REPORT
would say snatching it from under the nose of Jack O’Donnell,
INTERVIEW
who was Walter Stanton’s son-in-law. O’Donnell responded in
turn by purchasing Numark.
As a precursor to maintaining the Stanton rights, Frank had
already been importing a cheap line of NEXT! products
developed by Tracoman, which never captured the imagination of
the market.
However, fired by the possibilities of NEXT! and sensing the
leverage of the Stanton brand image, Cohen wasted little time in
moving the company far beyond cartridges and headphones, and
into turntables, mixers and other technologies. At the same time
he bought another of Lamba’s recently distributed lines, Cerwin-
Vega! and KRK, which Lamba also successfully distributed. But,
remembers Frank, “Gérard was always wary of KAM and over a
meal at the PLASA Show he asked us ‘to get rid of KAM entirely
or risk losing Stanton’.” They didn’t - but they did make sure
they positioned KAM as a starter brand, without conflicting with
Stanton.
As they entered the new millennium it was becoming clear that
The final straw was the split from Apex. “By the time their the entire fundament of Lamba had been built on loyalty. Aside
accountant finally got the Venture Capital they were seeking I was from the arrival of 60-something Steve Schiffman, a veteran of 25
left exposed, and my best option was to take a lump sum for the years, MD Chris Osborne celebrated 20 years with Lamba before
business.” finally retiring in 2007. His replacement, Gerry Frost has himself
This was the first time Frank and his ragbag army had stared been with the company 21 years, while moving up the ladder, his
over the precipice. “It was certainly my darkest hour - I was very own successor, Sales Director Denis Phoenix, and International
close to going under.” But starting again, they now had Stanton Sales Co-ordinator, Kim Wynne, can also boast double digit
cartridges on board, and slowly the currency exchange with the service records.
dollar started to work in their favour. KAM, meanwhile, continued to ramp up production and the first
Lamba had been grey importing Stanton cartridges for some time high profile reference came when their GM50 mixer went into the
while the UK distribution rights were held by Wilmex, run by the Ministry of Sound. “That was the starting point of the evolution of
late Peter Merrick. KAM,” remembers Frank Irish. “The GMX5 mixer won the Disco
“We had stopped buying from Wilmex once the fluctuation with International award (for Best 19” Mixer) three years running in
the dollar pushed the prices right up but managed to find a source the late ‘90s. It became an industry standard for the bedroom DJ
to parallel import Stanton at the same price direct from the States market, as did the KCD850 twin CD.
until export manager Frank Conlan found out. To our amazement Fired by their success, and the belief that KAM could take off in
he said he would supply at the same price for everyone, but we the States, John Terry set up KAM USA under license.
were also given the full back-up as if we were the distributor.” The In November 2005 the divorce from Stanton was made absolute
transfer was eventually completed at the CES Show in Las Vegas. following disappointing sales of the company’s pioneering Final
“We were buying more cartridges than America at a point Scratch technology and a number of quality control issues.
where their market was moving over to CD. We were the Describing it as “the biggest decision in my life”, Frank sums the
largest distributor in the world of Stanton - we were turning over period up more emotionally. “There was low profit to be made.
£3.5million,” remembers Frank. There was five-month lead in time from Taiwan - and we couldn’t
The corner had been firmly turned, and looking back Frank build KAM while we had it.”
declares that between 1993-96 were the best years of all. With So Frank persuaded Gerry Frost and Chris Osborne to drop the
the collapse of Numark, Steve Schiffman had migrated to Artie Stanton Group - sacrificing 45% of Lamba’s profit overnight. “It
Cabasso’s Gemini, wasting no time in appointing Lamba as the UK was an epic decision. For the first time in our history we became
distributor. master of our own destiny ... I decided we could sink or swim
But Cabasso was nervous about the emerging entry level KAM
brand, fearing it would claim their market share. Frank Irish and
Paul Bierton, Frank Irish, and
MD Chris Osborne took the decision to let Gemini go after two
Steve Schiffman
years in favour of building up their own brand - but in 1997-8
disaster struck again.
KAM had successfully launched with the GM25 2-channel mixer,
but when the production of three more models — the GMX800,
GMX450 and GMX250 which were designed to fill the Gemini
gap - moved from Taiwan to Korea a bad batch of products was
dispatched without quality testing. By the time the mistake was
realised, a second 40ft container had already left for the UK.
“We learnt a valuable lesson in business from that experience
- we’ve never had to QC anything that has come out of Taiwan,”
says Frank. “It took a long time to rebuild the brand, and it was
only the loyalty of our customers that saved us.”
By now Gérard Cohen had purchased Stanton Magnetics, some
026 January / February 2010
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