What’s the story of how you first started designing sound systems?

Music and dancing have always been a passion of mine, but when the pandemic hit and everything came to a halt, I felt a strong urge to fill the silence with deep, full-bodied sound. That’s when the Ojas DIY kit was released, and with access to a wood shop, I riffed on the components to build my own version.

From there, I dove headfirst into sound system design—obsessing over every design software I could find and reading countless books, forums and blogs. It was the perfect storm of curiosity, creativity, and the desire to experience the big club sound I’d been missing. That’s how I got hooked on designing sound systems—it became a way to explore both technology and artistry, setting me on the path I’m on today.

What sets your sound systems and design practice apart from the existing speaker market?

What sets my sound systems and design practice apart is that I’m focused on pushing beyond the traditional ‘box’ approach. While boxes definitely have their place in the market, I’m more interested in rethinking what a speaker can be—not just in terms of performance, but also in how people interact with and experience the object as a whole. For me, it’s about creating a design that invites curiosity and connection, something that goes beyond just providing sound. I want my speakers to spark a feeling, to engage people in a way that challenges the typical notion of what a speaker should be and create emotional reaction to the object before you hear a sound.

Can you walk us through the design process for Rodeo, and what kind of experience do you want to create for visitors?

Rodeo was really my first opportunity to work on a large-scale installation in a public space. My goal was to create something that felt like it belonged in the space, while also challenging traditional ideas of what a speaker design can be. At the same time, it had to sound incredible. The team at Rodeo has been amazing in trusting me with this vision, which has allowed me the freedom to experiment and adjust based on real-time feedback from the space and the energy of the people using it.

The space itself consists of three different rooms, each with a unique energy, but they all share a cohesive vibe. We wanted visitors to be able to flow through these rooms without feeling restricted to any one area. The idea was to create a sense of freedom, where people can move through the spaces based on their mood or vibe, without feeling locked into a particular experience. In terms of design, this meant creating speakers that could integrate seamlessly into each environment while also contributing to the overall feel of the space.

Why do you think we’re seeing this renewed interest in high-fidelity audio? How do you see this scene changing in the next few years?

I think the renewed interest in high-fidelity audio is partly a reaction to how much we’ve lost in the evolution of sound technology. Growing up, I saw the shift from my parents’ vinyl LPs to the digital libraries of music available on streaming platforms today. At the same time, audio devices have gone from massive cinema horn systems in the ’50s to tiny Bluetooth speakers and wireless earbuds. While the convenience and portability are amazing, I think we’ve lost something in the compression—particularly when it comes to the richness and depth of the sound.

This resurgence of interest in high-fidelity audio feels like a kind of renaissance, where people are looking for more than just convenience; they’re craving a more immersive, high-quality listening experience. There’s a growing desire to reconnect with music in a way that feels more energetic and full-bodied, and I think that’s driving the push for better sound.

Read the full interview with Joel Seigle here ->

What’s the story of how you first started designing sound systems?

We’re old friends — we met over 15 years ago in Montreal. Music and design have definitely been an unbroken thread of interest for both of us, so WAF feels like a natural extension of our friendship.

We lived with our partners in an industrial space we renovated and hosted a lot of music-focused parties over the years there — it became a community hub for music, dancing, and building things. Around the same time, we were regularly traveling to NYC for David Mancuso’s Loft parties, which became a spiritual and sonic touchpoint for us. We met a longtime attendee who had been collecting Klipschorn speakers for years, hoping to extend the spirit of those gatherings to other cities. Dave started engineering the audio for these satellite events, refurbishing and eventually building sound systems around this unique collection of speakers.

One evening in 2017 we sketched out a speaker together over drinks at a bar. That initial sketch evolved into multiple prototypes, and after years of development, became our first product, the SP-01. It all felt right as the first idea and the more we dig into it, the more it continues to feel like the right path.

What sets your sound systems and design practice apart from the existing speaker market?

We definitely put our personal selves into our projects and try to approach “gear” through our own lens. Zoë’s background in furniture design is the driver of our approach to materials, form, and proportion, etc. but because they’re speakers, every design starts with the feeling and fidelity of the sound. After that we design around the physics.

We want our products to have a degree of customization, and thoughtful features that make them flexible, like the SP-01’s articulating base and removable magnetic grill. From a technical side, we’re definitely in the “no bullshit” camp of engineering, so we use premium materials and components in the places they make a difference, and otherwise don’t get caught up in esoteric serpent oil. We put a lot of care into making a product you can have a very long relationship with.

Can you walk us through the design process for Marci, and what kind of experience do you want to create for visitors?

The bulk of the work on a good installation — before you get to the gear — is treating space itself. We consulted with the Marci team early on in their design process and they made some material and design choices that really enhanced the acoustics of the space, allowing our SP-01 models to sound their best. As a result, you can enjoy a conversation in a packed restaurant while still being able to hear and feel detailed sound with little to no EQ. This is important to us.

Marci is a client who took our component seriously from the start and we’re grateful for that. As a side note, we’ll take this opportunity to heap praise on Montreal as a super fertile and very supportive space for hifi and dance. So much is happening there and we’re lucky to have supplied the sound for a handful of active spaces in the city, like Sans Soleil and Multi Culti’s Space Garage.

Why do you think we’re seeing this renewed interest in high-fidelity audio? How do you see this scene changing in the next few years?

There’s definitely a confluence of reasons. We’d like to think there’s been some natural rebalancing after a long epidemic of small bluetooth speakers and over-compressed, distorted music in spaces where sound is the very last line item of consideration. People might not put a name to it, but bad sound affects us physiologically.

Conversely, a good hifi or well-tuned sound system can really feel like you’re hearing music for the first time, and people are spending their time more intentionally post-pandemic. We’re aligned with other creators who are elevating everyday listening and we’re committed to the idea that everyone deserves better sound in their day-to-day. Hopefully that’s where things are headed. To quote Mancuso, ‘good sound is a human right.’

Read the full interview with Waves and Frequencies here ->

What’s the story of how you first started designing sound systems?

When I was in college I was convinced by my dad to purchase a pair of Klipsch La Scala’s so we could throw parties at our house. They were in rough shape, pulled off a San Francisco sidewalk in the 90’s and nursed back to health from there. About a year later I was studying for an exam in my electrical engineering course covering basic electric filters when my housemates blew the speakers. I didn’t know much about speakers but it was simple enough to replace the broken components. While repairing them I took a look at the crossover, and I realized that the crossover circuit was exactly like the electric filter circuits I was about to take a test on, and I was able to recognize the different sections of the filter. For the first time in my college career my education helped me in a practical situation, and it left a huge impression. I went down a rabbit hole from there. A few years later my curiosity turned towards custom sound systems after I saw a system that Jon Besch (Jon Bless Hi-Fi) built for the office of an NYC startup called Eternal. That felt like the coolest thing I had ever seen in my life.

What sets your sound systems and design practice apart from the existing speaker market?

The biggest focus I have is on the way that people listen to music and the role that plays in their lives. I want to create audio products that encourage people to listen to music in a different way, in a way that adds something to both everyday experiences and the feeling of a home. I’m really interested in the ways a speaker system can change your relationship to music, through a combination of design, engineering, and meaning that creates an experience. I think most companies focus too much on specs or aesthetics without looking at the bigger picture of what their products are supposed to mean to the person buying it. Our Type 1 and Type 2 speaker systems are our first attempts at executing this vision.

Can you walk us through the design process for Forecast, and what kind of experience do you want to create for visitors?

Forecast is a concept retail shop and a gallery space in Greenpoint Brooklyn. They represent several unique brands and emerging artists. However, instead of blind promotion, they curate the work of these artists and use the pieces together to create a unique experience. As a small example, they’ll use speakers like ours for music, candles from Something Special Studios for scent, wine from a small curator/dealer, and furniture from Lichen for seating and serving. In other words, all of the pieces are used together to create a unique feeling, and it’s almost artistic in that way. When I say that we’re trying to create a speaker system that helps create a unique experience, this is what I mean.

Why do you think we’re seeing this renewed interest in high-fidelity audio? How do you see this scene changing in the next few years?

I think there’s renewed interest because there are a select few artists out there who spent a lot of time refining their personal audio practice and then shared their unique perspective on it. Devon Turnbull (Ojas) is the best example. We can probably thank about 90% of this resurgence to his work single handedly. His unique focus on the very niche historical legacy of Altec Lansing audio engineering and Japanese DIY audio practices, combined with his background in visual arts has led to a staggering impact on the audio scene. It’s so wildly different from the vintage audio aesthetics that have been zombified and exploited to market most hifi products these days. I think there’s a lot of people out there who didn’t understand the appeal of audio until Devon showed it with the right perspective.

Right now I think this resurgence is still fundamentally nostalgic and only accessible to people with lots of extra cash. I think in the next few years we’ll find products that retain this new perspective on audio, but get more creative with modern technology and become more accessible for people.

Read the full interview with Western Acoustics here ->

What’s the story of how you first started designing sound systems?

Working in recording studios and live production, my focus in sound was always within the metrics of practical application and performance. I’ve never been a hi fi acolyte – not because I don’t respect the culture – but really because I’ve always approached speakers as tools. I think that’s gravitated me towards practicality and simplicity when approaching design – function will always follow form.

But I’ve come to realize that many people listen with their eyes more than their ears and that to get them to “stop and listen” you have to create a visual focal point to engage that interest beyond fidelity.

What sets your sound systems and design practice apart from the existing speaker market?

All my work is unique to each client and project. When nothing is built more than once, it means a lot of prototyping / material sourcing / experimentation. I take pride (and try to emphasize to my clients) that each speaker is one of a kind.

It’s tempting (and probably smarter financially) to subscribe to replication of what “works” and deliver on quantity but I enjoy the process of unique sculpture. I think of myself as more of a personal tailor than a fashion designer.

Can you walk us through the design process for Eavesdrop, and what kind of experience do you want to create for visitors?

I start off looking at physical constraints … available space, pre existing layout, what can be moved / what can’t. That pathfinds my “box”. Then I consider what’s ideally in that volume – what type of people, what type of atmosphere, how do those people move and interact via social / commerce / behavior.

It’s important to create intrigue, depth and warmth via lighting and material tonality. It’s easy to keep yourself zoomed out from a design – but when people are in space, their experiences become relatively micro from a single perspective, giving attention to what their hands will feel, what their eyes will see and what their ears will hear from their intimate station. In Eavesdrop, I wanted people to be drawn through the space, encouraging exploration while remaining cohesive. I didn’t want boundaries – between the sound system, the DJ, the room via booths etc. It was a priority to make it feel as if the space and the people flowed together.

Why do you think we’re seeing this renewed interest in high-fidelity audio? How do you see this scene changing in the next few years?

My thought is that people are getting bored with impersonal nature of mass marketed design. People want to express identity through the things they own, they want to cultivate passion and attention within the physical in a world that has increasingly become immaterial via our online living. They want to get their hands dirty beyond “adding to cart”. A whole generation has been raised within the era of the emphasis of design being to allow your audio system to fit in your pocket – there is a nostalgia for a time where we had to be physically present to engage in experience.

Fundamentally, a chair is just an object on which to sit. It can be designed for convenience and budget – but to give a chair a radiation of invitation, a sense of uniqueness, comfort in a form that enhances in a personal space – that is what a lot of people are looking for.

As much as I think people gravitate towards the physicality of objects, in this case audio, culturally we tend to reject inconvenience long term. We want what technology allows but are resistant to what it takes away. I see people being less enthusiastic or interested in the esoteric qualities of “deep hi fi” – cable quality, amp selection, speaker positioning – and more pursuing the marriage of presentational speakers with the convenience of self powered, integrated sources such as digital / streaming, room correction etc. Most want a beautiful and comfortable chair, but many don’t want to spend months learning how to sit in it.

What’s the story of how you first started designing sound systems?

I built my first system at school in 2016/17. I was studying visual arts, primarily sculpture, and I was pretty interested in sound, especially integrating it into my work. I’d collected records since high school, was starting to deejay, and was confident enough in my wood-working. I built two systems during undergrad: the first was an impressive and hilarious failure, ridiculously oversized — built to impress, though definitely not sonically. The second pair were dupe Cornwalls using Bob Crites parts, and I used them for a sound/performance piece. I built a machine to engrave my own tracks into melted down and repressed records, then performed a set isolated from the audience, with the system as the main actor, mixing those tracks along with a few selections that were meant to create something of a self-portrait.

After school, I moved back to NYC and got thrown into the whirlpool of trying to stay afloat. I was working three jobs until Covid happened. I lost my job working at a woodshop, so I started taking on my own projects and people quickly started commissioning me for some smaller systems. Everything grew from there.

What sets your sound systems and design practice apart from the existing speaker market?

It’d be a tall claim to say that my sound system practice is unique. My backgrounds in deejaying and visual arts definitely define my work, and those experiences influence my approach to everything I do. Then on the other end, I take some pride in my craft, just knowing I’m in the minority of builders who are both on the design and fabrication end of the process. Having a hand in designing, sourcing, building, finishing, tuning; I think that level of involvement has taught me a lot across the board.

Beyond that, we’ve been working so hard to get to where we are today with our studio, there’s so much freedom with just having space. Freedom to learn and experiment and think. It’s really helped me define my intentions, just being more committed to a philosophical approach with the craft. I’m not sure it’s always the best business plan, but that said, we’re not aspiring to become a speaker brand in that we’ll never have a product available off the shelf. We’re interested in remaining bespoke and taking on jobs that resonate with us. Maybe something will come of this that will set us apart when it’s all said and done.

Your new studio looks fantastic and has been in the works for about a year now. Can you walk us through the design process for your new studio, and what kind of experience you want to create for visitors?

I think big cities everywhere are in a tough spot these days. Speaking to friends elsewhere, I’m very grateful for everything we (myself/BSS and Mo Yasin) have here. I’m born in NYC and was working out of my dad’s shop until recently when I just started taking up too much space. His space always influenced and inspired me, it’s a time-capsule in that it represents a New York that no longer exists, he’s been there since 1984. But the character of a space always felt so important to me. I was getting depressed thinking about moving into a studio building full of other ‘creatives’ overpaying for paper thin walls and shared bathrooms, mostly because working with sound and big tools, I could foresee all the constraints. I was looking at Newark before finding what we have now in East NY. I think big cities everywhere are in a tough spot these days.

Speaking to friends elsewhere, I’m very grateful for everything we (myself/BSS and Mo Yasin) have here. I’m born in NYC and was working out of my dad’s shop until recently when I just started taking up too much space. His space always influenced and inspired me, it’s a time-capsule in that it represents a New York that no longer exists, he’s been there since 1984. But the character of a space always felt so important to me. I was getting depressed thinking about moving into a studio building full of other ‘creatives’ overpaying for paper thin walls and shared bathrooms, mostly because working with sound and big tools, I could foresee all the constraints. I was looking at Newark before finding what we have now in East NY.

It was very raw when we first looked at it, 3000 square feet with no walls, no plumbing, no heat, just two outlets, and missing windows. A dream come true as far as I was concerned, that’s essentially the space that I grew up in. But it was a big risk and a big job. Mo and I had been talking around that time about the struggles and inconveniences of developing a sound system practice with so little agency in New York. Your work can get so suffocated here, and we were both really feeling that, so we checked out the space and it felt like if not here and now, then when and where? We took the floorpan and looked at all the conditions of what we wanted to do and how we could accommodate them all. So we have two private offices/music studio, a storage room, a kitchenette, a woodshop, and a showroom/listening room.

Our goal is to create a lab that can accommodate the whole ecosystem of a sound system practice, from speaker fabrication, to production, to recording, to tuning, to spinning, to dance. One leads to the next, which leads to the next, and to have it all contained within a singular space allows for experimentation and fine-tuning that we’ve only dreamed of. On the visitor end it’s a space of business first, so while everything is modular, there is usually seating in the middle of the floor with selections of our rental inventory showcased opposite the DJ booth. We do our best to keep it presentable and comfortable, where clients can come to experience our offerings, whether they’re interested in producing an event or commissioning sound.

Why do you think we’re seeing this renewed interest in high-fidelity audio? How do you see this scene changing in the next few years?

Getting into sound came with a massive learning curve for me, because half of it is building your ear and acquiring taste. Different speakers apply different philosophies and have different sonic characteristics, and preference within that comes down to the listener — and you can only know what you like by listening to it. Unfortunately growing up in New York, sound was entirely inaccessible. Your only chances of hearing a good system were at someone’s home who had enough money to afford something worth listening to. Those experiences for me were few and far between. My first trip to Japan last year was so inspiring due to the simple fact that I could finally listen to systems that I had only ever seen in catalogues.

All that to say: while I think the attention given to sound can spark interest, unfortunately the only space I can think of is the Ojas listening room at USM that’s public, accessible, and not putting their cocktail list ahead of sonic experience. Unfortunately a lot of the time speakers you see out are a product of form over function, it’s disheartening and I’ve definitely experienced it firsthand, where halfway through a job the intentions of the client become clear. In a funny way speakers in bars have almost become a visual cue for “we serve natural wine”. It’s made me reconsider a lot about the direction I want to go with my work, and it’s difficult because those are the places that are paying at the moment. I hope to see more alternative spaces open up.