atelier 13 audio
He chases that elusive sound: The sound that loses its way in the cacophony of crossover networks as it emanates from the tweeter, mid range and woofer. It sounds right, but not quite, at least for architect and designer, Jacob George. For he, like any other audiophile, will settle for nothing less. His uncompromising stand to hear the sound right, led him to design high-end music speakers; something that fellow Indian-American Amar G. Bose had done before him. Jacob's Rethm speakers have received rare reviews at the technology related trade show, the Consumer Electronic Shows (CES) held across the world.
"Audiophiles or serious listeners of music are looking for better and better sound, but for us the first mission is always to listen to good music," says Jacob who started this whole venture in a friend's garage in Los Angeles, where he was working as an architect. "It came about from listening to systems and not being able to afford them. I thought of designing one. I was looking for the sound that to my ears was as close to real, live music as possible. For this, one also has to be familiar with what the `actual' sound of instruments, or a voice, is like - not the sound you hear at most concerts, where the music comes to you through an amplification system. When you get into better and better equipment, you are trying to get closest to the realistic reproduction of an event in your living room. It was this obsession that made me design the first pair of speakers there in LA." Jacob opted for something called the `full-range single-driver' system, and made his first prototype.
"My speciality is a single driver loudspeaker. It is basically one full range driver," explains Jacob. The second step in designing the speakers was to eliminate the problems of a box speaker. And then to provide that additional bass, and still clinging to realistic sound and to his single driver philosophy, Jacob introduced an additional bass module.
"Technically it is a kind of sub woofer. The enclosure has a labyrinth which, using the rear sound waves, amplifies the bass frequencies. This unit is designed to jell with the single speaker unit," explains Jacob, maintaining that this new design will enable the details in bass reproduction to be heard, and not just let it be a mass of sound.
ReTHM is an Indian manufacturer of High End Equipment located in Kochi, in the beautiful state of Kerala