Full Transcript for Inside L-Acoustics Nashville: Nick Fichte on Designing With Sound

which is why Nashville, right? I know a great location. Did you mention the creative aspect of you know, anyone that's traveled here, you know you can't take two steps off of your plane when it lands without hitting live music. Yep. so d that did that play a big role in in being here? Absolutely. you know, we're and i in fact even where this office is next to us, we have a a concert venue called The Pinnacle, which has L Acoustics in it, which of course is great. you know, we it it it is important because as as much as we're a loudspeaker company, we're getting very much involved with the creative side of things. You know, we have an artist engagement team and, you know, we want to be engaging with everyone that is involved with the creative process of music. And not just music but sound as well. and and and so yeah, Nashville made made complete sense for that. Well I I know we're sitting here too in the high-risk room. but this office has a lot more to it. So what before we dive into this space and you know, everything it means, 'cause it this is, you know, you talk about the main event, this felt like the main event. Yeah. you know, walk us through the rest of the the layout here and what the intent behind the office. 'Cause there's there's this room, the creative studio. Yep. Walk us through it all. Yeah, so you know, we we we start with, you know, you you walk in through the front doors and you're greeted by a big gold L acoustics logo. and we've got our reception space there. We have a large meeting room which also doubles up as a training room. you've seen today we've got some pupils in being trained. so we've we've got that space. I was here two weeks ago for our America Sales meeting. That space was being used for for that. we have another slightly smaller meeting room as well, off the side of that. And then even smaller meeting rooms again because of course, you know, these days people are on Teams calls and all the rest of it. So they're kind of more like huddle spaces. we've got a kitchen area which is, you know, everything's beautifully decorated as well. Like, you know, what I feel about this building is everything from the moment you walk into the lobby, it's like, wow, I almost feel like I'm walking into a five star hotel. and yeah, that kind of carries on through. Then we have what we call the green room, even though it's beige, where we have you know, just some really nice seating and couches, where you can listen to a couple of our smaller stereo systems. and then we have the creative studio. That's a space where artists, front of house engineers can come and learn about the tools that we use on the immersive side of things. And then we have, yeah, the main event really here, which is the the high risk showroom. And then of course there's other smaller offices on the on the floor plate as well, in here. Where, you know, one of our co CEOs is is based here in this office full time, our executive director of application, and our CEO of North America as well splits his time between here and and Westlake Village. W you mentioned the the design intent too. Like I I d I found it intriguing too, like to the the meeting rooms, right? How you guys name them. to to give a little background that for that. Yeah, so obviously we have meeting rooms in our offices all over the world 'cause we have offices for those that don't know, we have offices in London and Westlake Village, sorry. Nashville and Westlake Village here in the Americas and also Littitz in Pennsylvania. and then we also have two spaces in London, two spaces in Paris, plus then other manufacturing plants around France, Germany, and all of the meeting rooms and Singapore as well. all of the meeting rooms are named after artists that have either toured with L acoustics or festivals. So yeah, as I was explaining to you, sometimes it can be a bit annoying when it's like Pink London and you're like, Is that meeting in London? no, it's in Paris. yeah, the meeting you kind of get used to and you're like, Yeah, I'm just in Justin Timberlake this afternoon, cool. well and to me like the what's cool about it is I again the level of attention to detail that you all have put into not not just your products or the experience that you're creating, but the to the office itself, right? I I think it it sort of permeates the the it has to, I imagine. the organization and how you guys approach what you do from a a product perspective, from an experience perspective to, you know, concert hall, what what have you. Yeah, I I think it's, you know, practice what you preach. Right? You know, every one of our meeting rooms has alacoustics technology in them. You know, when you're having you've got people remotely dialed in on Teams in those two large meeting rooms, their sound is coming through Lacoustic speakers. You know, we are because we operate in the corporate spaces and we're putting those products into meeting rooms, absolutely our meeting rooms should have it as well. And you know, we have speakers in the lobby, everything. You know, it it's it's about that kind of whole ecosystem and yeah, practice what you preach. Yeah. well I wanna again before we dive deeper into HIRAS, the for I people watching likely recognize the L Acoustics name or at least the logo if they, you know, been to concert venues and you see the gold square. But the background of what you guys have been able to accomplish at the global scale, you know, in the concert venues and things like that that we talked about, you know, what what does that sort of history do for what you're trying to create today? I think you have to kind of look it back of the f the fundamentals of our founder, Christian. You know, when he started this company, it was purely all about wanting to improve the connection of humans to artists or sorry, audience to artists through the power of sound. And that ethos runs through every single person in the company. You know, I don't think there is a

person in L Acoustics that doesn't love music. You know, we have in France in the summer, in the in in the month of June in France is is known as Fete Musique Music Festival. And you will have towns across France that have a little square in the middle and it will all be dedicated to music. And so in June we have a our own festival called Elfest. and that's organized by a committee of employees in the in the main head office in France and you will see, you know, people from the guy driving the Fort Lift truck in the warehouse on stage playing the bass with, you know, executive directors on keyboards, whatever it may be. Everyone getting in and again, you know, that's been in a Lisa for the last couple of years 'cause it's what you preach. and it it's a great sense and it is honestly like it's one of the best concerts you could ever go to. We could we could sell tickets to 'cause we've got some incredibly talented musicians w within the company. Unfortunately I'm not one of them. I'm one of those people I think that, you know You got you got many other talents. my talent in music is being able to appreciate when it sounds good. that's good enough sometimes. but I I know too, you told I either you told us a story or I I read it recently, just about the you mentioned your founder, kind of taking a very different approach to, you know, there's there's plenty of examples in our our space of companies that have solved for a problem with stereo sound and you it's something that I know I f I'm don't want to butcher the story, so cut me off if I start telling it wrong. But mentioning how, you know, within his own space he thought about, you know, not the two stere the two channel like experience, but wanting to create that immersive experience, right? Exactly. And and I think, you know, he he often, you know, talks about a story of of of seeing Pink Floyd in in France when he was younger and that you know, it was an experience he'd been looking forward to for for months in the lead up to it. And that he was disappointed by the sound of that concert and it was actually in quadriphonic sound, right? They were they were, you know, at the forefront of trying to experiment with emer with immersive sound. And I think he and his idea and he describes, you know, that in this industry and and you'll know as as as as well as anyone how many times people use the word immersive. And he says the only time he feels immersed is when he's in a swimming pool. Right? That to him is if you write down the word immersed, what does it mean? It means being in water. and that's why he uses the term hyper real. Because that's what he believes is what we should be trying to achieve is making the playback of sound, whether it's live or or or recorded, that it is true to life as possible because the way that we see and we hear is connected. And if the visuals don't match what you're hearing, it's very it gets very confused, which is fatiguing. Disorienting. Which disorientating which means you don't enjoy it as much. And so if we're seeing an orchestra on a stage and we're seeing you know one soloist on that stage doing one thing, but we're stood on the left hand side and it's a stereo or sorry, a a left-right system in dual mono. I'm gonna hear it from the speakers that are in front of me and the artist is over there. My brain has to do more computing power to understand that. If we can make that immersive, then I can hear it where it's coming from. Right. And so it's a more enjoyable experience. And he's he's wanted to just as I said you know, improve that experience for listeners. It's that's his it's his passion. Yeah. And and has been able to accomplish it in many ways. you know, I know we talk about some of the the things that you guys have done at in concert venues you know, over over time here. But you think about kind of getting closer to high risk now, how I I loved learning how it's really that platform, that experience is the piling on may sound wrong, but like you know, the the complete inclusion of the L Acoustics story, right? It's all of the things you guys do coming together to create. Loudspeakers, subwoofers, amplified controllers, processing, everything and then combining it with a a space which is is perfect. You know, we d we talk about three key pillars source, system and space. Hieris is the combination of the best of all three. Right. And so Before we dive into it, the the acronym itself, talk about that for a second. Hyperreal immersive sound space. I mean, immersive is in the name. So I it is getting to experience it. I know I talked about how we got to experience it in in Denver last year during CD. and that I mean to me, that was impressive in and of itself. You guys being able to recreate that on a trade show floor. I what was the build time on putting that thing together. Far too far too long and far too stressful. I don't not to bring it back to those times. I I know. and if my colleague Jeff's watching, yeah, the Pizza Gate still is a problem. there's a very long story about some pizza that got taken and it was realized at three o'clock in the morning that the pizza had been taken away. some hangry installers Yeah exactly. you know look we we we wanted to We'd been talking about HIRA so much because we had launched London in twenty twenty four. and you know, the industry was starting to talk about it. There was a lot of buzz around it and we thought, Okay, let's go ambitious, let's go crazy, let's try and do it at Cedia. And there's so much stuff that's out of your control. Right? You know, we're you're working with a booth builder and you're telling them exactly what you want them to build. But they don't know what high risk is. They've never experienced high-risk. They're operating out of a warehouse somewhere. and we could tell them, right, the wall materials need to be made out of this, the insulation needs to be this and th and then you you turn up there and you know it's Labor Day

weekend and you know, you've got to go through all of the the different, you know, labor workers and all the rest of it and stuff's not built as you've asked it to be done and this, that, the rest of And so doesn't show up? You know, I mean like w that was fine. I mean we've had that happen before, but you know, our our biggest challenge on on the on that one was that what we'd asked to be built wasn't built to the what we wanted it to be and and one of the things that, you know, when I was giving you the demonstration earlier, I was saying the importance of the room build is is so important to it. And so when we were instantly on the back foot, we knew that the experience that we would be delivering was never going to be as a and let's be honest, you know. I don't think it could ever be as good as building a real without the real thing. Right? You know. And I always say to integrators when they they come out and they say, you know, even if it's just like a home theater, you go in fact I remember having a conversation with my mum about it. She said, you know, i i it how i is it hard work doing these things? I said, Well, you know, an a normal home theater build in a home takes like three or four weeks. We're given two or three days. you know, so It was a challenge. but I I I think, you know, we people were like, Wow, okay. They they noticed us and they were like, This is different, this is unique. and that that's what we wanted to do. We kind of wanted to dangle the carrot as saying, This is what we're doing. We know it's not the best experience, but give us a few months and you're gonna be able to have a space that you can come to in Nashville where you can experience the real deal. Which to be quite honest, despite all the challenges you talk about having in that space, it was surreal. for ha having gone through it and wouldn't know, right? Wouldn't know that you put it's it's the you don't know how the sausage is made, you just know it tastes delicious, right? So you guys did pull it off. And you know I I don't say that 'cause I'm sitting here in this room. Like it truly was impressive to to see what, you know, that experience was on a show floor. And now I mean, you mentioned the London offices, it in theory, you know, built the same way, but there is a lot of differences 'cause that was a a building you had to e effectively retrofit into. Exactly, right. There was a a room that was e already existing, it already had a predecessoring system in it called Ocean. So we had to rip all of that, take it back to basically bri bare brickwork. But the bricks were where the bricks were and the doors were where the doors were and the windows where the windows were. So we had to make it work. So having a blank slate coming into this, essentially, you know, talk about the what that means to you guys to be able to create this in sort of the the vision and how you want it. Yeah, so I mean again the the different kind of things to consider with both spaces as well on that, right? Because the one in London is in a very residential area. So, you know, we've got neighboring properties all around us. So we have to be considerate of noise. But we're we're okay 'cause we're kind of isolated a bit. versus here in Nashville, we're on the I don't actually know what floor we're on, 'cause when you get into the elevator. Fourth, yeah. okay, so we're on the fourth floor, but we're on the fourth floor of a high rise building. So there are people above us, there are people below us, there are people next to us, our CEO's office backs onto the other side of here as well. so here we really had to be conscious of the amount of noise going out as well as coming in. And You experienced in the demo the l the little trick that I like to do. I was gonna bring it up anyway, so might as well where we we we play basically an ambient soundtrack when people come into this space because we're we're wanting to talk about the importance of sound within a space and that if people don't think about acoustics when they're designing a space, you will quite often get background noise coming in and you'll get that. And I was talking to you guys, you know, saying like, you know, this is the Perfectly built space, you won't you know, it's got great acoustics in it, you won't hear any background noise. I can see you all going There's a little thumping going on. There's something around you know something's bleeding in the Is Nick's hearing not working? 'Cause I can hear a coffee machine going off in the background and people walking around and it's a bit echoey in here. What's going on? And then I went, Well it's all fake and stopped it. Yeah. And and now here we are, right? And stop and it's completely silent. In fact it's almost eerily Silent. and apologies if people can now hear my sneakers squeaking. you know that we work with a company called Design Technic. we have a design guideline for designing a high-risk, and it spills spells out, you know, to the millimeter, this is what we're trying to achieve from an acoustic standpoint in there. And anyone that's working on a high-risk project should be involving an acoustician in it from this kind of level of build. in the same way that they would if it was a home theater and they were wanting it to be the best of the best. and so within the construction of this space we I mean we were able to kind of dictate the shape and size of all the spaces within this because it was a new build building. and we chose this size and then we yeah, designed it working with design technic. They fabricated everything off site in a modular way and it just snap together. I I think I had a meeting with Kevin here from Design Technic two weeks ago and he was saying the actual his element of building this room was like two to three days top. Wow. Because everything on site that is obviously everything had been built off site. So when it came in it was a case of, you know, you've got to get it up into the

elevator and then you just screw it all in and it's it's done and it's designed to be modular so that it can be repeated and and scalable. Just follow the Lego book instructions, right? Exactly. Yes, Lego or IKEA, one them. Not quite, but you know, for those that aren't in here, I know it's it's cliche to say, especially as we sit here too, but like I we talked about it. It's one of the things that, you know, it's not a a physical product, right? It's it's the combination of a bunch of physical products that creates this environment that I like we can talk about it all day. I I will and you know, we'll eventually write about it. but you you have to experience it. You do. and you guys have created something I know little voice of God is really voice of Nick during the the demo, but you know, I mean, talk about s the experience that you're trying to create in showing off what's possible with HIRIS. So we have an automated demo script, the idea being that Everything is repeatable. Any L Acoustics employee can give a a demonstration to anyone. I mean, you could come in here and, you know, without even knowing anything about it, you'd look at the iPad, see the button which says start demo and go, well I guess that starts the demo. you know, and it it's built on, you know, a a piece of design software called Q lab where it basically runs through scripts, same as what we did at CDIO two years ago. which means it's super easy to just you you press that start button, it goes and it walks you through kind of all the different things that it can do. and then obviously as we did today, I then give a a deeper dive into okay, well what is it that you experienced, how is that using that? What does that bring, you know, someone in a real life example? I think that's, you know, the important bit is the the the museum attra there's the museum attraction bit of it. and and then there's that okay, but you know, I'm a real person. How am I going to use this in my home? So Yeah, it it's designed to be yeah, simplistic and to to just very quickly. I mean that automated demo I think is thirteen minutes long or something like that. And it's just designed to give you a quick like, Okay, I get this. Yeah. It kinda shows off everything that's possible with the system, right? 'Cause I think when you know, v from the integrator side, they think about the the home theater experience, right, is what they're typically used to showing off. But this is obviously you get that. Yeah. But it's much more than that because I one I mean, to me, one of the most surreal things, and it it's really you know, the the demo after the the demo, but like you taking a tablet and f effectively moving sound around the room. It's you know, disorienting maybe it but it's like cold watch it happen 'cause usually like w if you see a car go by or like you know, I d I like to think of a NASCAR fan, you know, Formula One for those abroad that may care more about that circuit, but like the car going by in

front of you and just that that zip sound, right? Of the engine. This is why you can visually see the car go by and you're experiencing it. This is like watching that with audio around you, right? So it's it's trippy, but like cool to watch 'cause that that is at a baseline like sp we talk about spatial audio, which is a term I know we'll dive into in a little bit, but like it's it's Making the entire ro I I mean, the best word I can think of is right there in the name, but immersive, right? We we talked about it already. it's unique. I think it r it removes boundaries. Yeah. You know, and it it kind of fixes problems that people don't really know that exist. Because as as I was saying earlier, you know, this is we often see entertainment rooms, games rooms on people's plans that they're building their homes and things like that. And How integrators try and fix the problems is usually with multiple sound systems for multiple different things in there, right? If you've got a client that wants a space that they want to watch movies in and then DJ on, or maybe, you know, do karaoke on or something like that, the integrator is probably going to say, Well, you shouldn't be DJing through your home theater equipment because you don't want damage and it's not designed for that. Or, yeah, I wouldn't do karaoke because you've got your ribbon tweeter system or whatever it may be and if that microphone gets dropped it's gonna blow your subs or do this or do that the rest of it. The whole point of a high risk is you can do it all. there all of those restrictions are removed. You don't have to face in any one orientation. You can be in any orientation of the space. It's lighting control for sound. It is the ability to just completely simplistically, you know, just change things at a touch of a button, change a space completely. And there's nothing else out there that can do that. This you know, I I ev every time I get to play with it, it's like thinking of all the different applications. We were talking about like because obviously we're still working on R and D for things and we have Anima, which is the technology which is where you can spatialize existing stereo content and also move it around the space. but where, you know, for sports, getting it because it's based on a machine learning AI algorithm where it's detecting different instrument sounds and vocals. Well, okay, cool. For sports, let's get it to understand what crowd noise is. Let's get it to understand what a race car sounds like. So that we can then position it so when we're watching that normal broadcast sport which is just in stereo, it's way more than a traditional upmix and an A V receiver can do. It's an intelligent spatialization. To your point there, I think one of the demos we saw was some soccer highlight foot football depending on where you're watching this but like we had the you know the looking at the screen that's in front of us and having the announcers there, but you know, so I imagine you talk about the machine learning, understanding that's the commentary, the the vocals that are coming. And then literally placing the crowd noise around us. So it felt like we were in the stadium and just had a, you know, a a special crew there with us announcing the game. Yeah, exactly. And and when I did that demo we just used YouTube, right? You know, like the most crazy crudest, basic, lowest quality audio stream available. And yet it suddenly improves that experience. And you can imagine you got all your buddies around for games night. They're all going to be talking about how cool that was. And then when we added the reverb in as well, now all of a sudden it sounds like we're in a sports bar. Yeah. 'Cause it's got that life and energy to it and You know, when everyone's cheersing when your favorite team scores or whatever it's gonna be like, adds that adds that energy to the space, right? and and you mentioned it too, the and I I think about the other side of our audience with you know, the the designers and architects and they're used to you brought up the term lighting. they're used to designing with light and you can say I mean the space too. lighting is a an important part of it, you know, especially with the presentation. but designing with sound is not something we've heard much of, you know, but I I know you know that is such an important element of this and it gets into, you know, understanding things that designers may not want to dive too much into in terms of sound waves and the the cone s sound cones and things like that. But I mean it it's an im a hugely important element of what you guys are doing here with HIRIS. It it is. And do you know what one of the things of why HIRIS was designed in the way that it was is because It should actually be really simple for an architect or an interior designer to be able to design themselves. Right? Obviously work with an integrator, but you know, each speaker is at equal distance around the room. If you place that speaker at an equal distance around the room with the recommended spacing, then they can do it themselves. Because that's how it's been designed. It's designed in a way that It's the electronics and the software which then dictate how it's experienced afterwards. Right. You know, and I think when the R and D team were working on this originally, they were thinking about that lighting principle of like, well, you know, if you have can lighting in the ceiling, you know, across a whole space, you're not going to use all of it all on all the time. Unless maybe that's your your kind of like cleaning scene or something like that. But you have them there because then you can then recall different scenes. Same thing with this, right? Yeah. Speakers all around you. You may not use all of them all the time, but at any which point, depending on your application, you can use them. And and that was it's designed to be that simplistic so that a an architect could, you know, when

they're designing the plans or or the interior designer, that they can go, Well, I know that if this is going to be a space where they want to have a hyper real immersive sound space. That I know that there needs to be a speaker every one and a half to two and half meters. I know, you know, whether you're talking to integrators or brands in this space, getting a designer, you know, sp arch not to separate the two, but I feel like arch architects with their planning and everything, maybe a little bit. I and maybe I'm completely wrong. I'd love to, you know, get your feedback on this. But I feel like they understand the importance of, you know, planning these things out a little bit earlier on. I think architects do. But you know, this is a paradigm shift. They don't know that this stuff exists necessarily. Right. I mean, we have an architecture engagement lead who's who's going out and trying to change that. and it's part of my remit as well. And I I I say with a high risk, like the architectural design can be done, but the ideal sweet spot for us to be in is once the architectural design has been done and before the interior design has been done. Because if we can place the loudspeakers first and the interior design, messing with design. Yeah. No well, what I d wanna get to too is like the the conversations that you're having, 'cause I know we talked about, you know, that for us that aha moment was the the sound going off, right? The first thing we experience when we come into the room. you know, and talking with designers and talking with architects, you know, where technology is isn't just for better well, for worse in our Our channel, it's not top of mind. You know, how are you finding those conversations to be with them or you know, what is that thing that makes them go aha? I think they're always surprised by learning what's possible. I think, you know, so we we did a a pop up this summer just gone in London at a design center where they they build what's called the world's postius bungalow. for a month long period. and it's called Wow House. And basically there's it's designed to be that there are lots of different rooms throughout this building that are all hosted by different sponsors and then they are given an interior designer. And so we were asked by the integrator who sponsored one of the rooms if they could bring high risk to it. And so we invited the interior designer up to the showroom in London, our showroom, and gave them the demonstration. They got super excited by it 'cause they were like This g sound is another fabric. Yeah. In our repertoire. And Russell, the interior design fr interior designer from from that project, runs a studio called Russell Sage Studios and he had this concept where he does a lot of hospitality spaces that he designs for. And he said, you know, everyone has their phones in their pocket and their phones are full of memories, but they never leave the phone. Said, wouldn't it be amazing if just when you're in a space you could relive your happiest moments? And he had this whole the whole thing hinged around his dog Hugo. So he designed this massive couch which was a human dog bed. Wow. So it looked like a dog bed, but it was for humans. and then we had a visual artist and a sound artist create content, which was him walking through the fields near his house with his dog Hugo, and it was designed to be able to take him through it. And he was like, I couldn't have done this without the sound. To create this experience would have been impossible without the sound. And I think that's the aha moment is when they realize and you know, Angela who works on this team who was responsible for the technical design, I I remember when she was kind of because we we we're given like a white wooden box, right, to build the sentence, like a trade show kind of to build. And you know, so we just did the loudspeaker layout, sent it to to the Russell Sage team and and Angela, the designer, went Well, that's a lot of speakers. you know, d do we need to have all of them, as as is always the response, right? And but w they were our little four inch cubes. Yeah. with our our six inch subs. And she then really leant into it and was like, Well, actually we can create these boxes and use the same fabrics and fabrics are good for acoustics, so we know we need to have good acoustics. And they came up with this concept of like drapes around the space at all different heights, then worked with the lighting designer to then highlight the artwork and stuff like that and everything. And it just became this complete experience. Comes together. Right. Twenty-four thousand people apparently went through that that bungalow wow house during the month of June and every single person that walked into the space, I mean they were like, what sound is coming from everywhere. This is incredible. And predominantly interior designers and everyone's realizing that, okay, this isn't such a challenge. This is actually quite easy and the experience that I can deliver will elevate me right as a designer because thinking about it, you know, I I I think you can kind of be in two ways, right? You can either be ignorant to what's going on or you can be proactive and learn about what's going on and realize that actually You're probably going to be adding value to your services to your client if you're coming to them and saying, Are you aware of this? Right. Right. You know, it's another string in your boat. They don't need to be the ones that are responsible for the technical design. Right. That's why we have integrators, right? But just having them be a part of it and showcasing it to their clients is super powerful. Yeah. And I mean, I I think it shows too that, you know They get it, right? That it's not like you know, going through it, I it's especially with the demo, right? It it's difficult because sometimes it can come across like, you know, you're you're trying to show something that's

gimmicky. This is not gimmicky in the least. I mean, we you got the demo, the th you know, the thirteen minutes we go from, you know, incredibly dry rooms that s kind of you know, make it suitable for a podcast to just these open spaces that feel like a cathedral. You know, it it kinda shows the versatility of the space, but you know, also the ability for the person designing it, person living in it, who's gonna be using it, the event coordinator that's you know, if it's a commercial space, just what's possible for you to, you know, create the environment you're looking to create and how easy it is to adapt. Yeah, and and you you mentioned just that, like commercial spaces. I always say like hotel ballrooms. Right. Right, where A V is always a challenge because it's being used for different things. It's a wedding one day, a Bomitz for the next, a birthday the next, and every single one's got a different A V setup. If that ballroom had high-risk installed in it, it could do every single one, but rather than having to have people lug things around, they literally just press a button on a touch screen. I I wanna ask too. you know, the idea of we we mentioned spatial audio, is affec you know Maybe another way, and I we can get into the technicalities of how different what that the terms really mean, but you know, effectively that is a term people are familiar with now, more I think. How important, you know, has the rise of awareness around spatial audio been for what you guys are doing here? massively. I I I think you you know, we we have to thank you know, companies like you know, Apple who, you know, on AirPods, you know, made Dolby Atmos possible for the consumer. you know, all of a sudden now people are aware of what spatial music is, you know, whether that's through services like Tidal or whether it's through Apple Music or, you know, even just regular broadcast TV is getting Atmos on now. I see like the Formula One for example with the Apple T V partnership here in the US is they're gonna be adding Atmos to that. I think people are aware of it far, far more so it's not y y you know, back in back in the day we have to think where technologies come from, right? And I remember when I was a kid, you know, you you start with your your C R T T V, your big TV in your bedroom, right? You're like, Yeah, this is it. I've made my movie theatre. Then you add like a pair of speakers to it and you're like, now it's got better. And that's like, now I want to add some surrounds at the back and but you know, everyone else, you know, it was always like, Why don't we all these speakers? It's like, well, this is how immersive it's I remember my bedroom when I was at college. Well I had like a Bose five point one system which I'd inherited from from someone and you know I'd like have friends come and they're like, what this is crazy. Why have you got this in your bedroom? I was like, because I just wait. You look at look at where I am now, you know, still obsessed

with it. and and I you know, I I I think it is it is amazing. But I mean one thing that annoys me about it though, is again, it goes back to that usage of the word immersive and you know, spatial is no different to a to immersive in that sense is that what upsets me about it is that there is no level of quality or standard right within this technology. Absolutely. So I can experience Dolby Atmos on my AirPods. Right. So when I'm watching a TV show on Netflix on the plane yesterday That's telling me I am listening to immersive audio in a Dolby Atmos soundtrack. Right. My question to you, Rob, is is what is a better experience that watching that T V show through my AirPods or the same T V show here in this room? Let me think. The ambient noise that comes in from a plane, right, when you're flying it. Yeah. So I think this did it a little better. But yeah, I think And I mean not not just that, right? But like just the the object placement and the low end frequencies and everything and everything and everything. But it's the same Dolby Atmos and the same spatial or the same immersive experience on paper. So is a Sonos soundbar. You know, I have Sonos soundbar at home. That can Dolby Atmos. It can't do it as well as this room can do it. You know, so I I I think that that's a you know, it's great for awareness. Yeah. But what's not good for awareness is and what we need to get better at as an industry is making sure that people are aware of That there is a whole level above that AirPod and above that sound bar experience. Yeah, absolutely. It it's it's a great gateway for them to understand the term, right? And and I it's kinda funny we're sitting here. I don't I hate to date the podcast, but we're talking about it on the day that Apple also got into the smart home. right. Like they they're they're making an entrance a play into this space that is You know, f think about it what you will, but it's it's that double edged sword, right? Of yes, they're coming into it, but they're bringing with them a whole class of consumer that now is gonna be interested in it more or like wanna it's gonna be interesting. I mean I very, very briefly this morning saw it announced and went, Ooh, what's that? You were probably frantically trying to get something out about it. at the same time I was trying to read about it. But I I'm in I'm intrigued. Right. Well same concept, right? In But I want to know like will it be able to run I I have a crush on home system in my house. and so I have touch screens on my walls, I have an Alexa dot on the side in my kitchen which is connected into the Sono switch goes to the ceiling speakers and all the rest of it. And I'm thinking, Huh, but I want that Apple device because that's gonna be super cool for doing the calendar. Because my wife and I have a shared Apple calendar and I'm thinking That's gonna be perfect because it's there in the kitchen and I haven't got one of those skylight things. but I think that will fix that problem. But then I'm like, but is it gonna run? And I noticed it said on it that it will run certain iOS apps. Right. Will it run the Crestron Home app on it? Will it run Spotify on it? Will it run Sonos on it? Or are they gonna be like, No, you have to have Apple Music and da da da yeah. So it's gonna be really interesting to see where it where it goes. And I think But I mean look, this this isn't a a a new thing. Again, you know, I was watching a YouTube video this morning. it sounds like a really productive morning, doesn't it? This is jet jet lag, guys. Jet lag. I was up at five AM. I'm a I'm allowed to watch stuff in the morning. and you know, this this guy who is a a car YouTuber predominantly, he's bought a new home and he's renovating it and he was making a point saying that how He was running through the building costs of his house that he's spent so far. And he's put in a ubiquity network himself with ubiquity Wi Fi, Ubiquity cameras, ubiquity doorbell. he's put in Shelley smart switches behind all of his keypads. I think he's put some Somphi shades in or something like that. And he's using the IKEA smart home stuff as well. And he's building it all into home assistant. And he calls it out and he says, I've spent eight thousand pounds on this kit. Which to me is a lot of money, but if I was to go to a professional smart home company to get this done, it would have been hundreds of thousands. Now he's the kind of guy that has got the time to sit there and fiddle with it, right? And I always say that our industry is the our client base is the the DIFM market. Do it for me. Yeah. Right. You know, when I need my tires changing on my car, I don't do it myself. I take it to an expert to do it. There is still absolutely a market for the high end and for the people that have the time for it. You know, and I think this smart home stuff is great for kind of building awareness and all the rest of it. I think it's dangerous again because same terminology problem is like immersive, spatial. What's the difference between someone who's got the new Apple home pod versus someone who's got a full Crestron home or savant or control four system? you know, you you can do a lot with it and I you will obviously be able to do more and more as it gets to it, but you're you're then reliant on yourself when it goes wrong. Right. Well again, getting them in the door to, you know, a kind of the gateway drug, if you will, of understanding what it is to then realize there are way better options out there, right? you know, it's and unfortunately, companies like us that operate in this channel, we don't have the same budgets of Apple, Amazon, so on and so forth. So Yeah, that's kind of where we we are 'cause they all have other products which they sell millions and millions of, right? Yeah. well we bring up the name. I have to ask too. you know, I d I don't want to come completely out of left field here, but we're talking about spatial audio that they helped captivate or, you

know, bring to the masses, if you will. certainly think you guys are are taking that to a different level that when people experience it they'll understand. but your names kind of get combined here not too long ago. We covered Yeah, in in covering Apple Music Hall that opened up. got the learn they know they they're a company that doesn't ever really talk much about their product or, you know, the environments they create. came across the L Acoustics name being involved with Apple Music Hall. So ta I mean, that's a a big nod, I think, to to you guys and the trust that a company like Apple has to bring your product in. But I I think I saw what's the forty eight like forty eight L Acoustic speakers that are in there that help create the spatial audio experience within the I ma imagine it's the venue itself, right? Like the concert. And they have a venue in there which was originally going to be a private venue, but they've now opened it up to to the to the public. And yeah, it certainly looks to have an L acoustics spatial system. yeah, exactly. And you know, it's it's been great. We had the the the king was there last week having a tour. great to see him experiencing L two, which is one of our speak systems in there. So pretty cool. Yeah, and you know, Elton John opened it up, looked like a great show. I think it's a six hundred cap venue or something like that. So pretty small and intimate. And yeah, you know, it's it it it's it's great, you know. I think a lot of people when it got announced were saying bring back the Apple Festival or whatever it was called, which, you know, was was done around the world and Apple Music's a a great thing and and look, you know, they're investing heavily into musicians and their own creative spaces and stuff like that, you know. I think you know, well, hey, they they they had they invented the iPod, right? It's it's you know, it it's certainly the way we did it. I mean, I remember know, kind of thinking, wouldn't it be cool if a phone could have your music on it and this and all the rest of it and and what what they're doing as a a tech company. I mean I I like yourself I think you know we've we've got the Apple watches on, we've got iPhones, we're running Macs, we're doing everything. When you're in that ecosystem, you know, they've they've got it nailed and, you know, it it it's great that yeah, they they appreciate the the sound quality of L Acoustics. Yeah, no awesome to see and well you talk about ecosystem too. I know one of the things I loved about you know, in experiencing this and I know it was asked to while we were here, but you guys keeping this an L acoustics ecosystem. 'Cause you I mean, you have from the room itself, we can get into the that we we won't because I time wise, we want to be respectful of those watching, but you know, there's you got the specs for this developing this room for people that wanna recreate and have it be an LX L acoustics experience in their showroom or wherever. but, you know, the equipment itself, wanting to keep that secure and knowing that, you know, you guys have a a reputation to uphold, a sound profile to uphold, an overall experience to uphold and keeping that true to what you are, I think, is I reassuring to me to hear that you don't want it, you know, being open. No, I'm I I mean it it's we we have to the the this is the the best of the best of what we can achieve. And For that we have to be involved at every every step of the way. You know, we I and you know, I mean this seriously to to kind of any integrators that that that that may be watching or listening is w when we're asking to be introduced to the architect, interior designer and and the end client, it's not because we're wanting to, you know, build a relationship with your client to try and take them away from you or anything like that. It's that we want to be an extension of your sales force and we want to help you sell this. as much as possible because y you've you've never sold a high-risk before, whereas we have the expertise and we've worked in these projects and we we we know the way that it goes and we want to make sure that when we come and calibrate as we will do with every highest system that's stalled, it has that gold seal of approval on it. You know, that we can hand it over confidently to that end user knowing they have got the best of the best experience. And, you know, that that really comes through trust and partnership. and and we believe that, you know, our dealer network that we have is y you know, we we we're working with the best of the best. And, you know, we we want to empower them to enable them to bring this solution to their clients. You know, these spaces cost a lot of money. We are desperate, you know, w well not desperate is the wrong word, but we implore people to bring their clients to these spaces and their their architect connections, their interior design connections, because again Bit like I was saying, you with the interior designer thing of like, hey, if you show your client this thing and they think it's cool, then you're the person that's done that, right? 'Cause you're the hero. There's nothing better than when you introduce something to a friend or a family member that they haven't got which all of a sudden changes their lives, right? You can be that person, whether you're the integrator, the interior designer or the architect, you can be that person of showing someone something which is just that, you know, kind of penny drop moment when they go, This is what I want, this is what I've been looking for. And you know, it should really be a true partnership between between all parties and and I believe the most successful projects which we've worked on with high risk in is in like real life projects, not just our showroom spaces, but aware we are involved and in conversation with all the key stakeholders of that project. And that that's a message I think, you know, whether you're talking high risk or just in general. Absolutely. I think anyone can understand that and No, it's it's been incredible to to watch this again evolve even just in the j about two years, right, since the the technology was introduced. Yeah, twenty it was on our fortieth anniversary, the thirteenth of September twenty twenty four. So yeah. It's incredible to watch how it's evolved, watch this experience center come to life. and you guys just continue to crush, man. This was a lot of fun. Thank you again for having us out here. No, thank you for coming. Really appreciate it. forward to continuing to follow as this thing gets out into more homes and more spaces and experiencing it out in the real world. Yeah, absolutely. And we're we're desperate to share the projects where we can, but understandably a lot of the clients are very private individuals and and don't want their home showcased which is which is a shame. 'cause there I pr I promise you these projects do exist. but we can't share them un unfortunately. No, all good all good. 'Cause we get to check the logs on the system when we do health checks and stuff. Too cool. Well Nick, thank you again and look forward to catching up down the line, man. We appreciate it. Absolutely. You know where we are now, so you can't.