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FEATURE
MUSIC
f you want to know how best
to get Belinda Carlisle’s voice
to carom perfectly off your
loungeroom walls, a musician
is going to be one
of the best people
to ask for speaker
placement advice.
However there’s an
extra layer of cred to
those remarks when
they come from Oscar
Dawson. One half of
atmospheric rock duo
Holy Holy, Dawson is
also an accomplished
producer, having
worked with Ali Barter,
Ben Wright-Smith, Alex Lahey
and more. That means the
science of sound is all up in
his cells, and he’ll have an
immediate take on your set-up.
“When I walk into a room
like this and see a speaker
like that there, I normally
think, ‘This is going to be
horrible,’” Dawson says. We’re
in his Melbourne apartment, and
he’s gesturing to the SONOS
PLAY:5 we’ve just installed on
a low table against the wall in
the loungeroom – a loungeroom
shaped very much like that of any
small urban apartment, with a
uniform shape and vertical walls.
Sounds obvious, but the science
is interesting. “Often
the problem with
a room like this is
it’s cube-ish; it’s not
random,” Dawson
explains. “That’s
why when you go
to music studios,
they’re not blocks;
they’re shaped with
[slopes] and they’ve
got lots of things on the walls, so
the sound can disperse. When
things are uniform like this, the
sound frequencies just bounce,”
and he vacillates his hand back and
forth in a horizontal swipe.
But the SONOS:5
and accompanying
SONOS:1 have
made a significant
difference to what
we’re hearing,
after we activate
TRUPLAY through
the SONOS app.
By sweeping your
phone across the
room’s extremities (a
process which takes a
minute or two), a digital 'map'
of the space is formed, and the
speakers adjust their output to
match the room’s angles and
doorways. “It sounds brighter,
less muffled – it sounds
good!” Dawson says.
Through the SONOS app
you can select your music,
play different things through
different speakers, and adjust
their output independently.
“Normally I hate this sort of
thing – but I didn’t have to
throw my phone at any point,
put it that way,” Dawson smiles.
We go through some James
Blake, Radiohead, D.D Dumbo,
The Drones and The Smiths, and
then discover the “nifty” trick of
moving to the next track by sliding
your finger along the top of the
SONOS:5. You can also adjust
volume by tapping the speaker,
which is brilliant if your phone is
hiding.
Dawson’s Spotify and iTunes
load into the app without a hitch
(Pandora is also supported),
and it turns out all of his iTunes
podcasts have turned up as well.
“Which is the most important
thing of all – the podcasts I’ve
downloaded,” he says. “I tend to
listen to a lot of podcasts.” That’s
what’s so awesome about the split
Thanks to SONOS, we set Holy Holy's Oscar Dawson up
with the PLAY:5 and PLAY:1 speakers as well as a BOOST.
Here's what we listened to, and how Oscar's learned ears
enjoyed it.
speakers – Dawson can listen to
This American Life
(“Ira Glass is
my hero”),
Planet Money
(“a bit
nerdy but I like it”) or
Dan Carlin’s
Hardcore History
(“the episodes
go for hours, because he goes into
such depth”) in the lounge, while
you can listen to
Darwinism
in the
kitchen.
And in a few short weeks’ time,
we’ll be listening to Holy Holy’s
brand new record: the hugely
anticipated
Paint
, out February
24. Before it drops, set yourself
up for the best possible listening
experience with SONOS –
available at JB Hi-Fi.
Paint
by Holy Holy is out
February 24 via Sony.
The PLAY:5 in Oscar's lounge
PLAY:5
PLAY:1