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Designer Chris Weir from hot speaker startup Grain Audio explains the design behind his great speakers and why wood is good for sound.
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the VP of design for gra audio uh and
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we're going to talk about the uh uh pbs1
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which is our uh passive bookshelf system
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um this is a uh
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a pair of bookshelf speakers that we've
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been uh working on for the past uh 18
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months that are just on that have been
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on the market September this year um
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they originally designed for green rims
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at the Capitol Theater um when it
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reopened in Fort Chester New York in
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Upstate New York and that's a famous
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famous venue it's a it's a famous venue
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um the you know back in the uh 60s uh
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the dead plate there a lot uh Bob Dylan
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you know uh all those parest of that era
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um we had an opportunity to do a uh
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provide a a listening solution for their
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green rooms um and and uh couldn't
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really pass it up um so we uh designed
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uh and built the first set of these uh
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speakers uh in our uh Shop in
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Pennsylvania um and once we got to
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listen to them and the artists got to
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listen to them uh we decided we had a
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product on our hands um and it's and
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what's the most unusual thing about
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about the speaker well about the the
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speakers and our our our brand in
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general um the the outstanding design
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feature uh of all of our products is uh
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reusing solid wood as uh as a part or as
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the entirety of the acoustical enclosure
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um and we use that both for uh for
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design for a design for design reasons
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um as well as for performance reasons
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right acoustic reasons yeah acoustic
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reasons this is something that the
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speaker ini has known for a long time
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but has kind of got away from Recently
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yeah I'm sorry well this is something
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that the speaker industry has known for
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a while well but has got away from you
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know sort of modern digital stuff yeah
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well I mean the you know you find uh
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solid woods and plywoods in very
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high-end speakers um because the you
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know the that part of the market can
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typically afford those kind of materials
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what we're doing is bringing that kind
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of construction to the consumer Market
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yeah and it it does provide uh what what
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the solid wood does is it helps to
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attenuate a lot of the high frequency uh
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sounds throughout the material itself
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rather than just reflecting it back into
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the acoustical chamber right and that
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provides a much warmer and richer sound
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than you can find with a composite or a
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plastic enion yeah yeah um so uh the the
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bookshelf speakers um were we have uh uh
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the solid wood top and bottom plate to
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help do that they also help to isolate
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the uh the grill so it doesn't rattle
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around and then with our portable
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speakers and our headphones we actually
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use the wood as the
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acoustical yeah and is that the only
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wood uh Bluetooth speaker on the mar
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maret yes uh well it's the only solid
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wood there is there are some plywood uh
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and bamboo speakers out there but it's
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the only one that's actually using solid
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uh wood as the accusal enclosure
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completely and I can attest the fact
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that it sounds remarkable it sounds
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better than the jam books we did it like
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an AB
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test I am glad you said that yeah no it
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does it's um you know besides just the
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acoustic acoustical uh enclosure with
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the solid wood uh we're using a Sound
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Processing Suite on there that really
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helps us
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um open up uh the the the Sound Stage um
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and really control uh what's going on
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with the with the music and you said
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most of the parts for for the speakers
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are um custom build yeah the the the
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bookshelf speaker I mean down to the
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screws themselves they're they're cut
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for us uh uh custom um all of the
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drivers the drivers of tweeters
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crossovers those are all made um to our
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specs uh from the material up so what
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we're doing with um each of our the the
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what we're trying to do with each of our
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speakers is create an optimized uh
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acoustical environment by controlling
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and by controlling all of the parts that
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go into it so we're not selecting
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anything off the shelf um that that
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affects the sound and that's in contrast
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to other manufacturers who tend to go in
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and pick stuff on yeah typical mode is
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to go into a factory or a manufacturer
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in Asia and start picking stuff off the
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shelf um and what we did is we came in
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uh with prototypes built um uh by our
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acoustical engineer and uh then we built
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we worked with the with the
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manufacturers to build all the materials
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from the ground including the software
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too right uh the software um no the
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software uh for the Bluetooth speaker
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we're using a product called waves Max
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audio um which is uh a it's the same uh
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it's the same uh company that makes uh
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uh uh the software that lives on
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recording uh Studio boards so the idea
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is that the the music that's that's
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coming out of the studio is being
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processed the same way as it's coming
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out of our speakers okay um and that's a
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you know a partnership that we've had
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since we started the
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company helps us and so these are uh the
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L speakers have been on the market for
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how long and the loud speakers uh
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started shipping in they started
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shipping just a few months ago and how
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are they doing great we have one pair
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left in the right now all right well I'm
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going to go buy them yeah yeah
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definitely get on that now listen okay
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cool well thanks very much thanks see
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you
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