HISTORY and ENVIRONMENT

The Marche region caresses you with sounds, colours, scents and genuine tastes. A sweet vibrant energy that springs from the delicate melange of the green hills, that Giacomo Leopardi loved so dearly and from the Adriatic Sea, where the ancient myth of the Argonauts docked three thousand years ago.
Forty years ago, SICA was born and raised in this region, cradle of so many Italian excellences, where people are open, friendly, curious and determined.

The sounds of history and the area’s deep-rooted culture are the fil rouge for this dynamic Company, where young professionals work every day with passion and motivation, in an informal environment. The universal notes of Gioacchino Rossini, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Gaspare Spontini and Beniamino Gigli, vibrate in the Company’s DNA. They all are sons of these lands, polestars of those musical competences that from the late ‘50s naturally flowed and merged in the counties of Recanati, Osimo and Castelfidardo, turning this area into the Italian “musical district”.

PASSION and QUALITY

SICA was born from passion, as all beautiful things are. In 1979, a group of young men with love and passion for music and Hi-Fi stroke the loudspeaker market, creating a modern, professional, dynamic and flexible industrial enterprise, with constant expansion on both the manufacturing and the commercial sides.

Custom designed and engineered semi-automatic manufacturing lines merge precision and quality with the typical creativity of the made in Italy. The full customization capability of the products, together with a dynamic proactive approach to the production schedules for the fastest possible lead times, enabled SICA to gain all the international markets, establishing a relevant presence in the five continents.

All this translates in greatest versatility and cooperation with the Customer, aiming to fulfill even the most complex requirements in the MI and Pro Audio world market: from PA and Sound Reinforcement, to Cinema, Hi-Fi, and Musical Instruments. Experience and professionalism created the opportunity for SICA to obtain the license for the usage and development of the Jensen® brand, reissuing those loudspeakers that wrote the history of the electric guitar tone in the last century, and developing new guitar loudspeakers for the next century.

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SICA COMPANY HISTORY

Our history begins in 1979, when Raimondo Sbarbati founded the Company SICA.Over the past 40 years, SICA has grown from a regional manufacturer into a strategic partner for companies from around the world.

MILESTONES

1979

While sitting with friends on the Christmas Eve of 1978, Raimondo Sbarbati, smart, talented and determined R&D at another speaker manufacturer, gives birth to the idea of starting his own business. The following month of May the Company SICA (Società Italiana Costruttori Altoparlanti, Italian Company for the Production of Transducers) is born.

1984

SICA speakers are on display for the first time at an international trade show, the Prolight+Sound in Frankfurt am Mein, Germany. New horizons are opening up for the Company with the production of speakers for the professional audio market, followed by the one of compression drivers in 1987.

1993

The growing success of the Company soon highlights the need to increase the production and efficiency, both achieved with the use of semi-automatic assembly lines.

2004

The new millennium sees the opening of the Company to all extra EU markets, building up strong partnerships with enthusiastic leading manufacturers and a solid network of loyal distributors in less than a decade.

2010

SICA R&D collaborates with the Institute of Acoustics and Sensors “Orso Maria Corbino” (IDASC) of the Italian Research Council (CNR), analysing and modelling speakers for Hi-Fi application by FEM (finite elements method) software simulation and later making experimental verifications of the model.

2014

SICA is certified Excellent SME, an important acknowledgement of the reliability and economic financial strength of the Company even during the years of the global financial crisis.
The Company is committed to supplying the best quality, to ensure maximum satisfaction of both customers’ and suppliers’ requirements.

2018

Assembly lines with programmable logic controllers will come into operation, for highest flexibility still keeping very high levels of efficiency and productivity.

2020

SICA achieves the status of CRIBIS Prime Company, for maximum commercial reliability and financial strength, another important acknowledgement of the reliability and economic financial strength of the Company even during the years of the pandemic.

1979 - 1985

The main business in the early years is with companies from the regional district of musical instruments, all leading manufacturers of organs and keyboards. In 1983 the production of speakers for digital keyboards starts, years later followed by the one of speakers for accordions.

1989

The Company moves from the smaller premises occupied during the ‘80s to the new location in the town of Ripe, which is still the Company’s headquarters. During the following two decades the original site expands to a second and a third building.

1996 - 1998

SICA welcomes the challenge to reproduce the legendary Jensen speakers for electric guitar. After a couple of years travelling around the USA, getting to know all the original suppliers and the speaker models, after endless samples and listening sessions with musicians, all efforts are finally rewarded with success at the 1998 Winter NAMM Show.
The massive production of Jensen speakers starts, together with the entry of SICA into the American market.

2009

To celebrate the first 10 years of success achieved with the vintage speakers, SICA introduces the new Jensen JET guitar speakers line, especially designed to meet the demanding needs of modern musicians.

2013

Another passion of the founder of the Company interacts with the daily working life at SICA, the production of speakers for the Hi-Fi market starts, very soon meeting the approval of major brands.

2017

Installation of solar panels.The concept of sustainable development is firmly rooted in SICA. The Company is aware of the impact of its business on environmental and social wellbeing. It is committed to ongoing protection programs through charitable contributions, involvement in education and employment programs, material recycling, use of renewable resources, improvement of product durability and functionality, integration of environmental management tools into the business plans, including life-cycle assessment and costing.

2019

SICA introduces the new Jensen D Series, full range tone speakers for Digital Guitarists.

DATASHEET TOPICS

The frequency response is measured with the loudspeaker mounted on a specified box, whereas the impedance curve is measured in free air.

The Thiele-Small parameters are measured with a laser sensor, following a preconditioning test.

The X-max value is measured to a Total Harmonic Distortion of 10%.

The X-var is the maximum excursion allowed by the loudspeaker, it is stated as the value corresponding to a decay of the Force Factor, or of the Compliance, or both, equal to 50% of the small signal value.

Loudspeakers available in further impedances upon request.

Due to continuous product improvements, specifications and design are subject to change or modification without notice.

Power Handling

The Rated Power is measured according to the AES 2-1984 standard, which calls for a pink noise signal with 6dB crest factor and band pass filtering to a decade in the working range of the loudspeaker. After a 2 hour test the loudspeaker did not show any permanent change in characteristics greater than 10%.
The RMS power rating is calculated using the minimum electrical impedance value over the operating range of the speaker.
The cone speakers are tested in free air, the compression drivers are tested coupled to the recommended horn.

The Continuous Program Power is specified as twice the rated power.

For dome tweeters it is also declared the Rated Noise Power, which is measured according to the IEC60268-5 international standard that calls for a pink noise signal with 6dB crest factor and IEC program filtering to approximate the spectral content of real music. The duration of the test is 100 hours.

QUALITY CONTROL

The Quality Control Department inspects 100% of the production.

Automatic checks, run through electronics devices, are carried out on all cone speakers, compression drivers and dome tweeters, checking Frequency response, Impedance curve, Resonance frequency, rub & buzz, polarity, THD and Thiele-Small parameters of each speaker.

MATERIALS and CONSTRUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES

SICA technicians pay special attention to all innovations in the fields of advanced materials and constructive technologies. This is to improve performance and stability of the loudspeakers throughout their use, even if intensive.

In this context a series of innovations have been adopted, such as aluminium die cast baskets with thin brackets to avoid sound reflections on the rear side of the cone, magnet circuits with an additional magnet mounted on the central pole to make the flux fully symmetric in the magnetic gap and to improve the dynamic performance of the voice coil, magnet circuits with optimized ventilation to reduce the power compression, improved voice coil ventilation and sandwich windings to increase the power handling, spiders with asymmetrical progressive waves realized with DCS (double cross spider) technique to allow for linear elongation up to extreme values, cloth and rubber suspensions with DAR (double asymmetric rolls) technology for the perfect balance of the compliance in both displacement directions.

Further innovations are under development, to be applied in future projects.

Two Brands, one Passion: Great sound

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