At the heart of the “future of audio” are people – inspired individuals who dare to give shape to their creative vision and artistic imagination. Decision makers who prefer to reach their audiences and customers through great audio. Audio lovers who work relentlessly on innovative projects, who redefine and recreate sound experiences that touch the very souls of their listeners. “People” is dedicated to all those musicians, artists, engineers, producers, decision makers, owners and audio designers who fill and shape our world with sensational sound.
Using HE 1 headphones, a select group of artists, designers and musicians were able to listen to the future in New York. How do the creative elite want to shape the future of the audio industry?
A luxurious apartment with a view of Lower Manhattan. There is no place more fitting in New York than the airy penthouse of the Dream Hotel, located in the trendy Chelsea neighborhood, to listen to the world’s best headphones, the HE 1. Here, high above the city's rooftops, visions of reality and of the future appear to blend together.
In the following video, New York's sound artists, designers and musicians share their conceptions of the industry's future:
Thirty artists, musicians, designers and Broadway audio experts have the opportunity to lean back and allow HE 1's innovative sound to take hold of them. Many are in town for New York's Frieze art show. The fair works like a magnet to draw in the creative world’s best minds.
The HE 1 headphones are waiting, making the “Ultimate Sound Experience” possible for them. Whether it’s Beyonce’s newest songs on Tidal’s music streaming service or the Eagle’s “Hotel California,” each can decide which record they’d like to listen to, in a way they’ve never heard it before.
The listening session provoked similar reactions across the board -- speechless expressions, another song and then one more. Thirty minutes pass in the blink of an eye. Then come the questions of wonder. How is this sound possible? How can it be so rich, as clear as glass? It is like stepping into an entirely new world of sound, in which you just want to lose yourself. How difficult must it be to go back to your living room set-up after this experience? The future meets the present.
“Shape the Future of Audio” could even be the motto of the musical city of New York. What will be the future in one or two years in the rest of the USA and the rest of the world is already a reality in New York. It is as if the city lived in another time, one that you can only reach by traveling into the future.
Berlin star photographer Tom Lemke has his finger both on his camera’s shutter and on the pulse of the city. He wants to find out what the city’s creative minds think about the future of the audio industry. His photographs, arranged into triptychs, show the designers, musicians and artists in various poses. Between the photographs are explanations of what developments the experts would like to see in the audio industry in the future.
