When I first visited Diptyque over three-years ago (https://gy8.eu/blog/its-a-flat-earth/) the company consisted of three members and was housed in a small industrial unit not much bigger than a large garage. At that time, they’d just taken possession of new premises, a run-down SNCF repair workshop, which, like any facility designed to house railway rolling-stock, offered a whole lot more space. The purpose of this return trip was to check on the company’s progress, both in getting those premises up and running and in leveraging the space they provide into an even more streamlined manufacturing process, a totally revised range and even greater product consistency.
Since my last visit, the heavy-duty, rolling wooden doors are gone from the front of the building, replaced by the sort of modern, architectural glass panelling the French do so well. Behind the façade is not just a bigger space but twice the workforce too, the company now employing six permanent staff. Once through the large, sliding doors you are into the left side of the building; what might be termed the ‘dirty’ side. The large, open space houses a number of machines, including a large press, a precision cutter (effectively a flat-bed CNC with the capability to cut the voice coil traces away from an aluminium sheet without cutting its adhesive backing) and a pneumatic ‘bed’ of Diptyque’s own design that’s used to achieve precise tension on the driver diaphragms. In a separate, enclosed space, a second, far larger flat-bed CNC machine is busy cutting and contouring the interlocking panels that constitute the speaker’s core and end up sandwiched between the profiled steel front and back plates. There’s a rack down one wall that holds stock awaiting shipment and spare packaging. With every Diptyque speaker getting a wooden crate, that takes up some space. There’s a small area with machines which used to be employed producing metal parts, but which are now mainly used for prototyping or finishing the feet and outriggers that support the speakers. There’s a small area where CNCd panels are checked for fit and finish before passing through to the ‘clean’, assembly side of the workshop.
Company founding partners Eric Poix and Gilles Douziech are proud to point out that, despite the many and various materials used in constructing their speakers, almost all of the major elements are sourced within a 50km radius of their Montauban workshop. The front and rear panels are cut and pressed by a local aeronautical engineering firm(it’s handy having Airbus on your doorstep), before sending them to a local paint-shop for finishing (black and white are standard, but any one of 160 RAL colours can be specified). Then there are four colours for the leather edging and felt sourced from local supplier Laoureux, who have been supplying Steinway, Bösendorfer and Fazioli since 1923.
