IN PROFILE
EM ACOUSTICS: SCIENCE IN THE SERVICE OF ART Meet the tight-knit team powering the proudly independent British manufacturer – where championing local labour and demonstrating why ‘science in the service of art’ is at the forefront of loudspeaker design.
Words: Jacob Waite Photos: EM Acoustics and TPi
Borne out of a collective passion for music and technology, EM Acoustics was founded by high school friends, Ed Kinsella, and Mike Wheeler in April 2002. Now famed for creating solutions which move air particles for multiple markets, the Cranleigh-based company began life as a fledgling rental, recording and manufacturing outfit. “After 18 months, we realised we didn’t have enough kit to be a rental company and not enough demand for recording work, so we decided to focus entirely on the loudspeaker design,” Wheeler recalled. It would go on to be a wise decision some 21 years later with the company having registered its most profitable year to date. After spending most of his university holidays working for a local loudspeaker manufacturer, simultaneously selling his own formative creations to his student union in the early 2000s, the idea of creating a loudspeaker company was something which appealed to Wheeler. “After talking my student union into investing in my loudspeakers, I naively thought – with the confidence that you can only get aged 21 – that I understood everything about how the industry operated, but I couldn’t have been more wrong…” Wheeler now devotes the lion’s share of his time at EM Acoustics to overseeing the
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engineering and drawing of creations, as well as the operational side of the business, while Kinsella focusses on acoustic design. “When you start something like this from scratch, your face is so close to the grindstone, you don’t always notice how far you’ve come,” Kinsella said. “It is nice to take stock and realise how we’re diversifying the business model to cater for a range of markets, which helps inform the core business.” Like most companies, work ground to a halt in the summer of 2020. Wheeler recalled the sudden realisation that any back-up or parachute ideas the company had amid the COVID-19 pandemic were no longer viable. “Sadly, we had to make people redundant, which I hope I will never have to do again. While we take the business seriously, we don’t take ourselves too seriously, and everyone who works here is considered a friend. Having to let close to half the company go at that point was not fun.” There was, however, the luxury of time imposed by the lockdown. With an unprecedented amount of freedom, EM Acoustics improved internal processes, explored new revenue sources, and experimented with technical solutions for the aerospace industry. The product that emerged
from that research now represents a significant part of the company’s success and helps fire the broader R&D process. “As well as the devastating effects of the pandemic, we had the space to consider our mission statement and the freedom to explore new and emerging technologies and markets,” Kinsella reported. “Whenever you are exploring the limits of technology, you get a better understanding of what is possible.” Wheeler looked back on milestones within the company’s portfolio. “The first product with market attraction was EMS-81, which began opening doors for us. It’s 12-inch brother followed, which led us to form a relationship with Autograph Sound and talented sound designers like Greg Clarke,” he stated. “It became apparent early on in my usage curve that something special was happening at EM Acoustics. There is a healthy, clear, and demonstrable ethos to the operation, and an uncommonly strong moral compass which guides the product portfolio,” commented Clarke – who is now involved with the outward messaging of the brand and remains a source for Wheeler and Kinsella to cite when it comes to market trends. “My parallel life as a sound designer can be quite solitary – working with EM Acoustics is a