James’ 33AL speakers hydro-dipped to blend with books.
HOW WOULD YOU LIKE YOUR SOUND TO LOOK? With a wide, high performance range personalised exactly to your customer’s needs, James Loudspeaker is writing the next chapter in custom audio luxury, says Habitech’s Jonathan Pengilley. On a mission to ‘personalise’ the installation of audio for an elite clientele, James Loudspeaker has overtaken rivals to become the ultimate US custom brand. In only two decades it’s built a business trading on exclusivity - the most desirable commodity in luxury retail - without ever having to sell itself too hard. This is because James Loudspeaker is the most accomplished supplier to a niche in a market where nothing is ‘standard’. As conspicuous monuments to success, the Chiron on the drive and the Ferretti in the
10 SPEAKER SUPPLEMENT 2020
marina are deliberately and immaculately customised to represent the very antithesis of mass production. James supplies audio solutions that are similarly personalised, and therefore highly valued. It’s a tautology, but the products behind its Unique Selling Proposition are, in themselves, unique! We’re excited to be working with a brand that hasn’t so much carved out its niche as built it from the ground up in every possible shape, colour and finish.
STAR TURNAROUND
Beneath the peerless quality, creativity and the confidence to complete any custom job however extravagant, James’ big secret is its ability to practice the ‘art of bespoke’ more efficiently and cost-effectively than any potential rival. It’s a challenge that requires a totally different mentality to the one devoted to volume production. For instance, celebrated and successful though it is, Sonance wouldn’t
consider any production run under 500 units to be viable. James loudspeaker on the other hand is proud - yes proud - of the fact that it produces only two wholly bespoke speaker designs every day. Each project is logged by James for future reference and by leveraging this database it’s developed unrivalled expertise in meeting each custom project quickly and completely. So evolved are the production processes that the custom-sizing of a sound-bar for instance is considered as routine rather than truly custom. But when James’ engineers (that’s most of the workforce) are able to transform the brand’s stock-in-trade aircraft-grade aluminium enclosures into the bespoke article, cost effectively, usually within two weeks, you know you’ve hit custom gold. No mass producer is able to achieve this. It’s not about engineering acumen or acoustic intuition - all specialised speaker brands have these in abundance - it’s really the
