The best bar evenings of my life, I have experienced in Poland. This was not (exclusively) due to the amount of alcohol consumed, but rather to the hospitality of everyone present at the bar. This trip to Warsaw is not intended to read as a chronicle of bar nights, but very much as a hallmark of fantastic hospitality and surprises.
Since the last visit to Marcin Hamerla's company HEM in Warsaw a few years ago, a lot has changed. The number of employees has almost doubled and HEM has moved to a new location. Previously operating more as a manufacturer in the background, HEM has meanwhile established Ferrum as a hi-fi brand on its own. Sharing paths with Michal Jurewicz and Mytek, however, is meanwhile a thing of the past. HEM no longer produces and develops for Mytek. Still, some Mytek products remained in stock and are being sold by HEM. Customers owning old Mytek components are of course not left out in the cold and will get support by HEM if needed. Marcin comports himself quite openly regarding this issue and it’s important to him not to sweep this separation from Mytek under the carpet. Michal's and Marcin's plans and ideas simply weren’t sufficiently congruent anymore and led therefore to disagreements, so consequently a split was inevitable. Fortunately, not only Mytek, now exclusively under Michal's leadership, still remains with us, but Marcin's, respectively HEM's company Ferrum was also given the chance to see the light of the audio world. From this point of view, the separation of HEM from Mytek, or vice versa - depending on your individual perspective, was probably not the worst thing that could have happened to the outside world. What Marcin's engineers are really capable of, they could already impressively prove with the hybrid power supply HYPSOS and the headphone amplifier OOR. Correspondingly, I am very much looking forward to a site visit to meet the people who are bringing Ferrum to life.
Initially, the travel planning turns out to be not that easy, as I have to break away from my main job at the theater on one hand, while Dirk Sommer, my editor-in-chief, wants to enrich our visit to Warsaw with a few more appointments on the other. The handover of the STATEMENT-in-High-Fidelity-Award in conjunction with our Polish colleague Wojtek Pacula, as well as a visit to the Krakow Sonic Society are planned. After some twists and turns everything snaps in and we meet in Leipzig for the joint onward journey to Warsaw. The trip runs smoothly without any incidents, except for the unrestrainedly crowded access road to the hotel in the evening. After checking in, Dirk, his spouse Birgit and I set off on a short walkabout, along the Palace of Culture, into downtown Warsaw to find a restaurant for dinner. Back at the hotel, I am attracted by the spectacular illumination of the Palace of Culture and head out again with my photo equipment into the pleasantly cool night. Shortly before the lighting of the palace is switched off at midnight and a light drizzle starts to fall, I still manage to get some photos taken.
The next morning after breakfast, at 11 o'clock sharp, our chauffeur was already awaiting us in front of the hotel. The chauffeur in this case turned out to be company boss Marcin himself. After a joyful greeting and after having clarified a few minor organizational matters, he proclaims that he has managed to source Moonshine as a host gift for me. Samogon Podlaski Palony vodka comes from the Podlaskie voivodeship, the northeastern part of Poland, which is a region quite known for illicit distilleries. One of these distilleries, Samogon, has now obtained a concession and its Moonshine, the loose translation for illicit spirits, is now freely and legally available. The enthusiasm with which Marcin aims his praises of the high-proof spirit at me comes close to the larcenous pleasure with which he uses to talk about Ferrum products.
On the way to HEM's new location, we pass the old company headquarters at some distance out of town and head for the much more rural Pruszków. The production facilities are located on the first floor of a functional "factory hall" style building. The three letters H, E and M, unadornedly printed on an A4 paper sheet, mark the entrance. I cannot help feeling that this A4 sheet was hung there specifically for our visit. Inwardly I have to smile a little. I like this kind of understatement. On the upper floor, a long corridor stretches out, on the left side of which all the doors lead into the large, actual production room. The doors on the right side lead into the sales office, the office of the workshop management and the meeting room. In the latter, Magdalena Konarska, HEM's new marketing manager, and sales manager Dorota Wiejcka are awaiting us with cake and some beverages. The atmosphere is just as warm as I remember it from the last get-togethers with Marcin and his team. We start by chatting about potatoes, groats and the classic Polish daily routine, which includes two breakfasts in addition to an extended lunch and a light evening meal similar to the German "Abendbrot" (supper bread). Since the conversation already revolves around food, we thus agree on an appropriate time for our joint dinner, which, in contrast to the Polish norm, will certainly be more sumptuous today. At least that's what we were assuming at that point. Host gifts are quickly exchanged and I set off with Marcin for a round of introductions through his company.
We take the sales office as our starting point. Here we find Sales Manager Dorota Wiejcka, Marta Zygmuntowicz, responsible for administration and sales, Krzysztof Moshrif (Corporate Development), Wojtek Głowienka (Technical Support and Sales), who has asked not to be photographed, and finally Igor Sosnowski, who is in charge of the company's presence on social media platforms. As a customer, you will have the most contact with these members of the staff. The next office hosts Purchasing and Logistics Manager Dariusz Grdeń and Production Manager Arkadiusz Sęk, whom Marcin introduces with a grin as the "grimace man". In fact, it isn't that easy for me to interpret his mimic fireworks correctly. However, I think I understand - at least - that he's happy about my visit. He started out as a technician at HEM and quickly developed into an excellent workshop manager. According to Marcin, his colleague Dariusz Grdeń is indispensable for production as well, as his job is to keep the warehouse well filled, which has become a real challenge in view of the current market situation. Dariusz still remembers Dirk's last visit well and amusedly shows me the old group photo from the article at the time, in which he himself can be seen together with Paweł Gorgoń, now head of the development department, Arkadiusz Sęk and of course Marcin.
Marcin's own workplace is located in the middle of the large production room, with Marketing Manager Magdalena Konarska sitting opposite to him. Marcin chose his workspace in the middle of his engineers and technicians not only because the distances are short, but also because he prefers to sit between "his boys," as he says. It seems to me that he sees his employees as an enlarged family. While introducing them, sometimes it's to be noticed that he's almost as proud of them as he surely is of his own children. In the back of the room, there are to be found a section for device manufacture and another which occupies itself with software installation and final inspection. Rafał Bednarski, Zbigniew Cieślak, Oleksandr Cherviak, Łukasz Jędrzycki, Andrii Matusiv and Oleksandr Promovych work here.
The housing parts for the Ferrum components are completely manufactured in Poland and assembled at HEM. The circuit boards, on the other hand, are manufactured in China. In the past, service companies from Belgium were also contracted for this purpose, but now the PCBs originate mainly from China. This is not because they are particularly inexpensive, but because the finished circuit boards supplied by the corresponding suppliers have proven to be of the highest quality. The unpopulated circuit boards are sent to Gdansk accompanied by the required electronic components and assembled there by another service provider. In a further step, some important components are then soldered on by hand at HEM. The linkage of PCB and enclosure is exclusively done in-house at HEM. In the following, the electronics are first checked for correct function and then the devices receive their programming. The final inspection consists of two full-range tests covering all functions and parameters, performed by two different employees, as well as a stability test. No device leaves the final inspection without having run through a few hours of operation.
With these impressions, the first part of the company report ends. In the second part, which will follow soon, I will get to know Ferrum's engineers, learn a bit about their way of working and get a small preview of future plans.