Recording - September 2016 - 72

Brexit And Its Impact
On The Audio Industry
Yes, it matters to us in the USA. Here's why.

Guest editorial by Scott Dorsey
Unless you have been hiding in a cave
for the past few months, you have probably noticed that the British have voted to
leave the European Union and the result
has been a big political mess. But why
should musicians care about Brexit?
First of all, in the short term there is a
huge drop in the value of the pound,
making British goods very cheap to buy
with dollars. So if you always wanted
that Coles 4038 ribbon microphone or
that Crookwood Paintpot preamplifier,
now is the time to buy it.
The British have long had a very small
but dedicated audio products industry,
mostly making very high grade equipment
on very small production bases. A few

in the world and which continues making
products in Scotland. They announced not
long ago that they were intending on moving production to Asia as a cost-cutting
measure, something which saddens all of
us who have been proud to see their
domestic manufacturing tradition. With
Brexit going on, it may not in fact be so
much of a benefit to move manufacture
overseas.
As European musicians lose easy access
to the UK market for tours, it will put
Americans in a more favorable place to
compete with them. Continental groups will
have to go through the same crazy visa
procedures that we go through to work in
the UK and that's of benefit to Americans
trying to compete in that market.
The people who voted to leave the EU
cite freedom from unnecessary European
regulations as one of their main reasons,
and there is no more unnecessary
European regulation than the RoHS

exemptions. The lead-free solders are both
physically more brittle and can result in
failed connections due to shock more easily, as well as having a problem known as
"tin whiskers", where thin spikes of tin
grow out of solder joints and form shorts.
The tin whisker problems are not a
major concern for most consumer gear,
but when you have high voltages and
narrow tolerances, they can be a real
issue. The high voltages cause electrostatic attraction that speeds growth of the
whiskers, and there is no better environment for whisker growth than in the highvoltage front ends of externally-polarized
condenser microphones. Making externally-polarized microphones of any reliability
sadly still requires leaded solder.
Even though the RoHS regulations are
not in effect in the US, the vast majority
of Asian-made consumer and semiprofessional equipment is made to RoHS
specifications so that the same product

The people who voted to leave the EU cite freedom from unnecessary European
regulations as one of their main reasons, and there is no more unnecessary
European regulation than the RoHS (Reduction of Hazardous Substances) Act.
companies like Trident and Soundcraft
have managed to expand and take production abroad, but there is still a lot of
gear being handmade in the UK, from big
Neve consoles to tiny custom microphone
windscreens from Foam Conversion.
There's no cheaper time than now to
buy that Wills pipe organ that you
always wanted.
Not only does the pound make equipment from the UK cheap, it makes it very
profitable for British performers to tour the
US where they will be paid in dollars.
With the Internet and the ability to contract a session musician halfway across
the world to record a part for your work,
it means that you can now afford to have
some topnotch performers come in. In
much the same way that current classical
labels take their engineering team and
scores to record new works in Eastern
Europe, where phenomenally well-trained
orchestras can be had for cheap, I can
imagine labels doing the same thing for
rock and jazz in the UK.
It will be interesting to see what happens to Tannoy, which is probably one of
the longest-established speaker companies
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RECORDING SEPTEMBER 2016

(Reduction of Hazardous Substances)
Act, which has eliminated the use of lead
solder for most classes of products sold
in the EU. The replacement lead-free solders get better every day but still have a
lot of reliability problems, and freedom
from that is a good thing for the British...
and for American manufacturers trying to
sell high-end audio products into the UK.
The original notion of RoHS was that
by removing hazardous substances from
commercial products, there would be less
pollution caused by leaching from landfills, and that was indeed an admirable
idea. Unfortunately, though, the result of
the move to lead-free solders (as well as
the loss of some other materials like cadmium plating) results in premature failures
and, in the end, results in more waste
being put into landfills. This, of course,
defeats the original purpose of the Act.
There are exceptions for military gear,
some classes of telecommunications gear,
and some types of test equipment. Audio
gear isn't exempted, although there are
some smaller audio manufacturers who
are selling non-RoHS products in Europe
claiming telecom or military product

can be sold around the world without the
high cost of specific versions for each
country. The more of one product you
can make in one version, the less it costs
you to make, and so consequently RoHS
products are washing up on these shores
too. Brexit won't stop that at all, but it
will make it easier for the high-end manufacturers who really want to make a
high-reliability product, and whose small
production runs make for very different
economics than mass-produced gear.
Still, in the end perhaps the most important effect that Brexit will have on the music
industry is that it will give a generation of
folksingers something to sing about. The
British have had a long history of singing
about bad political moves, dating back
even farther than "Wha'll be King But
Charlie." No doubt this mess will provide
grist for the folk mill for years to come.

Scott Dorsey (dorsey@recordingmag
.com), when not working as at least
three different kinds of engineer, thinks
about this sort of thing a lot.

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