By Douglas Weinstein
One of the original innovators in the fledgling world of custom smart home products and integration founded back in 1983 is the award-winning audio company Sonance. For over 40 years this design forward company that manufactures audio products has been on the cutting edge of so many developments that they have earned an enviable reputation globally for delivering among the most immersive and engaging aural experiences for homeowners who appreciate having music as a fundamental component of the ambiance of fine living and fine interior design.
I recently visited Sonance’s headquarters in San Clemente, California in order to get my head around the new vision that the company has embarked on, spending the day touring the Studio where so much is happening with minimal visual intrusion. I came away impressed with their understanding that technology should never interfere with the design of a space, and that our role is one of support in order to elevate and nurture a space’s ambiance.
My guides were Jason Sloan, Chief Sales Officer and Mike Cleary, Senior Director of Residential Marketing. In this two-part series we’ll explore the history of the brand and what’s happening today with Jason in part one, and then explore the Studio with Mike in part two.
“I think Life is Better with Music informs everything we are about today and where it can take us tomorrow. When you consider all of the medical research that speaks about the health benefits of music and high fidelity sound, and the design-build trades coming together to create performance homes and healthy interiors, the role we play is just as important as the manufacturers producing heat pumps, ERVs, resilient building cladding materials, intelligent lighting, clean air and water products and the entire spectrum of designs that support what modern homeowners are looking for. Their home is their castle and all they are asking for is comfort, convenience and security.”
Doug: Take us back to the beginning and how Sonance came into being.
Jason: Our Founders, Scott Struthers and Geoff Spencer, were installers who helped people bring music into their daily lives. They would show customers a wide range of products in catalogs and come up with solutions and then deliver and set up the gear. This was the prototype of what later became the CEDIA trade association of smart home professionals. There were pockets of like-minded folks around the country, and some of them eventually came together to found CEDIA and create this world of technology design and systems integration for both residential and commercial markets.
One client was a woman who was renovating her kitchen and really had her heart set on having music as part of her design goals because that was just as important as the countertop and cabinets and appliances when she would be cooking. Part of the landscape as it were. But she didn’t like any of the speaker options and told Scott and Geoff that she didn’t want to see the speakers necessarily and “can’t you hide them somehow?”
So, Scott and Geoff ended up disassembling a bookshelf speaker, cut a hole in the dry wall, mounted the remaining parts with braces to the two-by-fours, flush-mounted a speaker grill and created the first residential architectural speaker. The Sonance 1.
Sonance was born. But even back in those early days pre-CEDIA, Scott would tell people that he started a design company that happened to manufacture audio products. And it is that reverence for design that we have come full circle on when we talk about our new vision. We’re getting back to our roots with some exciting audio designs with minimal visual intrusion that enrich lives and elevate interior and exterior spaces.
Today we have five simple principles that inform everything we do. These ideas represent the beliefs that inspired our beginning and still hold true to this day, beginning with creating products that are Designed to Disappear. Second, you will find passionate, immensely knowledgeable people forging some of the strongest relationships in our industry. From our customer-centric culture to our not-to-be-missed Studio Seminars, we aim to define what Authentic Partnership looks like. We strive to remind ourselves that it is our responsibility to earn our customers business every day and to Lead with Culture as we look to expand our business. Fourth, we continue to Reimagine Sound in new and fantastic ways. Finally we believe we have a responsibility to use our business and our resources as a force for good in the world, focusing on Going Beyond profits to support purpose-driven philanthropic efforts.
Over the past few years, I think what we’ve rediscovered is that we don’t sell products. We sell experiences. Music is so fundamental to well-being and most people want to enjoy music as part of their lives without having to sit stationary in front of a pair of speakers but go about their lives entertaining, getting the kids ready for soccer practice, or just the daily existence of being in your home. We want music to fill a space, so people enjoy where they’re at. So, what we’re focused on is providing the ultimate immersive experience where every square foot of your space has even, full fidelity sound regardless of how loud you want to play your music, while still being able to hold conversations without competing against that great sound. And the best part of what we’re doing today is giving architects and designers the ability to hide our products, so they don’t compete with the design goals of the space.
And I think these concepts are reflected in our new mantra for the brand: Life is Better with Music.
Doug: Immersing a space with uniform sound is a challenge. Tell us about your approach.
Jason: Great question. I like to equate it to how you light a space. If you think of photos you’ve seen of interior designs, you’ll normally notice two speakers up in the ceiling for the entire kitchen and maybe two speakers for the dining room. Now think of that as two big lights in the ceiling. If you turned all the lights off and switched just those two on, you’d have intense light directly below a fixture, but as you move away from that cone of light you start receding into darkness. The corners and near the walls are dark, with a cone of light directly below the light source. That’s why lighting designers use multiple downlights and other layers of light – sconces, lamps, etc. – to provide uniform lighting in the space.
The same goes for audio. A proper design might have a series of ceiling speakers, perhaps some in-wall speakers if you are supporting a video display, and then what we refer to as Immersive Speakers which are placed closer to the floor. This gives a rich, full sound field where, regardless of where you are, you’re getting great sound. And, when its just background music and at a low volume, we add sub-woofers which provides some bottom-end bass notes to give it some additional weight.
At this point, the design team then can choose from an array of our products as to how much they want the speakers to blend into the décor – based on specific areas and associated budgets as you work from high profile public areas to mud rooms, closets, etc. Our Visual Experience Series ceiling and wall-mounted speakers feature award-winning low-profile speaker grilles or completely flush mounted options. Or step up to our Small Aperture speakers that emulate today’s premium light fixtures. Either of these choices can be customized to match your design as they are meant to disappear with minimal visual intrusion.
Our Sonance Invisible Series is the ultimate expression in architectural audio. Installed into the wall or ceiling and then finished over with the surrounding surface, these magical speakers deliver ambient music that emanates throughout the space with no visual footprint.
Additionally, let’s not forget that we have a full array of landscape and outdoor solutions that are also designed to visually disappear. From traditional outdoor IP67 rated enclosures to more stealthy designs, you are able to create immersive soundscapes. Our Garden Series creates simply scaled systems for outdoor areas up to 3,500 square feet, the Patio Series was developed for small scale spaces and we have a range of high performance Rock speakers in natural colors and textures along with our Mariner speakers for demanding marine applications.
Finally, what brings it all together is our complete line of Sonance Electronics which are designed to bring out the very best in our speakers. From amplification to volume control and speaker selection, our electronics are designed to be integrated into third-party control systems for simplicity and user-friendliness.
Doug: I know that Sonance is known for being able to work with the design-build trades and provide a wide-range of customization. Talk about that.
Jason: Sure. Whether we’re talking about any of our distribution channels – Residential, Commercial, Marine – we’ve always had the mind set to listen to what our partners are asking for. We have a manufacturing facility in Nevada with over 80 artisans who are doing amazing work. One of my favorites is an outdoor space a client was putting together and they didn’t want to see any hint of a speaker. So, we integrated a system into the stone steps that surrounded the entertaining area. We customized the enclosure and incorporated our marine specifications since this was obviously an outdoor integration. We also looked at the glass perimeter and were able to design speakers into one of the support columns.
Indoors, our Small Aperture series gets a lot of customization. We can modify the acoustic lens (where the audio actually projects from into the space) with color, texture, etc. So, when you have a lighting design that specifies small apertures – round or square – you can match that with your speakers and then customize the speaker surface to match that surrounding ceiling surface in order to provide an uncluttered look and feel.
The bottom line is that our partners know they can come to us with ideas and we will certainly listen and explore the possibilities. We spend an inordinate amount of time talking with and working with design-build professionals because we love supporting their design goals. Music plays so many roles and spans homes, offices and hospitality venues.
Doug: And that goes for integration support, correct?
Jason: Yes. Here’s an interesting story. When we took over our current building eight years ago, we knew we wanted to create an experience center to show people what our products are designed for; how we actually deliver on our Beyond Sound tag line. And we also knew that our Studio concept would change and evolve over time, as our products naturally do.
Now, we could have contracted the design and labor out, or we could do it in-house, which ultimately is what we decided to do. So, we have a crew who has actually built all of the amazing vignettes within the Studio (and I know you’ll be covering that with Mike in the next issue of TD) and who better to send out in the field to support our partners than these amazing artisans. Whether we are working with an architecture firm, a custom builder, interior designer or technology design firm, we have the ability to partner in the most valuable sense of that word; “what exactly are you asking for and please let us help you get there.”
Doug: I know you’re passionate about what you do. Tell us about your own journey with Sonance.
Jason: [laughs] I started my career in 1998 with Lutron Electronics. Sonance was looking for leadership talent and after they had interviewed Ari Supran, our current Chief Executive Officer and a colleague of mine at Lutron at the time, I became intrigued by this philosophy that Scott Struthers talked about.; a design company that happened to manufacture audio products. After I was fortunate to go through the interview process and my wife and I visited San Clemente we were blown away and realized what a great opportunity the move would be. That was 18 years ago and I’m still excited about how we tell our story and how we support the design-build community and the great spaces that are being created around the world.
And while we spend the better part of our day striving to create great products and relationships, we want to do even more in our own San Clemente area that we call home. Through volunteer work and philanthropy, the Sonance Foundation focuses on education, protection of our beautiful beaches and the ocean, and on helping those in need throughout our community.
Doug: What does the future hold for Sonance?
Jason: I think Life is Better with Music informs everything we are about today and where it can take us tomorrow. When you consider all of the medical research that speaks about the health benefits of music and high fidelity sound, and the design-build trades coming together to create performance homes and healthy interiors, the role we play is just as important as the manufacturers producing heat pumps, ERVs, resilient building cladding materials, intelligent lighting, clean air and water products and the entire spectrum of designs that support what modern homeowners are looking for. Their home is their castle and all they are asking for is comfort, convenience and security.
