Geshelli Labs Archel2.5 Pro Review + Interview

Here is the lovely interview I did with Sherri, hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Read on!

HFN: Hello Sherri, can you please tell us a bit about yourself and your role at Geshelli Labs?

Sherri: Thank you for taking the time to ask about our products. I am the CEO of Geshelli Labs, a Woman Owned audio company. My role at Geshelli includes the typical administration side, Customer Service and Support. It branches off from there into the manufacturing side. I do the through-hole soldering for the boards and prep and coat the cases. I am responsible for Geshelli’s unique color combinations. Every weekend I’m in the booth making cases and I can easily spend all day mixing colors to come up with new ideas.  Geno is the technical expert and is the one who designs our products. While I’m out in the booth, he can be found at the computer working on new ideas. Along with designing, he also runs the Pick & Place machines, laser cutters, surface mount soldering and he tests and QC’s each product before it goes out the door. Our son recently graduated from College and joined us. He is taking over the soldering and laser cutting which has been a welcome relief. He is bringing a fresh new perspective and is the tie breaker when Geno and I have different opinions on the direction of a product design.

HFN: How did it all begin? Who exactly are Geshelli Labs?

Sherri: Geshelli began back in 2016. Geno’s background as an Engineer spans over twenty years. He was one of the designers for a system that gives folks with ALS and other speech problems a voice. Geno was the person who designed the USB for the product along with many other embedded tasks. In his spare time, he would design audio equipment for fun. He is a Bass player and made a DAC for himself. Everyone who used it told him he should sell these. A co-worker had a family member at a local Air Force base and asked if Geno could make a DAC for him. That was the start of what is now known as Geshelli Labs. Once that soldier had the DAC in hand, he told his friends, and every night was spent hand soldering boards for the military audiophiles.

HFN: What is the core ideology behind the Geshelli Labs?

Sherri: At its core, Geshelli Labs focus is designing clean, affordable audio gear that is different from what they can get anywhere else. We do not look like or do things like other companies and are quite happy being the outsider. For us, the customer is why we are doing this. We get to know many of the people who buy our products and can call them friends. Other companies get to know their vendors, and their competition. We’re the opposite, our focus is the people who spend their hard-earned money choosing us. When Geno was growing up, he didn’t have the opportunity to buy nice audio equipment.  His family was low income and anything outside essentials was out of his reach. When we started Geshelli the one thing he insisted on is we had to make products that people could afford. When you are a kid who has to watch others get things you can’t have, you do not forget what that feels like. On my side, I want people to have a positive experience when buying from us. My hope is when they open that box, they are happy they chose us.

One thing not many people know is we do other things outside of audio. We have a laser cutting division that has done everything from name tags and signs for a national restaurant and hotel chains, fishing lures and plexiglass for personal protection against COVID-19. Geno also does Engineering, board design and Pick & Place for other local companies.

HFN: Can you briefly run me through the production steps?

Sherri: Another thing that makes us unique is we do everything in house.  When we say “design and assemble” we are truly doing just that. We are not just putting a finished board in the prefab case. We get the bare boards from Colorado who makes the boards on site. They do not have them made elsewhere. We populate most of the board with our Pick & Place machines, bake, clean then hand solder the rest. The cases are cut down from 12 ft long extruded aluminum that is made right in Orlando, Florida. After cutting, I sandblast, gas off, coat and bake right here in the shop. You can even request custom colors. We have a few laser cutters and cut the plexiglass for the front/back plates. We also cut our own foam box inserts. Currently we do it on the laser cutters but soon will have a press to do that. Every board then goes through the first QC process. We do an overnight burn in. The board then goes through a second QC and is placed in the case. It sits powered up for another few hours then the product is run on the APX555 for final verification. We do this for every product before it leaves our shop. I do the final inspection and package the product.

HFN: Would you want to tell our readers anything about the upcoming gear?

Sherri: Geshelli is planning on introducing a new DAC called the JNOG and an update to the Archel2. Final details will be upcoming in the next few weeks and will be on our social media pages and website. We are hoping to release both on Black Friday.

We thank Sherri for taking the time to answer our questions and we wish the amazing people of Geshelli best of luck with all their future endeavors. I am certain that their polite & transparent approach towards customers will be very rewarding, especially in this industry.