In 2014 I started communicating with a speaker designer and maker about acquiring a pair of his horn speakers. Early next year I booked a plane ticket to Brighton, UK (I live in Denmark) to listen to the speaker he’d built with his own hands, and standing there in his living room I marveled at the woodwork and that it actually looked, felt and smelled like real wood. Later that year I ordered my own pair of the same speakers in the wake of long conversations with him on the particular type of veneer (he sent me veneer samples on boards to Denmark to inspect them "in the flesh"), the choice of varnish, driver choices in the horn-loaded woofer section, alternate ways to mount the top horn section to the bashorn below, etc. etc. During the next couple of months he sent me pictures from the process of assembling them from ground up (he’s a master craftsman) in addition to many phone conversations. Once they were completed we decided against sending them to Denmark with a freight company (out of fear of mishandling on the way), so I rented a van and drove to Brighton with a friend to pick up the speakers (which in itself was a journey not soon to be forgotten).
All told from the first mail correspondence with Simon to finally landing at home with the speakers close to 2 years went by. This wasn’t just about ordering a pair of in-stock speakers from a dealer, expensive and lovely they may be, but a lengthy process of curiosity, exploration, passion and what ultimately led to friendship. That in particular was the human element to me, getting to know Simon, and looking at and the listening to the speakers he’d made reflected the whole of that experience (I even said ’Good morning’ to them every morning I went by them in the living room, and when the light was right they glowed in their stunning paldao wood veneer).
I spite of all this, 5 years later in 2020, I began experimenting with active configuration with other speakers from the pro cinema sector, and about a year later decided to sell the lovely speakers made by Simon to continue my journey into active config. with these in many ways diametrically different pro cinema speakers compared to Simons works of art. Some people around me even questioned, "But why??" They’d almost gotten to know Simon as much as I had, and never thought I would part with his horn speakers. However coming down to it and in the end I’m pragmatic about this and exploring into ways to improve upon sound reproduction, though I would never have been without the experience just told.
By now to me ’form follows function’ is what really gets me going. I cherish the honest, unapologetic and even industrial look of not only speakers that reflects great engineering where functionality and not appearance is the primary concern, and that leads to a sound that - to a more typical audiophile - defies its origin and looks. To me that’s the real art of things; unpretentious, unassuming, but delivering where it counts and with this being musically transported (yes, that’s actually possible with speakers and other gear from the pro segment).