What happens inside the bay
TAT CHUAN AUDIO PTE LTD runs a listening room on the fifth floor of Lian Tong Building in Singapore, and every job that comes through it follows the same order of work: pick the bay, seat the driver, tune the room. The six services below are how that order is carried out in practice, from the first driver measurement to the evening a finished system is handed over.
Driver Match Desk
The desk is the first stop for any cabinet that enters the room. A driver is not judged on its own; it is judged against the space it will occupy, because a unit that behaves beautifully on a free bench can sound tight or thin once it is bolted into a real enclosure. The engineer measures cone mass, surround stiffness, impedance across the sweep and the height of the frame before any card is written, then compares the result with the cabinet volume and porting that will load it.
Matching also means keeping a record that survives the years. Each unit leaves the desk with a plain card noting its measurement, its pair partner and the reason it was chosen over the alternatives that were on the shelf that week. When a surround finally perishes and a replacement is needed, the desk can look up the original profile and choose a close match instead of starting from nothing. This is the part of the work that clients rarely see, and it is the part that keeps an old cabinet sounding like itself.
Dial Plate Builds
Dial plates are built in the same room where the finished system is measured, which allows the scale on the plate to follow the actual behaviour of the cabinet rather than a generic pattern. Each plate is cut to the panel opening, drilled for the mechanism, then engraved and hand finished. A thin cloth gasket is set behind the plate so that dust does not find its way into the mechanism during the years the system sits in a living room.
The build takes longer than a bought-in plate, and the reason is simple. A dial that points at the wrong place is worse than no dial at all, because it invites the owner to trust a reading that is not true. Where a client has an older plate that still works but has faded, the desk will re-engrave it rather than replace the panel, keeping the original bay intact. Plates are only ever fitted once the room has settled, so the final scale is set against a cabinet that has already reached its working shape.
Leather Bay Fittings
The bay is fitted with hide and grille cloth cut to templates refined over many years on Tannery Lane. Hide is selected for grain and thickness, not only colour, because a panel that looks right and sags after two years is not a fitting worth keeping. Cloth is chosen for openness and weave stability, then stretched and stitched in place with saddle thread. Tension is set by hand and left to settle for a few days before any panel is closed.
Fittings are the part of a system that people touch every day, so they are treated as working surfaces rather than decoration. Corners are doubled, seams are set away from the hand, and the stitch line follows the edge in a single run wherever the shape allows. Where a client wants an existing bay refreshed, the old cloth is removed carefully so the frame can be inspected for movement before new material goes on. The result should feel like the room decided it, not like a cover was laid over a box.
Listening Rounds
A listening round is a timed session in the showroom, usually in the evening when the building is quiet. A client, an engineer and the room card sit together and work through a prepared set of recordings chosen to show voices, strings and low drums in turn. Notes are taken in plain words as the session runs, so that a comment such as a slightly forward vocal line can be recorded next to the measurement that explains it.
Rounds are deliberately short. A focused ninety minutes teaches more than a long afternoon, because ears tire long before the equipment does. At the end of a round the engineer writes a short summary: what was heard, what was measured and what will be changed before the next visit. Clients are encouraged to bring their own recordings, and to return more than once, since a single impressive pass says little about how the room will sound after a month of ordinary evenings.
Cabinet Tune Days
A cabinet tune day is a full day in the bay with the cabinet open. Damping is adjusted in stages, the room is swept repeatedly, and the low end is worked until it settles into a shape that holds together from the seat. Nothing is rushed; the day exists precisely because tuning done in a hurry rarely survives the first week of real use. Clients are welcome to sit in for part of the day and hear each change as it is made.
Before the day begins the desk asks for a short list of what the room is used for, how loud it usually plays and whether there are times of day when it is nearly silent. That list shapes the priority. A room that is mostly used for quiet speech and strings is tuned differently from one that has to carry loud recordings in the evening. At the close of the day the cabinet is closed, the room is left to rest overnight, and a short listening pass is held the following morning before anything is declared finished.
Service Handover Evenings
When a system is ready, it is handed over in the evening after the building has settled. The room is heard one last time from the seat, then the owner is walked through the care of the hide, the cloth and the dial plates. Every setting is written down, every measured value is filed, and a copy of the room card goes home with the client so that future questions have something to refer to.
The handover is also the start of the longer relationship. The engineer who ran the build explains what to watch for, when to call, and which small changes can be made at home without disturbing the tuning. Clients often return a year or two later for a fresh listening round, and the original card makes that return quick rather than a matter of starting over. A handover evening ends with the room in place, the records complete and a name and number for anything that comes up later.
How a job moves through the room
Pick the bay. Seat the driver. Tune the room.- Step onePick the bay
The room and the cabinet are described, a stall is chosen, and the first listening set is agreed.
- Step twoSeat the driver
Drivers are matched at the desk and the fittings are prepared while the bay is cleared.
- Step threeTune the room
Cabinet tune days and listening rounds alternate until the seat and the sweep agree.
- Step fourHand it over
Records are filed, care is explained and the room is heard one last time in the evening quiet.
Book a service or ask a question
Whether the job is a single driver match or a complete cabinet tune day, the desk at 18 Tannery Lane will answer with a plan, a timeline and the next available slot.