Assembly
- Cable & Field Panel
-
Engineering
Schematic capture, PCB layout, design-for-manufacture review and a costed bill of materials before anything is built.
- Design / Engineering
Capabilities
Sixteen processes. Fourteen happen under our roof.
Plenty of contract shops broker the hard parts. Here, wood, metal, circuit boards, finish, marking and QC are departments, not vendors — and the two jobs we send out stay in the region.
| Discipline | Process | Equipment & method | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Engineering | Circuit & PCB design | Schematic capture, board layout and Gerber release — board files on record back to 2009 | In-house |
| Design for manufacture | Costed BOMs, labor routed by department, revision-controlled build files | In-house | |
| Electronics | PCB assembly | Pick-and-place, wave and selective solder, hand soldering and rework | In-house |
| Wiring & harnesses | Point-to-point amplifier wiring, wire harnesses, cables and field panels | In-house | |
| Metal | CNC milling | Fryer CNC mill for panels, brackets and fixtures | In-house |
| Sheet-metal forming | Press brake with CNC back gauge; PEM hardware installation | In-house | |
| Powder coating | Chassis, enclosures and hardware coated on site | In-house | |
| Anodizing | Aluminum panels and parts | Partner · Indianapolis | |
| Wood & finish | CNC routing | ShopSabre router, Vectric toolpaths — 1,700+ cut programs on file | In-house |
| Cabinets & head shells | Built to your drawings: dimensions, roundovers, grooves, piping channels | In-house | |
| Covering | Tolex, piping, corners, handles and grille cloth | In-house | |
| Marking | Laser engraving & marking | Two laser systems, 500 × 700 mm bed — panels, nameplates, graphics | In-house |
| Screen printing | Panel legends and graphics | Partner · Cincinnati | |
| Quality & logistics | Final QC | Every unit, before it ships — with checks between departments where you want them | In-house |
| Serialization | Serial numbers in your format and a build record for every unit | In-house | |
| Stock & fulfillment | Finished goods held on our shelf; drop-ship on your own packing slip | In-house |
How a project runs
Every job gets a traveler. Here's what's on yours.
A traveler is the card that follows a build from station to station. Nothing moves to the next box until the last one is signed.
Example traveler — a 50-piece cabinet run, midway through production.
-
01
Conversation & NDA
Send a drawing, a prototype or a sketch. We'll sign your NDA or send ours before you share specifics.
OK
08/04 -
02
Engineering review & quote
We cost the bill of materials line by line and route the labor department by department, so the quote matches how it's actually built.
OK
08/19 -
03
Prototype & golden sample
We build it, you play it. The unit you sign off becomes the reference every production unit is checked against.
OK
09/08 -
04
Production run
The job moves through wood, metal, electronics and finish on its traveler, with checks between stations where you want them.
In work -
05
Final QC & serialization
Every unit passes final QC and gets a serial number in your format before it's packed.
-
06
Ship or hold
Ship to your warehouse, drop-ship to your customer on your own packing slip, or leave finished stock on our shelf until you need it.
Partner portal
See your stock without calling us.
Every partner gets a login to the same system our floor runs on.
- What's built, what's held, what can ship — by model, updated as units clear QC.
- Hold finished units against an order you haven't placed yet.
- Orders, open questions and shared projects in one place instead of an email thread.
- Every unit tracked by serial number, from its traveler to its tracking number.
Available to ship
Your models on our shelf| Model | On shelf | Held for you | Can ship | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2×12 vertical cabinet | 18 | 6 | 12 | Ready |
| 50W head, black | 9 | 9 | 0 | All held |
| Boost pedal | 64 | 20 | 44 | Ready |
| 2U rack chassis | 0 | 0 | 0 | In build · 24 due 10/02 |
Sister brand
We build our own amps on the same floor.
KSR Amps, our boutique tube-amp line, goes through the same departments, the same QC and the same shipping bench as your job. We learned what an OEM customer needs by being a very demanding one.
Visit ksramps.comDiscretion
More than 25 brands. None of their logos on this page.
A lot of the gear we build ships under names you know, and most of those companies would rather you didn't know who built it. Your drawings, your costs and your customers stay yours.
Start a project
Tell us what you're building.
A sketch is enough to start. We'll reply with questions, an NDA if you want one, and an honest read on whether we're the right shop for it.
- Shop
- 2520 Atco Ave
Middletown, OH 45042 - Getting here
- On I-75, halfway between Cincinnati and Dayton
- Phone
- (513) 480-2677