Introduction and Company Formation

Our journey at Stratton Acoustics started from a love of music and of the HiFi industry that started at secondary school in London. At the age of fourteen I rescued a piece of furniture from my school that had been dumped outside the music department. After it was signed over to me I took it home, disassembled it and found electronics inside of a type I didn’t recognise, I had never seen valves before.

It turned out I had rescued a Garrard 401, a Quad 22 and pair of Quad IIs, and I still use them all to this day. They are still basically unmodified other than the addition of IEC mains plugs and phono jacks and all still sound great.

Over the years I was lucky enough to listen to a few vintage, large diameter, paper coned speakers in a variety of situations and always found they made music and moved me in a way smaller speakers simply didn’t. Between the team at our industrial design consultancy, Innovation Development Solutions Ltd, we decided we wanted to focus on our shared love of music contribute to the HiFi market by designing and making the kind of products that moved me so much and that just didn’t seem to be available anymore; large diaphragm area, efficient, dynamic, revealing and emotionally expressive loudspeakers.

Because we are a morally focussed company we couldn’t in good conscience design products based on my knowledge base at that time, so we needed to find someone who actually knew what they were doing when it came to electro-acoustic engineering to join the team. Quite quickly we were introduced to Phil, who spent most of our first meeting educating us as to why large diaphragm speakers sound the way they do. Over many Cappuccinos in a franchise chain in Southampton the die was cast and we began down the Stratton Acoustics road.

worked in a huge variety of sectors as disparate as designing and bringing to market the first portable solar charger to designing scuba equipment for the consumer and military markets. I’ve been deeply involved too in sustainable food packaging, high-end electronic jewellery, SaaS Healthcare Brands and Robotics.

We have Phil Ward who has now officially been dubbed a “legendary speaker designer” by Jason Kennedy but also enjoys his Stratton Acoustics job title as “Head of Noise”. Phil is an extraordinary human in all respects and has worked with many of the greats at Naim, Mordaunt-Short, Canon Audio to name but a few. He is an accomplished bass player and journalist in his own right and our electro-acoustic heart and soul. Without Phil there would be no Stratton Acoustics.

Saying that, Stratton Acoustics would never have been able to start on this journey without the husband-and-wife team of Amy and Ben Richards, both graduates of Bournemouth University. They are incredibly talented industrial designers and engineers in their own right having worked in consultancies previously. Ben is a stunning graphic designer and web developer, an ex-county level cricketer and all round sportsman. Amy is one of the most talented engineers I’ve ever worked with and an amazing brand developer. She keeps us all in check with operations management and a wit that cuts us down to size at a stroke.

NB: What motivated you to create a new loudspeaker in an already saturated market?

DF: A great question, as I mentioned we wanted to produce the kinds of loudspeakers that didn’t seem to be manufactured any more, large diameter paper cones with effortless dynamics across the entire audio spectrum and a direct line to your emotions.

NB: Tell us a little about the team involved with the brand; their backgrounds, areas of speciality etc.

DF: There is myself, an Industrial Designer and engineer of twenty seven years who was fortunate enough to graduate from Central Saint Martins and The Royal College of Art under Ron Arad. I’ve

More than that through we wanted to combine these characteristics with some decidedly modern features that yield real musical benefits, low colouration, low distortion, easy amplifier loads, high sensitivity and high-power handling ensuring they could be used with any style of amplification from single ended triodes to high headroom solid state.

This goal for this holy grail set of characteristics was to make sure everyone could enjoy the most emotional connection to their music, to make them easy to accommodate in any system and to make the very most out of the wonderful partnering equipment that has been so carefully chosen. This is all on the assumption listeners could accommodate them in their homes, physics dictates that large cones require large cabinets I’m afraid.

We consider form factor as a major factor supporting the enjoyment of our products. Historically speakers were integrated into the home as pieces of furniture, we found this to be compelling as we believe that any product should delight the owner in as many ways as possible. In our case they should delight the ear with the music they make but should delight the eye and the hand when they are silent.

NB: What are the core values of Stratton Acoustics?

DF: Our approach is simple in principle but challenging in practise and drives everything we do at Stratton:

• We do everything with passion, positivity and respect.

• We treat what we do as a privilege not a job or a business.

• Always pursue objective, demonstrable, en- during quality over trends and market bubbles.

• We value engineering, design, artistry, quality and integrity. We avoid snake-oil, unobtainium and mysticism.

• We always build to a quality not a price.

• Quality and consistency is essential.

• We work with our clients on an individual basis to ensure they are always delighted with their products.

NB: You mentioned previously that longevity is important and that you would like to see Stratton loudspeakers handed down through families, why do you see this as important and how do you go about building those kind of values into a product like loudspeakers?

DF: Great question, this is something that has concerned us from the outset.

Each Stratton Acoustics product represents a collaboration between ourselves and our customers. Their Stratton Acoustics product we hope will embody their desires and values, and so will represent them to their family members to their children and maybe their grandchildren.

We all have special objects handed down from