Let us take you back to the first chord played, the first string plucked, the first note sung.
We’re obsessed with re-creating the live environments in which you’ve naturally experienced music. So we’ll take your living room and look to fill it with concert quality sound. And how will we do this? We’ll use premium materials for a premium sound.
Discover our way to experience soundIt’s not just sound technology that excites us, it’s the passion that goes into the music. Watch the story of someone who shares our obsession - sax player and recording artist Benjamin.
A better sound experienceJazz musician Benjamin and Philips sound expert Julien describe their passion for using every means possible to create the perfect sound.
Would you like to know more about how our technical innovations can give you a more authentic listening experience?
Having an authentic sound has to do with everything involved. But it never stops. It's something that carries on all your life.
Benjamin Herman, prolific jazz musician
Our obsession with detail is driven by the qualities
we’d like you to hear in our Home Audio ranges.
The SoundSphere speakers in our new range of Hi-Fi Microsystems are a revelation. They’ll give you the authentic sound just as the artist performed it, in every last detail and with all the emotion intact. It’s as though they were right there with you in the room.
Fill your room with music. As if the band were really there.
Staying true to the original. Music as the artist meant it to be heard
For sound that punches above its weight.
More faithful sound transmission. For music at its best, every time
Easy to navigate. Easy to control
We wanted sound that had real presence, so we needed to break the mould. The traditional set-up of woofer and tweeter just wasn't delivering concert quality for some instruments, and the sound impression was narrower and flatter too.
That's why we've built our SoundSphere speakers with unique, free-floating tweeters. Released from the traditional speaker boxes, the tweeters deliver sound in every direction, exactly as a live musical instrument does, to give you a deeper, wider impression, wherever you're sitting.
When great artists perform, you can hear the emotion in their music. Unfortunately, traditional speakers with their arrangement of tweeters and woofers can strip out that life and emotion, by creating interference that distorts the sound and leaves it flat and stifled.
The unique positioning of the tweeters and woofers in our SoundSphere speakers ensures that they work together to minimise interference. Combine that with rigorous audio crossover engineering and the result is sound that’s simply more natural and alive.
Beautifully sculpted, light and contemporary, SoundSphere speakers are no exercise in styling for its own sake. Robust, extruded aluminium cabinets help reduce vibration and distortion. One-piece manufacturing optimises sound-wave propagation to give more faithful sound resolution. And, finally, the stiffness to thickness ratio of the materials used further enhances the sound transmission in a neater, more compact design.
Even our design decisions are influenced by the desire for perfection. For premium sound, you need premium materials.
Take our gold-plated speaker connectors. They ensure better audio signal transmission by minimising the electrical signal loss between the amplifier and the speaker box. The result is sound reproduction that’s as close to reality as you can get.
Navigate your music through an easy and intuitively colourful, icon-based interface. Mastered in minutes, this gives you quick and smooth access to a multimedia experience. Smart features like Album Art—displaying the album artwork embedded in music files like MP3, WMA to FLAC lossless audio—make the experience even richer. It’s just like the good old days when the CD or LP cover added an extra dimension to your musical enjoyment.
My fascination with sound reproduction in itself started when I was four years old. My earliest memory is of my father recording a tape of me and my brother and he played it back. I think that was the spark that started my love affair with sound.
How did you pursue a career in sound?I went to an electrical and signal processing engineering school in Toulouse, in France. When I wasn’t engrossed in my studies, I’d immerse myself further in all things sound at home.
I started here as an acoustic designer engineer. Now I am responsible for the sound strategy and the sound quality for home audio and video products. This involves working with both Marketing and Research and Development, and that’s really exciting.
When people ask what I do for a living, I simply tell them I contribute to making them enjoy music and getting more emotion from it. That’s my mission in life.
I frequently brainstorm with colleagues about how we can give sound enthusiasts what they’re looking for and how recent developments in technology could turn into new concepts for sound reproduction. I also meet consumers at listening tests and hear about their frustrations with their everyday listening.
Can you name a couple of your most rewarding achievements at Philips?I was involved in developing SoundSphere speaker technology. The idea of separating the tweeter from the speaker box was a simple one, but it took seven long years to match acoustics and design in a product that would really mean something to our target market. The result is an amazingly wide and deep sound stage, that you can enjoy from anywhere in the room.
Another 'eureka moment' was working on a top-of-the-range headphone design. Led by an expert in acoustic theory, the project involved creating a detailed and complete computer model, the first time it had been done for Philips headphones. The sound quality we achieved was outstanding. I learnt so much, especially about acoustic effects which are essential in headphone design but simply not considered in large speaker boxes. And it was very rewarding to read the rave reviews!
I think people will have sound – whether from music or films – in amazingly lifelike 3D quality but without having to bother with actual devices. They would blend into the décor and be virtually invisible.
In fact, more and more it will be about creating your own cocoon where you can be completely relaxed and create your own world. There’ll be sound everywhere but it won’t be intrusive - it’ll be intrinsic, to your life and your wellbeing.
If you want to turn your living room into a concert hall, and hear your music as though the artist was right there with you, take a look at our micro systems. And listen closely.
These mini systems really do punch above their weight. Our engineers have designed them with one objective in mind, to bring the authentic sound of music into your home.
Want to have quality music wherever you go in the house? Just pick up one of our CD sound machines and take it with you, on CD or one of your favourite radio stations.
Like to listen while you work or even relax in the bath? Want to keep in touch with the latest news wherever you are? Our portable radios will do the trick.
What better way to wake up than with music, whether it's a favourite radio show or your favourite music? Take a look at our alarm clocks. They will make your day!
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