One day later, "today I veneered the pair in a dedicated room with controlled heat and humidity. My vacuum press distributes uniform 0.8kg/cm² pressure across the entire surface which works out to more than 3 tonnes for one M1 side. My pump can bond six speakers independently at the same time. To start, we apply a uniform layer of glue over the entire surface."

"The chosen veneer sheet gets positioned then covered with a sheet which helps suck out the air over the surface to be glued. We then slide the enclosure into a chamber which seals hermetically to evacuate all the air. After about one hour, we can take the enclosure out and flush the face with a special cutter. The operation then repeats for each of the sides. Once finished, we have a veneered enclosure with continuity of grain."

The next steps were boring out the driver holes with a jig-guided hand router, the biwire terminal holes and vents, then sanding the assemblies before moving into the paint booth. "We first apply a coat of polyester primer which is ideal for high-gloss finishes by giving us good thickness, thus depth of reflection. After 12 hours of catalysis, we sand down the primer to apply a second then third layer for mirror flatness. Only then the final varnish goes on."

Besides specifying the veneer and paint finish plus level of gloss, for the M1 customers also have the option of a clear or black 8mm acrylic base.

Showing the build process in this manner documents how this speaker production isn't semi robotic or large scale. It's set-up intense manual labor one order at a time. No MDF in sight either. We might call this the old-timey way of doing it. Whenever one acquires items which one intends to live with for a very long time, it can be satisfying to know just how they were made.

That's the vintage charm and appreciation of skilled handiwork which the BBC Series The Repair Shop celebrates.

In it top UK craftsmen and women revitalize well-loved items in bad need of repair which their owners nonetheless treasure as family heirlooms to wish seeing restored. We can watch a wheel wright work on a vintage butter churner, a saddle maker retool a swingin' 60s' hanging leather chair. There are restorations of chipped porcelain treasures or cast-iron sculptures, rebuilds of clocks that haven't ticked in decades or a frozen-up Peter Pan portable gramophone from 1926. There's silver smithing, re-caning, serious upholstery work, welding, metal turning, stained glass and museum-quality restorations of faded or torn paintings.

The M1 loudspeaker from Aurai Audio built by Rouault Acoustic shares a bit more with that series than it does big factories with well-oiled assembly lines. And should down the years you gauge the veneer on one to bring it to this repair shop, they'd undoubtedly tell you that it was very solidly put together and properly made.

Outside in, M1, M2, M3 and new nearfield monitor.