Erik Wiederholtz - Perlisten

Before I interview someone, I like to ask them questions focusing on what led them to work in the hi-fi industry. Most often, I am only able to pick out the most interesting events from the answers, which allow me to give readers an idea of who the subject of the article is. But sometimes it's a story that I should not shorten or cut into pieces because it is an interesting story in itself. "It was around age 14 when I built my first tube preamp from a health kit - which, in the United States, is kind of like an electronics kit you can order to build an amp yourself, but they provide all the PCBs and components. It started around then when I realized I really liked music. That continued into high school when I started to build car stereo systems, and that led to building cars with friends of mine that won competitions for sound quality. At that time, I had a successful car-stereo business but no college education, and I thought: how do I do this for the rest of my life? So I decided to go to school for electrical engineering. After graduating, I did an engineering job until I could find a position in the audio industry doing microprocessor design, power supply design, and PCB layout. A few years after graduation, I finally got a job and was hired by my now-current business partner, Dan Roemer, and that was my first true audio job. Dan and I have now known each other for 25 years. I worked for Dan for about five years and then moved on to several other jobs, but we've always stayed in contact. Around 2018, I talked with Dan about leaving my job, and he asked me to call him. Dan mentioned that he was starting a company, and that eventually led to Perlisten." - Erik says about himself. I think that's all you need to know to understand who we're dealing with.

I would like to start with something that I feel has not yet been fully explained, namely the name of your company. Could you say what its genesis is and what exactly you wanted to convey with it?

Really, when you talk about audio, nobody cares about the technology in the end, because what we really want to achieve is that listening experience - it's that end-of-the-day moment when you sit down and just really enjoy music and all the stress of the day goes away. What's different about Perlisten is that we strive to get to that experience by utilizing every technological and engineering principle that we know of to get there. Yes, we talk about engineering principles, off-axis response, frequency response, THD - because we use them to the best of our ability to achieve the end result - but that doesn't mean that music and the sound aren't the final say. It's the only result that is acceptable. In the end, you take 'perceptual' + 'listening' and put that together, and you get 'Perlisten'.

Your company was founded in 2016, but the first products only saw the light of day four or five years later. Was it work from scratch? Did you start with a completely blank sheet of paper?

Yes, the beginning was in 2016, with the original three members discussing and preparing for a new company, but nothing really came together until COVID happened. The group had been planning to create the business and make things happen, but with COVID and most of us being consultants, all the projects dried up, so we had time. We had been saving money to create this new company, so we designed most of it during COVID. We started completely from scratch because we knew there were no drivers on the market that really fit our needs. We had the ability to engineer from the ground up because we've all done it our whole careers - we're all 25- to 30-year veterans of raw transducer design, DSP, amplifiers, everything... we had the whole package available within our team.

You entered the audio market with a bang, immediately offering high-tech, high-end and, needless to say, expensive products. Weren't you worried that customers wouldn't want to spend so much money on equipment from a new, unknown brand?

Great question. Originally, we had no idea if we could sell these products or at what prices. We knew they were good, but you can't compare them to the whole world of speakers out there and immediately say that you have a successful product - let alone an entire successful series. Even with great products, there are a million ways to fail as a company. It took a while, a few reviews, and the confirmation that we compete at a much higher price point per performance metric - offering a lot of value for the price. That's a great place to be!

From your materials, it seems that you are a company focused on technology, knowledge, measurement, and computer modeling. You boast about parameters and certifications. But where is the listening in all this? Where is the music? Are there times when the graphs suggest something different from what your ears are telling you? Which side then has the deciding vote?

Of course, there's still some black art in the industry - and that's what really keeps it fun for us as engineers - but we also know a lot of engineering principles: power response, off-axis response, THD - all of which directly relate to making a speaker sound great in a room. Response targets for a balanced sound, distortion levels that bring real and perceived improvements - these take you a long way toward designing and creating a loudspeaker that's great from the start. Why do we do it? Of course, it's the sound that matters - that's what it always has to be about - but there are countless metrics that guide you very far down the path of designing a great loudspeaker. That's why we talk about engineering a lot. In the end, it's literally about just sitting down and enjoying your music. Our job is to not screw up the source. If we can make that loudspeaker sound good in as many acoustic environments as possible - and everyone's room is different - then we've designed a better loudspeaker that performs well in more spaces.

Only four members of the team are listed on your website, but I guess you don't paint the cabinets or assemble the crossovers yourself. If you counted those employees as well, how many people are actually involved?

Across all four divisions around the world, we have about 75 people - from sales and tech support to engineering and manufacturing.

Where are your speakers and the components used in them actually manufactured? How long did you search for contractors for the various components, and what is the final quality control process?

We have our own facility in China where we produce loudspeaker drivers, cabinets, veneers, crossovers, amplifiers, and PCBs - so almost everything is controlled by us, which is very unique for a small company like Perlisten. The components come from all over the world - Sweden, the Netherlands, China.

Your loudspeakers are completely custom - even the drivers you produce yourselves, something that many companies take years to achieve. Is this because you wanted to stand out, or are there simply no drivers on the market that meet your requirements?

We've all been speaker and circuit design specialists for 25+ years, so designing from the ground up is the only thing we really know how to do. Off-the-shelf solutions usually mean higher cost and lower performance in most cases - resulting in compromises we don't want to make.

One of the most distinctive features of your speakers is the DPC-Array waveguide. Could you tell us how it works and how it translates into sound?

When we started working on the DPC, we had three goals - high sensitivity, a huge dynamic range, and low distortion. Sounds simple, right? Except that in practice, it's almost impossible to reconcile. So we started with a classic layout - one tweeter in a waveguide - but we quickly realized that it was a dead end. At high volume levels, distortion appeared, and compression drivers, which are commonly used in cinemas or stage systems, provided a lot of power but killed the finesse and detail we were looking for. So we started experimenting. First, we added two additional tweeters. Did it sound good? No. Simulations and measurements showed that this arrangement introduced more problems than it solved - asymmetries and directionality issues appeared. And then the thought came: what if we did it differently? It's not just about adding more drivers, but making them work together as a team - each playing its part with the right timing, volume, and phase. That's when our DPC technology was born. In short, it's passive beamforming. In a typical system, this is done using a DSP processor and separate amplifiers for each driver. We wanted to achieve this passively - using only mechanics, a crossover, and the right driver placement. Sounds like magic? In a way, it is. The center tweeter is set back in the waveguide, giving it a natural time delay relative to the other two. Added to this is precise amplitude and phase control in the crossover. The result is a system that controls the vertical and horizontal directivity of the sound, reducing reflections from the ceiling and floor, while providing a wide, stable soundstage for multiple listeners. Why is this so important? Because most of us do not have a perfectly treated listening room. Ceilings and floors are almost never acoustically adapted, and reflections from them can ruin the sense of space and clarity. With DPC, we can reduce energy in these directions without losing naturalness or tonal balance. The biggest surprise came later - it turned out that our system works much more broadly than we had planned. Depending on the model, directionality control extends down to 300 Hz, which is well below the high-frequency range. What does this give us? Incredible consistency, clarity, and the impression that the vocals simply "float" in the air. People often say that voices sound "effortless" with us - and that's exactly what we wanted to achieve. The result is a system that combines the advantages of a waveguide and beamforming into one technology. Instead of pushing the transducer to its limits, each of the three drivers does only part of the work, so distortion is minimal and the sound remains dynamic, open, and detailed. This is one of those moments when data, measurements, and a little persistence led us to a solution that no one had tried before - and which today defines the character of Perlisten's sound.

I recently had the opportunity to test one of your subwoofers and I really liked the ability to set its parameters via an app. Would you go even further in this direction, for example by introducing a subwoofer that measures the room acoustics itself and automatically adjusts to the main speakers?

This has been on our wish list, but when we looked at comparable systems available, all of them were just glorified auto-EQs. That's fine for a single subwoofer, but when the acoustics get complex, they tend to fall short. During the first stage of development, we decided that if it wasn't going to be the world's best, we weren't going to do "just good enough" - and that's what we believe in for all of our projects. The great thing now is that processing power is pretty amazing and available for complete systems - 2.1, 2.2, and home theater setups. Treating the system as a whole becomes a great solution.

Wouldn't the logical step be to introduce active loudspeakers, where the user would have a similar but even more powerful app at their disposal?

Active design is a great advantage - it offers so much potential to deliver an excellent speaker - and it was actually our first aspiration for a product. However, in the market, it limited the reach of a new brand and our ability to connect with traditional customers. Traditional passive speakers became the initial path to Perlisten's success, and we're looking toward active solutions in the future. We have a strong history in that field, so you can expect almost anything from us.

Looking through your catalogue, it's hard to resist the impression that you are geared toward home cinema and installation loudspeakers. If someone wants to use your loudspeakers in a stereo system as well, you have no problem with that, but you don't particularly seem to seek it out. Is the audiophile market of secondary importance to you?

Our first focus was, and still is, absolutely on audiophile speakers. The technology and development start with audiophile design principles and then filter down into the immersive audio products - true trickle-down technology. We feel we've proven that they are the same speakers for both applications. Why do consumers think you have to give up detail and accuracy in a home theater just to get loud? Or give up dynamic range in a two-channel system to have detail and accuracy? The S7t hits 117dB at less than 3% THD at 1m. Some music has 20dB or even 30dB peaks, so being able to reproduce those peaks isn't about being loud - it's about delivering something rarely experienced on any speaker. Two-channel setups are truly missing out when you're listening at 85dB. Simply put, the theater market needs more products to support immersive audio systems - surround sound mounting options and placement flexibility - so our catalogue may appear to be focused on that segment, but that's not the case.

From the very beginning, you boasted that your loudspeakers were the first in the world to be THX Dominus certified. What requirements do you have to meet to make this happen?

This really ties into the discussion above. Dan Roemer has designed more THX-certified products than anyone in the world during his consulting days, and the Dominus spec had been around for 10 years with no one achieving it. Once we started Perlisten, it became our goal to meet these requirements because they are essentially the same as those for an audiophile or cinema speaker - as mentioned earlier: high dynamic range, extremely low distortion, and amazing off-axis performance, to name a few. It takes just shy of 400 measurements to design and confirm that a speaker meets the requirements. THX helped bring awareness to our new brand, and achieving Dominus certification was something that we would have reached with our designs anyway - so making sure we qualified was important.

Don't you get the impression that, from the customers' point of view, such parameters are of little importance? Who in their right mind turns their equipment up to such volume levels?

I get this question a lot. Typically, I ask - what's your usual listening level? Many reply 85dB, maybe 90dB, rarely higher for a short song or two. Content often has 20dB of dynamic range, and some orchestral recordings as much as 30dB if well produced. Using 90dB as our example and 20dB of dynamic range, we're already at 110dB peaks. It's not about getting loud - it's about reproducing that 1ms burst of sound without compression and without THD that gives you goosebumps on your favorite track. That's a truly rare experience - and that's why we do it. This also means you must have 20dB+ of dynamic range in your electronics and amplifier to recreate that peak as well!

When I decided to check which loudspeakers manufactured today had received THX Dominus certification, apart from many of your models, there were only speakers from KEF and M&K Sound - a company whose chairman was Lars Johansen. Coincidence?

We had already designed the S-Series and earned Dominus status before Lars joined Perlisten. Other brands followed a few years later, trying to get a piece of the exposure from the new Dominus category - but it had nothing to do with competition from our side. We were first. Even though others have met the Dominus spec, there's still the fact that Perlisten far exceeds those requirements. The D215s beats the Dominus subwoofer output by 10dB at the maximum THD specification limit for Dominus - truly way above the minimum SPL required, which is why it's considered one of the best subwoofers in the world. The S7t, S7i, and most of our products do the same within their categories, so even though Dominus means meeting a very tough target, not all speakers that pass are the same.

Looking at your two main product series when it comes to audiophile speakers - S and R - it's hard to resist the impression that they are very, very similar. If, say, the S7t and R7t stood side by side, one might get the impression that they're just an older and newer version of the same model. However, the prices are completely different - in most cases, nearly double. How can this be justified?

This is a good question, as the R-Series is an amazing overachiever. The main factors that separate these two series are dynamic range capability (excursion), sensitivity, and improved vertical and horizontal control due to the size of the waveguide in the two series. Finally, the materials themselves will always impart different timbre and harmonics that separate them.

In one interview I read that you don't openly boast about all of your ventures, and that you have also carried out projects such as speakers for space shuttles and submarines. Please tell me more about this.

Like many people later in their careers, we all have 25-35 years of experience and have worked for many companies, consulted for brands, and contributed to numerous designs across different industries - but we don't talk about that too much. Dan and I, early on, worked for a company that made speakers for the military. These, of course, had some ridiculous requirements, and the testing was both interesting and difficult to pass. Space stations, tanks, submarines - all were part of the products we made there, and those projects teach you a lot about materials and extreme testing. Testing from -40 to +300 degrees Fahrenheit, to withstanding immense underwater pressure - it all adds to your understanding of reliability for consumer products, which is a real benefit.

For several years, you have been launching some really offbeat products that are nevertheless far beyond the reach of most audiophiles. I wanted to ask if you were planning to lower the price threshold at some point, but you've already warned me because I've just been informed of the launch of the A-Series. Have you convinced yourselves that it is worth fighting for a customer with a more modest budget, or was this your plan from the start?

We wanted to test the waters carefully because, as you grow as a brand, you're constantly learning what consumers expect from you. Can you be successful at higher or lower price points, for example? It's key that we always offer customers great value or features at any price point - and do it the Perlisten way. That means we ask ourselves: "Can we contribute something that offers real benefits compared to the market?" If the answer is yes, then we'll consider doing it. The A-Series is something that consumers wanted, and we believed we could offer a great product done the Perlisten way.

I'm guessing you've had the opportunity to compare the A-Series sets with their R- and S-Series counterparts. What are the similarities between them, and what are the key differences?

They share more similarities than differences. The design of the waveguide to control vertical and horizontal directivity, the ability of the main tweeter to play down to 1.2kHz, the crossover technology, keeping the woofer spacing as close together as possible for vertical directivity, and finally, tuning the port as low as possible for minimal group delay. Differences include the larger woofer drivers and forward ports. Typical of their R- and S-Series siblings, we design the low-frequency roll-off to be very low Q (similar to a sealed box, Q = 0.5) - nearly transient-perfect design - only steepening to 24dB/oct below 22Hz tuning frequency. This is also the ideal low-frequency shape to best take advantage of room gain, which has been well researched and documented in a few papers I've presented at CEDIA and ISE shows. The A-Series cabinet construction still uses multiple braces but also has a larger internal volume and is a bit more fun on the low end than sticking to the strictly balanced audiophile bass levels typical of the R- and S-Series.

Do you plan to take this even further in the future by introducing another, even more affordable series of speakers?

There may be some different application speakers near this price point, but not really another lower-priced speaker line at this time.

In addition to introducing the products themselves, you've been able to build a global dealer network very quickly and have gathered quite a fan base around your brand. What challenges do you see ahead now?

We were really surprised by how fast we were accepted in the marketplace because we shared real data and then let the reviews speak for themselves. Lars instantly brought international credibility to the brand due to his contacts and experience, which was huge for us. By year two, Lars had us in nearly 30 countries - and now we're in over 50. The challenges now come from managing that rapid expansion.

For a company so heavily focused on technology and everything that can be measured, wouldn't it be a logical step to enter the world of professional audio - for example, to create a series of studio monitors, subwoofers, or complete multi-channel systems?

Be careful - you might get what you ask for… but seriously, we've looked at many other markets where we already have experience. With our diversified background, we can go almost anywhere with products and markets if we see fit. At this time, however, we're not moving toward that market yet.

The audio equipment market is constantly evolving, but do you see anything groundbreaking on the horizon? Will you be keeping a close eye on market trends, or are you focused on pursuing your own mission?

We're always keeping our eyes open to new technologies and markets because our greatest strength is designing quickly and efficiently. As you can see, we already have a huge breadth of products in our short history.