In this third part of the interview we asked Yves Trélohan what’s his interpretation of the ultimate in high-end immersive audio.
Yves Trélohan – CEO StormAudio: What I consider the ultimate in high end audio? That’s a very complicated subject. There are a few factors in play. The first one is to have a sound comprehensive management that makes the auditor forget about the technology. I always say that the products are there to support the experience. The experience can be a movie or a concert. The main goal is that the auditor can understand what the director is trying to do, trying to convey. He or she can be transported into that experience in a home theatre or cinema. Another factor is to support any kind of format. The product that the consumer choses must be able to play all available content, in the best possible way. If you compare our products with the market you’ll find that only a few support all leading formats. On of the main factors is of course the sound quality. If you use for example 24 speakers, the signal that each of these speakers receives is critical. And what about your room optimization? Can you achieve the best possible sound experience in it? The integrator can take a lot of responsibility in this matter. But first it’s up to us, as a manufacturer, to offer the best tools to optimize your room. There’s a big difference between a standard and a ultimate product, in the way that they processes everything (aside from the sound quality and features). How flexible is the solution, offered to the integrator to provide the ultimate experience, no matter how the theatre is configured? We’re talking about speakers configuration flexibility, to have the ability to tune the room and to have the best possible calibration system available. We use Dirac from a Swedish company. A lot of engineers have been working on their room optimization software for over 20 years. That’s one of the reasons we chose to partner up with them. This way we can achieve our target of getting the best possible result in multiple configurations and offer different levels of expertise for the dealers. Some dealers are experts in designing home theaters, a lot of them can setup systems easily and some of them are real audio specialists. We can offer them tools for any kind of level. Very few products in the market are designed to offer standard and advanced configurations. This means that pro’s as well as non-pro’s can work with our products. I will make an analogy with a sports car. Imagine a Mercedes S-class. That’s a very sophisticated car. To drive it, you only need a license. You don’t need to be an expert in mechanics. This is the way we approach the design of our products. There’s a lot of embedded technology, but you don’t need to understand it all to drive the car. To drive the car properly is the same as setting up your room properly. We try to make our products as intuitive and easy as possible, even if the technology behind it is quiet complex.
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