If you’re like me, nothing gets your audio juices flowing like hearing a product with high-end sonics selling for close to an audiophile entry-level price. That’s the kind of gear Canada-based Saturn Audio makes.

It’s no surprise that Saturn Audio makes such gear given company founder René Evans’s musical background and extensive experience in industrial manufacturing, where he became proficient in quality management, production processes, and raw material sourcing. “Except for the finance side, I saw how an entire business runs,” he told me during our interview.

Saturn Audio is, in effect, a natural outgrowth of René’s career in manufacturing and his familiarity with how instruments should sound. “My parents had me in Suzuki music school when I was 2½—I was a tiny violin player,” he said. “I played the violin and piano until I was 21, then as a professional oboist and violinist. Later, I realized that; first, I don’t like playing in front of people; second, I don’t like classical music that much; and third, it doesn’t make a lot of money. So, I ended up going into metallurgy. But I always loved music. My wife and I met in music class in high school.

“I was introduced to high-end audio by my father-in-law in my forties—about 15 years ago,” he continued. “Years later, I got into audio manufacturing, where it’s been the best of times and the worst of times. I think the worst of times was starting a business and then being hit by COVID. The best of times is I love the industry I’m in, I love the people in it, and I’m learning so much. And everything I told other people on how to run their businesses, I’m now having to tell myself: ‘smarten up, do it the right way, don’t cut corners’.” He chuckled. “It’s scary some days, but it’s so much fun and I love what I do.”

What made him take the leap into audio manufacturing?

“Manufacturing and dealing business-to-business, with retailers, I love that part. I love the business side of it. The best explanation I can give people is that I’m a conductor of an orchestra. And the payoff is a happy audience, the consumers. The players are everybody else: the manufacturers, sub-suppliers, dealers.”

“You’re a manufacturer by nature,” I told him.

“100%,” he said. “And what I’m doing now is a combination of two parts of my life: music and manufacturing. There’s something about completing a product that gives me satisfaction.”

Saturn Audio products adhere to a sonic blueprint that prioritizes instrumental tone and timbre. As stated on the company’s website, “Saturn Audio believes in natural-sounding audio. Altered sound may be intriguing in the short term but it’s unrealistic.”

René elaborated: “I like to say that hi-fi, when it’s that really detailed stuff, is like spicy food. It’ll get your endorphins going but it’s not what you eat every day. On the other side, if you like the super warm, tubey stuff, that’s like having a greasy burger. Again, it can be nice, but over time it may not give you everything you want. Somewhere in the middle, I think, is normal. You want healthy, balanced, good food. If you go to a good restaurant that does it well, you’ll walk away satisfied, digest it properly—you’ll feel good and want to do it again.

“l know what instruments sound like,” he added. “I had a violin under my ear. It’s wood, it’s catgut, it’s horsehair. You can have a beautiful soundstage, and decay, and all that stuff that’s more electronic-based, but what about the music? What about the tonality of the instrument? Does it sound that way? A piano is a perfect example; if you know what a Yamaha piano sounds like versus a Steinway or a Fazioli, you can tell the difference between them in the timbre of their wood. And in a lot of high-end audio, you lose that. The sound fakes you out with something over there”—René throws his hand in the air to indicate a studio-created soundstage effect—“and good for them. Who am I to say what your favourite food, or sound, is. But that’s what I’m after: not letting the electronics get in the way of the original recording. I work closely with a Quebec designer to get that. The music has to sound natural.”

All Saturn Audio products are designed and built in Canada. Did René ever consider building his products in China to reduce costs? “No,” came his reply. “For three reasons:

“First, when I was very young, my father told me that if you don’t take care of your village, your village will not be there for you when you need it.

“Second, with my background in quality control, I know that being close to suppliers and manufacturers is critical for quality control—we didn’t invest 20 million dollars to build our own factory, so we outsource manufacturing—but I built and worked the quality program just for Saturn at the final assembly factory, and they build space, medical, very precise equipment. That took six months of me driving to the factory every three days to get things just the way I wanted them. And that paid off in spades. If there’s an issue, we can work on it right away, in real time. I lived the nightmare of overseas quality management.

“And third, I think that having a product made here is important to the consumer.”

How important are measurements in the design of Saturn products? “The half-funny answer is: put 10 measurements on a whiteboard, and you tell me which one you like better before you hear it. You can’t do it,” he said. “The DAC chip manufacturer we work with offered us a choice between three chips for our DAC. When we chose one based on listening impressions, they said, ‘You know how to listen.’ That’s because we didn’t pick the best-measuring chip—but, as they agreed, we chose the best-sounding one. Measurements have a value, but you can’t start and end by saying, ‘It has to be this.’ Measurements are a guide and validation of what you’re doing, but at the end of the day, the sonic quality will never be measurable—ever. We don’t have a way to measure timbre; only the human brain can do it.”

When I asked René why he chose to release several categories of products rather than stick to one or two, he replied: “It’s harder to be successful selling one or two kinds of products, so I went for brand loyalty. If someone likes our power filters, along with the build quality and the packaging, then that person may be more inclined to try our other products.”

Just before this interview, I was surprised to learn that, in addition to running Saturn Audio, René is also the Canadian distributor for SBooster external power supplies.

“It’s an extraordinary product,” he said. “It can be used with anything that’s powered by a wall wart. To keep costs low and products compact, companies often rely on them—but that’s like putting a lawnmower engine in a car. Pair an SBooster with a wall-wart using component, and boom—your sonics go way up.”

Closing words?

He nodded. “I want to address why our products look the way they do, and have the features—or lack thereof—that they do. It’s because—and I wrote this on the whiteboard behind me six years ago—’We will not do engineering for the sake of marketing.’

“So that’s what Saturn Audio is,” he continued. “It’s not about bells and whistles. It’s all about sonic performance and using fewer parts that can break down. It’s why we can offer a 10-year warranty on our products.”

For more information about Saturn Audio and its products, click here.