ZAOR Studio opened its doors in 2006, founded by Italian piano maker Michele Zullo. With the aim of reinventing recording studios, ZAOR set up in southern Italy, near Naples, and began designing in innovative ways until it became a world-renowned company.
In 2010, Zullo joined forces with Klaus Gehlhaar—now the company's CEO in Luxembourg—to add new products for the professional and hobbyist studio market and, in 2012, the company set up in Romania. Gehlhaar explains how ZAOR has become an international benchmark in the studio furniture industry.
Question: Where can we find your products? In which countries? In which markets?
Klaus Gehlhaar: We sell directly and also through our distributors around the world. Our studio desks are practically everywhere. We supply major producers, DJs and musicians as well as the hobbyist studio market. We also have many customers in the world of television and in music stores, who use our display units to show their merchandise.
Q: What advantages does your brand offer compared with competitors?
K.G.: We have very tight margins and very low production costs thanks to our careful design, our smart purchasing and affordable labor in Romania. These advantages are passed directly on to our customers. In addition, we are musicians and sound engineers, so we know the business (I've traveled all over the world with the TC System 6000 and visited hundreds of studios everywhere), and we listen to what the scene demands so we can hire the best product designers and optimize ergonomics, style and materials. I think we understand musicians 2.0 better than anyone.
Q: Who is your product aimed at and how is it used?
K.G.: As I mentioned, we cover many different market niches: from hobbyist studios, DJs and producers to musicians, TV channels, stores, theaters or basically anyone who needs elegant, functional furniture. We build desks, workstations, speaker stands, racks, display cases, student desks, speaker podiums… and anything that can be built with wood and a bit of metal. Together with our partner, Humanscale, we also offer chairs, monitor arms, lights and cable organizers.
Q: In terms of price, what range does your catalog cover?
K.G.: A pair of small adjustable desktop speaker stands, a category we practically invented, would be around 149 euros. At the other end, a Steven Slate Z3 would be around 10,000 euros. So the range is quite wide.
Q: Do you have several divisions or product categories? What ranges do they cover?
K.G.: Our MIZA line is built for project studios and hobbyist studios in a very functional way, made from pressed wood and solid paneling. The iDesign line, with the iDesk and KLAViDesk, is aimed at the most cutting-edge producers and DJs who love minimalism and open designs, with colors such as a glossy white piano finish. It is made from particleboard and polished solid wood painted with a five-coat process. It takes a long time, but the result is beautiful.
We also have the classic series in solid wood—no one uses this type of wood more than we do, and it comes from sustainable production in Romania—which is aimed at large professional setups with a lot of customization work. From large workstations to built-in mixing consoles, controllers, 19" gear, speakers and more.
We offer speaker stands and racks in all three ranges. We have also created a new line called YESK with a compact, modern workstation made of very light solid wood.
Q: Do you offer after-sales service?
K.G.: We always help our customers so their buying experience is second to none. We're there to fix any damage caused in shipping or to upgrade products even years after purchase.
Q: How can people find out more about your references and the brands you represent?
K.G.: On our website www.zaorstudiofurniture.com you can find all our products and see some examples of custom work, such as the creations for Snoop Dogg and Steve Aoki. We also have links to all our distributors around the world and contact details to reach us directly: we speak Spanish, Italian, French, German, Romanian, Hungarian, Dutch, Luxembourgish and English.
Q: Regarding Spain and other countries, do you have a distributor? Are purchases made directly from your company? Are you interested in setting up a distributor or other outlets around the world for your brand? How?
K.G.: We have a distributor in Madrid called Área Suena, but our products can also be obtained from any store in Spain or directly through our website. If custom projects are complicated, we prefer to have direct contact with our customers. We are very interested in finding new partners in Spain, in Portugal and, especially, in Latin America.
Q: Is there anything notable you'd like to highlight about ZAOR?
K.G.: In today's world we represent Europe as few companies do: we are a German, a Luxembourger and an Italian who have a factory in Romania and sell to the whole world. We travel a lot and we are open to getting to know different cultures and making friends everywhere, and we want to help spread the one thing all of humanity has in common: music.
