Interview with Jonathan Weiss, Founder of Oswalds Mill Audio, 03.2019
Pawel Stefaniak:
Seth Godin, extremely popular marketing “guru” of this decade prizes exactly what your company is creating - products which are different, one of a kind and fit into specific individuals.
In the West saturation of cheap, factory made, generic products (mostly manufactured in Asia) reached levels so high, that we have to create unique, one of a kind products for a narrow, specific group of passionate customers or niche. OMA loudspeakers, amplifiers and turntables all have this rule in their DNA. Can you comment on that?
Jonathan Weiss:
We never set out to design things “rare” “unique” or for a very narrow audience. Instead, we created things which we felt were necessary for the job intended. As we cannot compete with large companies and corporations in mass markets due to our very small scale, we simply designed things to be the best possible, with no regard to cost. In that way we can be competitive.
Pawel Stefaniak:
In today’s high end audio market we have plenty of speaker models employing HIGH TECH components made of: talantum, diamond, beryllium, carbon nanotubes, ceramics, plasma tweeters and even omnidirectional electrostatic designs. They all promise ultra low distortion, but also models using these are not very efficient. OMA seem to go in the opposite direction: searching for best, old drivers and speaker designs and mastering their details using modern tech. Your approach is certainly DIFFERENT, can you explain why it can also be superior sonically?
Jonathan Weiss:
We don’t privilege more traditional materials in our loudspeakers, we simply try to achieve the best sound which requires very high efficiency and primarily requires the use of horns. Plasma tweeters, for example, sound (and are) very high tech, but they’ve been around for nearly 70 years. I use a pair myself in our reference system at OMA but they are not currently user friendly enough to include in our systems. They do have the best high frequency reproduction, though, and I hope we can come out with an OMA plasma at some point (we’ve been working on that for 5 years now.) Our choices vis drivers, materials may seem nostalgic but since we really only care about the quality of the sound our systems can reproduce, the larger drivers we tend to use are historic throw backs. Today material science has created a range of materials made to withstand very high pressures, for example, necessary for high power handling in professional audio. These materials often don’t compare with the sound of previous generations of materials which are no longer relevant for the demands of today’s audio industry.
PS:
OMA offers horn, open baffle, wide baffle speakers and two way “monitors”. Any plans to offer Vertical Line Arrays? These designs combine high sensitivity, very low distortion and good dispersion in the room, but they are not really popular in the high end sector. What is your perspective on Line Arrays?
JW:
Line arrays can work well but we are not interested in this approach.
PS:
The number of people using digital means of social interactions (social media) and entertainement (Netflix, Spotify, Youtube, computer games) is growing exponentially. Soon, it will cover great majority of the population.
What is your view on these social trends: do you think society will soon split into masses who are almost totally engaged in digital, virtual, artificial worlds and into tiny elite, who choose to experience the world, the connections with people and art in their NATURAL state?
JW:
I don’t think the divisions “mass” and “tiny elite” are relevant here, just that the technological elite of Silicon Valley won’t let their own kids near the products they have created for the rest of us.
PS:
In the world now there are more people with deep budgets who also have large enough real estate to install big horns in their rooms. On the other spectrum, the sales of headphones are exploding.
How do you see your firms position in the audiophile market in the near future?
JW:
We just launched a new company to make a more affordable alternative for audio than OMA. We’ll be announcing the website and first products to be offered soon.