Although the name Eden is just becoming a household word in the world of bass players, their cabinets have been in the bass community for years incognito. Founded in 1976 by owner David Nordschow, Eden Electronics pioneered the 410 with tweeter bass cabinet, and later developed a compact 210 cabinet with tweeter. Both cabinets were designed to handle full-range input from electric bass including 5- and 6-string basses. Eden's products began to infiltrate the bass community in the early 80's and have since caught the attention of many bass players. I talked to David Nordschow at NAMM about his products and his company. —Dave Freeman What was the inspiration for developing the 410 cabinet? I originally built the D-410T because I got tired of my reps that were selling Hartke, telling me how great it was, and how nothing on the planet could touch it. I went out and listened to it. It was fine equipment but it wasn't incredible. I looked at what they had done, and I decided there were some ways to beat it. So, I designed the D-410T and showed it. It worked great.

My east coast rep was also a rep for SWR. They were looking for a box builder and we were looking to sell some boxes. The rep put us together. We sent them a 2-way cabinet based on the type of contract they were looking for. As an afterthought I said, `Hey, I have this new cabinet I've designed and I think it's kind of neat. Would you be interested in using it?' A couple of weeks went by and then I got a call. They loved the 410 cabinet. So I went out to California and the next thing I know is we're in business. We built many cabinets for them for about three years. It was a good relationship.

Why did you build for another company instead going under your own name?

We needed to increase our production and we needed a company that had marketing, distribution, clientele, and electronics to go with it. They had the marketing slot already pre-built. It would have taken me years to build that marketing structure. We plugged in and overnight it was a success. It was a good fit for both of us.

So it was a good meeting of the companies...

It was a very good meeting of the two companies at the time, and I believe we both profited well from the experience. As time went on, things changed and the relationship came to an end. They went their way, and we went ours. We're pursuing what we do well.

Were changes made to the designs when you put the cabinets out under Eden?

Yes. There were a lot of small technical refinements, and improvements in production quality. The products we built then were our first generation for bass guitar. Now we are on to our third and fourth generation products. Technology keeps improving.

Do you manufacture all the components for your Eden products?

For years we bought speakers from other companies. We were at the mercy of that company's workers however good they might have been on any particular week. I decided that the only way to maintain the quality control I wanted was to have control of the speaker itself. We make the loudspeakers and tweeters at our own plant. Virtually everything is built in Minneapolis. We have our own cabinet shop and all amplifier assembly is done at our plant.

Why the focus on 10 inch drivers?

I think Ampeg deserves credit for kicking off the area of tens with the SVT cabinet. They proved it would work. Stereo people have always known that tens work great for bass. The Hartke people gave it another good kick when they came along with their 410 cabinet. Four 10 inch drivers have more cone area than a 15 inch driver but without the transient response problems of a 15. Tens are much faster and more aggressive sounding. That's the key to the bass sound. With multiple units, you have power handling and bass ability. If you put them in a correctly designed enclosure, you can get some amazing power levels with 10 inch drivers.

You went an extra step and added a horn tweeter.

The tens were missing dynamics which are high frequencies. If you make a speaker that is very bright in the high end, it's hard to get good low end. The compromise is always there in engineering. The real trick is to get a second driver to extend the range. That's the basis for most hi-fi speakers.

It seems that your bass cabinets are more of an audiophile design.

The original units were ±2db on axis—as flat as a studio monitor.

That's unheard of for a bass guitar cabinet!

It's pretty unusual. People had a hard time understanding why we built it that way until they played them for awhile. The nice thing about having a relatively neutral enclosure is that you can shape any tone you want on it. If the enclosure has a predisposition to a certain curve, it's much more difficult to make changes to that.

What makes your products different or special from other companies building similar cabinets?

One of the things that makes our cabinets so special is that they're built properly for the application. They're very heavily braced and a lot of attention is paid to the airflow inside the cabinet. The cabinet is very important. It must match the speaker and be very well built. The driver, which is the heart of the sound, was very carefully selected to work in an optimally small box, yet still produce a lot of good bass output and sound good in the midrange. I think we've achieved that nicely. It took a lot of research.

What motivated you to build amp heads?

It's hard to be taken seriously in the international markets when you only build one piece of the puzzle. To just be a box builder without the electronics to go with it, puts you in an untenable position in the long run. We thought it would complete us as a company if we had our own electronics, particularly if we did something special.

What was the concept?

Rather than follow the path that everyone has been taking for the last 5 years with parametric and graphic equalizers, we decided to take a step back to the Sixties and go for a very warm tube sound, and couple that to a very strong amplifier. We thought that would give us a great tone. I designed the product concept and put together the design team. We weren't worried about it being incredibly flexible because the cabinets themselves sound so good. When it's used with a good bass there isn't much need for a lot of equalization.

The first time we showed it, people were very excited. A lot of it had to do with the fact that it's different. It didn't have 15 knobs on the front and it's easy to use. You turned it on and it just sounded good. You don't have to spend an hour setting it up. Most people who have been playing a long time love that concept.

Some players like an amp with lots of knobs. Your amps don't have that.

It's not for everyone. You need a very good quality instrument. You need to know what you're playing style is, and what you need out of your instrument, and your enclosure. But for those that it fits, it's an extremely good match. People that have zeroed in on that just love the amp. Good things are often simple.

Do you have any new products?

After having many people trying to emulate our original D-410T design, we decided it was time to raise the standard. So we redesigned the enclosure to take advantage of our new ten inch XL driver. The XL driver was designed to improve on the original ten design without changing the sound characteristics. We improved the sensitivity and raised the power handling, and we've added 6db to the low bass response. The new D-410XLT cabinet can really be pushed.

I understand Eden is a small family oriented company. Who's involved?

There's myself as president/chief engineer and there's my long-term partner, my wife Judy, who is vice-president of sales. She's had a lot to do with the company moving forward over the last several years. We have other people that are consulting engineers, technicians, and players that have made it all possible too.

To most players, the name Eden and its products are new. What do you want them to know about Eden?

We've been a well kept secret. We're very serious about what we do and we build the best quality products we possibly can. One of the keys to our success is that we're a small, high quality firm. We need to have more to offer than the big guys—better product, better service, better support for our dealers and our clients. We also try to keep it so it's a good value for our clients. We don't have a big advertising budget, so we have to stand on our own merits and quality. We have to perform every time we go out. We're long-term people. We have good long-standing relationships with our clients and dealers.

What's ahead for Eden in the world of bass?

We've got some new ideas. There will be some interesting things in the next couple of years. I think the trend in the industry is for smaller, lighter, more powerful systems. That's going to get very interesting because the physics of speakers and cabinets is nearing the technical possibilities for what we currently have. The technology for speakers hasn't really changed significantly since 1937. It's come alive again in the last few years. There have been some exciting things and new patents. We plan to stay on the cutting edge of this. We plan to keep building the best products we can for the marketplace and improve what we already have.

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