FEATURE
Western Acoustics
Location
Brooklyn, NY
Type
Interview
Contact
Western Acoustics started when Liam Porr was repairing blown Klipsch La Scalas in college and realized the crossover circuits matched his electrical engineering coursework. That moment sent him down a rabbit hole that eventually led him to transition from a career in computer science to founding Western Acoustics in San Francisco before recently relocating to Bushwick.
What sets the brand apart is their approach to speakers as lifestyle objects that change how people relate to music rather than just delivering specs. We love their special collaborations like the Sheep Speaker with Studio Ahead, their partnership with earplug company Gob for their Shopify NY popup, and their recent listening party for the Eidolon launch. Their philosophy centers on creating products that encourage different ways of listening, adding meaning to everyday experiences and home spaces through thoughtful engineering.
Their Type 1 and Type 2 systems showcase this vision perfectly: the Type 1 uses dual 12-inch Japanese Fostex woofers with imaging so precise you forget sound is coming from speakers, while the Type 2’s custom machined horns aim to deliver sharp clarity even in poor acoustic environments. The latest Eidolon pushes everything further: a seven-foot solid oak speaker inspired by JBL’s legendary Paragon, designed to last until 2125 and weighing nearly 700 pounds.
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.
You have a background in computer science and came to sound from the tech industry. Are there ways in which your computer science background plays into your current practice?
My interest in audio started from the basic electrical engineering courses I was required to take as a part of my CS curriculum. I wouldn’t say that my approach to audio is strictly academic, but it has a definite influence on the way I execute my designs. I try to take advantage of modern technology and software as much as I can to try and improve my designs and accelerate the process. My motivation and designs are artistic, but the execution is scientific. That being said, at the end of the day you have to like what you’re listening to, so subjective listening will always be an important component.
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 your work with Forecast and what kind of experience you want to create for visitors with your designs?
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.
We’ve noticed from other designers that a large chunk of the emerging hifi market is concentrated in commercial spaces. Meanwhile, Western Acoustics has mainly served residential and private markets. How does that sector align with your larger goals, and do you see that changing in the future?
I’m interested in creating something that touches a lot of lives, and I think the most effective way to do this is to create a product and continuously refine it so that it’s not only high quality, but also accessible and at a reasonable cost. We are not opposed to working with restaurants and other commercial spaces, Forecast being an example of that. I just think that this type of audio is mostly personal, and fits best in a home where you share it mostly with your friends. I don’t think our focus will shift away from products. That being said, we’re happy to work on something custom for a commercial client if we feel like it adds to our larger vision of creating a unique experience.
One interesting thing we noticed about your speakers is that they are active powered speakers. Why did you decide on active powered speakers instead of passive models?
I like active designs from an engineering perspective because they offer much more flexibility. However, our primary concern is making audio more accessible for people. I felt at the time that active speakers would be easier for people to use and encourage more people to participate in hifi, but just making the speakers active does not simplify things enough. I think we’ll keep offering an active variant, but it will be more custom and streamlined. On the other end we’re going to also offer passive speakers and options to support that route as well for those who like to use their own gear.
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.
Your vision for Western Acoustics is a mix of a lifestyle brand and an art practice. What can we expect to see from you in the next few years in terms of direction, product, and where our readers can find you?
I’ve talked a lot about creating products with wide reach and accessibility, but right now we have only two products and they’re both expensive. Our top priority is quality, but it will take time for us to refine our engineering before we can offer something that satisfies all of our goals. Down the line you’ll also find us getting more creative with product concepts and engaging with the local scene.
We’re most active on our Instagram (@westernacoustics), but you can also check out our website to read more and inquire about our products (western-acoustics.com)
Guest Questions from Mo Yasin:
Has your vision for the brand changed since you started it? In what ways?
The vision was always to create high quality loudspeaker products. As we’ve gained more experience with manufacturing, we’ve realized that what’s more important is finding a way to deliver quality without unnecessary cost.
What’s been the biggest challenge so far?
Communicating our quality standards to fabrication partners. I didn’t realize how strict our quality standards were in comparison to the standard until we started having lots of rejects. .
What scale do you want Western Acoustics to reach? Are you interested in building out a big production line with a whole factory or is operating as a boutique brand more important to you?
Freedom, mobility, and leanness are the most important factors when I think about the growth of WA. Large factories, investors, and lots of employees can hinder freedom and mobility when done wrong. On the scale of US manufacturing companies, we will be very small. However, we will bring more manufacturing in house when quality and control demands it. We’re trying to do a lot with a little and leverage high quality partnerships wherever we can.
Your Type 2 bookshelf speakers utilize modern components and technology that take a very different approach to the historical formula of the older Altec/JBL/Western Electric and Japanese audiophile traditions that pair high sensitivity speakers with low power amplifiers. Can you share a bit about your engineering approach and how you arrived at it?
The historical and Japanese audio tradition is focused on speakers that are very efficient, i.e. able to get loud without much power input. There’s this concept in speaker design called Hofmann’s Iron Law. This law shows a fundamental relationship between speaker efficiency, size, and bass extension. For a speaker with high efficiency and good bass extension, you need a big box. This is the old approach, back when we only had tube amplifiers with low power output. This is the approach we took to the Type 1 speaker.
For our Type 2 speaker the constraint was size. It needed to be small and have good bass extension. According to the iron law, this means we will need to deal with less efficiency. This is the tradeoff for good bass and small size. Besides, high quality, high power digital amplifiers are very accessible these days. There’s other benefits to each approach, but this was the most fundamental design decision we made.
Is there an ideal sound you have in mind when you design speakers? How would you characterize the sound of the Type 1 and Type 2 speakers and how different are they from that ideal?
I feel like our ears serve well for judgement but not well for guidance. I let the well understood science and math we’ve learned about loudspeakers serve as my guide when designing a good system. For me this is a good starting point. After that, I just tune and adjust things until they sound good to my ears. I don’t have a north star or anything like that. If I’m not happy with it, I circle back and try something different. I look at all of these as experiments. We try new things out and take what we learn to create something great we couldn’t have imagined before.
One thing I do enjoy in particular about the Type 1 and Type 2 speakers is the imaging. It’s different for each but they’re both a joy to experience. The Type 2 has narrow coverage with the circular horn we implement. What’s great about this is when you sit in the right spot, you hear very few reflections from the room, even if your room has bad acoustics, and the image is very sharp. With the Type 1’s we have a wider soundstage and in particular the horns have no sharp edges. This prevents most of the reflections off the speaker itself that your brain uses to detect the source of the sound. In other words, when you close your eyes you don’t really feel like the sound is coming from speakers at all but from some presence in front of you. Its difficult to describe in words but it’s definitely different from the Type 2’s, it feels much bigger. It was a really funny thing to experience for the first time.
We are constantly learning and improving these systems. As time goes on I’m sure we’ll develop a few sonic trademarks naturally as our favorite qualities get reused in new and improved designs. I love experimenting with different technologies though and the surprises you get are most of the fun.
