Purity in
acoustic reproduction

The quest for a perfect acoustic reproduction is an ambitious goal. We attempt to recreate nature, involving undistorted acoustic energy, nuances and emotions. This has to be done in a manner appealing to complex human hearing and cognitive abilities.

This might sound philosophical and hard to achieve, but we have been on this quest for the past 20 years. It has been a continuous journey of learning, discovery, and solution ideation. As part of this journey, we have constantly improved our understanding of acoustic reproduction, the preferences of the listener, the intentions of the musicians and movie directors.

Combining this knowledge with our technical skill and commitment to engineering perfection, we have been pushing the boundaries of acoustic reproduction. Even after 20 years, this journey continues with the same spirit.

Invisible Engineering

When our customer invests their hard earned money in our products, we feel obligated to offer them products that are true to its promise of reproducing audio with highest fidelity possible.

To achieve this, we believe in the concept called “Invisible Engineering”. The aim is to design products that leave the least tonal signature of its own. Instead, the products should allow the listener to connect with the true intent of the creators – be it a musician, movie director or recording engineer.

We divide our engineering process into three parts: 

  • DISCOVERY PHASE
  • DEFINE PRODUCT REQUIREMENTS
  • DESIGN/MANUFACTURE
STAGE-1 discovery Phase

If purity of acoustic reproduction is our problem statement, we need to discover the various parameters that influence the performance of a high-end equipment. Examples of such parameters are – the intent of content creators, acoustical properties, technical measurements, listener biases and so much more.

Over the last 20 years, we have invested a considerable amount of time and money in discovering and analyzing these influencing factors. This has helped us developed high-end products that appealed to large segments of customers.

lessons from our studio

We have invested in a sophisticated studio primarily to record music in audiophile-quality. It has also been a privilege to work with several top musicians from across India.

Being part of this creative activity has helped us gain a unique perspective into the minds of musicians and how they intend to affect listeners. Also, we get a better understanding of the nuances of musical talent that need to be reproduced through our system.

Technology
Trends

Acoustic Portrait products use state-of-the-art technology in all our designs. This includes both technology advancements and adoption of modern electronic components. While we do focus on being modern in approach, we also adopt tubes, a vintage technology where we feel it does a better job than op-amps.

The goal is to benefit from advancement that modern technology brings to the table, but still ensure our products sound natural.

We continually experiment with new technology and new electronic components made with innovative manufacturing process.

Subjective
Factors

Our preference is to keep subjective factors as a design consideration to a bare minimum.

Respect and appreciation for the intent of the creators are our key strengths. As we interact more with musicians and movie producers, we further improve this understanding.

Eventually, our products need to create a direct connection between the creator and audience, while the product itself leaves minimal footprint of its own.

This philosophy helps us stay rooted and make a rational decision on subjective factors.

STAGE-2 define product requirement

Before we design products, we need problem definition, goals and performance objectives. Lessons from the discovery phase help us define the product requirements with good clarity. The more mature our decisions are in this stage, the better the products we manufacture.

Discovery process is iterative; this induces a constant drive to “conceptualize” new products and/or upgrade of existing products.

Key Parameters IN our product definition

Our emphasis is on measurable aspects of product design and keep subjective decisions to a minimal. When we develop new products, we focus on the acoustic & electronic parameters critical for high fidelity. It requires an excellent design and manufacturing process to get these parameters to a good level of performance. When this happens, the audio reproduction qualities automatically improve.

For example, when “phase-shifts” and “group-delays” are under check, you will automatically get a good sound stage. All our customers compliment our products for its good sound stage, and this is our secret.

STAGE-3 design & Manufacture

Our emphasis is on measurable aspects of product design and keep subjective decisions to a minimal. When we develop new products, we focus on the acoustic & electronic parameters critical for high fidelity. It requires an excellent design and manufacturing process to get these parameters to a good level of performance. When this happens, the audio reproduction qualities automatically improve.

For example, when “phase-shifts” and “group-delays” are under check, you will automatically get a good sound stage. All our customers compliment our products for its good sound stage, and this is our secret.

product Design

The product design is a very involved process involving engineers of different discipline. All the three phases of our engineering process will iterate through many cycles before we complete a product design. Sometimes, this takes several months or even years.

While there are many things that happen during the design stage, we would like to highlight one particular aspect that happens in our design process.

Our studios, equipped with sophisticated equipment, captures sonics as close to nature as humanly possible. We then play the raw, uncompressed and unprocessed music files (studio masters) through the equipment under development. A comparison of the spectrograph of the raw files vs. the output of the equipment will give us a unique perspective on the equipment’s ability to reproduce nuances of the reference recording.

The figure below is an example of the spectrograph and it highlights a few limitations of the speaker being tested. We then fixed these issues before finalizing the speaker design.

Studio Master
Playback through speaker

product manufacture

We use genuine electronic components sourced from very reliable and official international distributors. We select all components after careful consideration of its performance and reliability. Our partners help with the manufacture of chassis, mechanical parts, PCBs and transformers right here in India. Our quality team tests every product for its functionality and measure performance against strict tolerance levels.