Franc Kuzma used his skills as an engineer to become a Slovenian success story, exporting his high-quality products around the world. But it all began with his passion for music.

Born in 1955, Kuzma grew up in an era when rock music ruled the airwaves and topped the music charts. A passionate devotee of rock, and later jazz, Kuzma was increasingly disappointed by the choice of music equipment available in Communist Yugoslavia. Most of the better models had to be smuggled across the border, always a risky proposition. Since he was an engineer and had experience working on acoustic transducers, Kuzma decided to make his own audio equipment. He made his first turntable in 1977.

Kuzma’s designs were a success and they soon began to attract praise for their acoustic fidelity. By the 1980s, the Yugoslav Communist regime allowed some limited private initiative, and in 1982, Kuzma founded his own company devoted to making turntables, tonearms and other audio accessories. His company’s output was limited, but Kuzma decided to emphasize quality rather than quantity.

His gamble paid off and he even managed to sell a few turntables to the United Kingdom. A British magazine ran a glowing review of one of them, capturing the attention of audiophiles around Europe. Soon, orders began flowing in from around the continent and beyond.

Meanwhile, Kuzma continued to innovate, constantly improving the technology used in his turntables and bringing an old medium into the 21st century. He decided to limit his output to just a few products, and he still makes just a few models of turntables and tonearms. But his approach is all about customizing his products to the desires of his companies. The prices reflect his commitment to quality; his turntables run from several thousand to as much as 30,000 U.S. dollars.

Despite their steep prices, Kuzma’s carefully crafted products are highly sought-after around the world. Fully a third of them are exported to the United States, and they are routinely awarded prestigious prizes by international audiophile magazines. In what is perhaps the ultimate honor, Kuzma’s turntables are also bought by leading electronics manufacturers who use them as benchmarks to test their own products.

Slovenian companies traditionally have problems competing with the mass production of larger foreign corporations. Franc Kuzma has shown that a different approach – putting quality before quantity – can turn even a small Slovenian company into an international success story.