InnerFidelity

Grover Neville is a contributing writer for InnerFidelity. In this episode we sit down with the 24-year old headphone reviewer to chat about what his process is like along with his take on living and engaging with personal audio in a forum-based ecosystem. His extensive history with music is finely compressed over his early years with both performance and production experience leading into advanced collegiate training. More recently, Grover has turned his perceptive gaze to the consumption side of audiophilia. You can follow his unique perspective into the hobby directly on Innerfidelity.com through show coverage, product evaluations and music reviews.

Grado Labs is one of the original hi-fi headphone makers. Based in New York, the longtime family company has been manufacturing phono cartridges and headphones dating all the way back to the 1950s. At a recent audio show in Los Angeles, a new generation of the Grado company consisting of Johnathan and Matthew joined their father and current CEO John Grado to discuss what the company has been up to the past few years and what lies ahead for fans of the brand in the future.

It didn’t take long for Noble Audio to find their place in the audio world. Over a short span of time, the company quickly grew its wares to include some of the most sought after and beautiful pieces of personal audio jewelry. Known for both custom earphones constructed of specialized materials and profound sounding universal fit IEMs, both John “The Wizard” Moulton and his brother Jim now direct the company across the globe. Jim offers up a little bit of his time to discuss the finer things in personal audio, where the niche company started from and what lies ahead for the team in the future.

Tube designs have always been a staple of Manley Labs. Now with the launch of a new hifi-focused line of products, the first unit off the bench for the pro-side leaning company is the Absolute headphone amplifier, which compiles much of the analog know-how from the US-based company’s years of experience. In this interview with EveAnna Manley and designer Zia Faruqi we cover off all the bases in terms of what to look for in a well-built tube amplifier in the personal audio space.

Dan Wiggins of Periodic Audio has a deep pool of manufacturing knowledge to pull from. His latest company may specialize in single dynamic driver IEMs, but he has put his time in designing transducers behind the scenes – for companies big and small across the hobby. In this interview, Wiggins gives us his take on material use, the ins and outs of manufacturing abroad, and listening for yourself.

The AKG K1000 is a headphone classic. Its truly open design has placed it in the annals of audiophile legend alongside some of the most iconic pieces of personal audio. In this episode, InnerFidelity interviews Heinz Renner, one of the original designers of the headphone and long-time engineer for both AKG and then Philips. Renner provides us with an in-depth look into history of the legendary K1000, and how he seeks to improve upon the original with his newest creation called the MySphere 3.

In addition to its extensive hearing and testing products, Illinois-based Etymotic has won over the hearts of many audiophiles with their ER line of earphones. Lead Engineer Dave Friesema chats with us to discuss the company’s design approach to balanced armature headphones, consumer research and what’s next for the future of headphones.

Jannik Schentek is a product manager for Sennheiser’s Professional Audio products. In his nine years with the prolific German headphone manufacturer, he has overseen the launch of numerous personal audio products. He sat down with us at NAMM 2019 this year to talk about how the legendary headphone maker looks at everything including consumer research, voicing and even packaging to bring buyers the ultimate experience.

Jerry Harvey has been leading the charge for custom IEM technologies for nearly as long as the product category has been around. His company JH Audio services the stage performance market, but the resulting evolution of earphone development has graced the personal audio consumer in equal parts. Harvey shares his stories working as a stage tech with Van Halen, his view on the cutting edge of balanced-armature drivers and what’s next for the growing cityscape of custom in-ear monitors.

Helmuts Bēms takes audio playback very seriously. His company Sonarworks has been delivering a unique “flat” reference playback product to recording studios for years, which allows recording engineers a more consistent monitor experience – regardless of the playback system. Now with the company’s True-Fi product, headphones are able to start with a truly flat response. Over the course of the development process Helmuts has acquired quite the data cache of measurements, calculated observations and an overall unique perspective on personal audio that few others can match.

Zach Mehrbach of ZMF headphones talks to us with a transparency that is sure to intrigue anyone interested in the subject of headphone entrepreneurship. From a quick start just a few short years ago, ZMF now produces a growing product line of proprietary dynamic cans and is slowing inching its way to a bigger slice of the market pie. While not the biggest player in the game, ZMF has carved out its own space with unique material usage and a growing fanbase of Zach’s tenacious drive for refinement.

Dan Clark and his company MrSpeakers have risen to a position of significant standing within the high-end personal audio community. Birthed as one of their own, Dan started his headphone business modding Fostex T50RP headphones as a way to fund bespoke-driver aspirations of his own design. Now a major figure in the market, Clark shares his experiences from his journey to Silicon Valley and back, what its like managing business growth and his perspective on the greater musical experience.

Episode No. 4: From the original LCD-1 driver to a full lineup of planar-magnetic headphones, Audeze’s meteoric rise as one of personal audio’s premium headphone makers has been undeniably impressive in the crowded space of the market. Always the innovator, Audeze’s CEO Sankar Thiagasamudram has led the company through many of the industry's firsts – Lightning cable, wafer-thin diaphragms and now in to the gaming sector with the DSP-oriented Mobius headphone. Sankar sits down with us to discuss the company’s short but interesting history and what it takes to create your own North Star and stay the path, regardless of any hurdles you may find along the way.

Episode No. 3: While Focal has firmly planted their feet in the loudspeaker realm, much has come out of the France-based camp in the way of high fidelity headphones in recent years. Our interview with product manager Nicolas Debard takes a peek behind the curtain to show the development process, headphone tuning and why producing one great sounding prototype is never the same as constructing a thousand.

Episode No. 2: An interview with Jason Stoddard, co-founder of Schiit Audio. In this podcast Stoddard discusses the basics of audio design and what it's like to run a company with explosive growth. He teases the musings of a man tasked with keeping up with the curve, creating the next best thing and holding on to the reigns of a market that reshapes itself every few years. Even though budget seekers within the personal-audio community can be fickle at times, Stoddard continues to drive the market with new options and constant innovation.