A life threatening injury has led to a successful career as a loudspeaker designer. Paul Skelton reports.

In 2002, Garth Murray, an air traffic controller from New Zealand, got a kidney stone. It happens to a lot of people, and the necessary treatment is fairly common.

In Garth’s case, however, the treatment went awry, leading to an ongoing brain injury and a complete life change.

“When I was diagnosed with a kidney stone, the airport I worked for wouldn’t let me go back to work until it was gone, so I went to hospital for an operation,” he says.

“Unfortunately, during the operation my ureter (a tube made of smooth muscle fibres that send urine from the kidneys to the bladder) was damaged. My urine and blood mixed, which led to me getting septicaemia and having a whole lot of strokes.

“As a result of this, I was left with a brain injury and I lost my job.”

Garth fell ill in 2002 and was essentially out of action until 2004. During that time, though, he would experience vivid dreams. Many of which came while he was awake.

“My brain injury damaged the right frontal lobe of my brain and because of the nature of the damage I tend to go in to a dreamlike state just before I fall asleep, rather than during the REM cycle.

“One night, about six months after I got the kidney stone, I saw myself making a speaker. I got out of bed, drew it and asked my boys to help build it.

“When it was complete, we sent it to a company to test it out. They said that in 25 years of testing speakers they had never seen anything quite like it. My speaker had no natural harmonics in the chamber and the standing waves were completely eliminated.

“When I designed it, I knew nothing about standing waves, harmonics and distortion; these concepts were totally new to me.

“Shortly after the prototype was tested I had a second dream, which showed me a product we put inside the speaker. A third dream showed me the company name – Theophany – and what became our ‘M5’ loudspeaker, which went on to win ‘speaker of the year’ in New Zealand.”

Theophany has now claimed this title for the past five consecutive years against both local and international product.

“When I first started to build my speakers, the timber and glue companies I contacted said my design couldn’t be achieved because the curves were too tight. Typically when you build a speaker, they simply layer up MDF, cut it to shape and glue it together so they get the shape. But this doesn’t give it any structural strength.

“Because of my background in aeronautical engineering, I understood that if I could actually curve the board I would get about 15 times the strength in the cabinet. Doing this has the added benefit of almost eliminating harmonic resonance.

“Nowadays, a company here in New Zealand makes the board for me and we do the curving in-house. It has resulted in a lot of additional structural integrity and airflow.”

And it’s not just the curved board that is made to Garth’s own specifications.

“In our speakers, every component is made to our spec. Even our screws are custom-built to have a greater tensile strength to hold the driver in place just that little bit tighter.”

While he had no idea about speaker design, Garth’s background in aeronautics was responsible for what has ultimately made Theophany loudspeakers a success – airflow.

“I started my career as an aircraft engineer and achieved qualifications all the way through to becoming a licensed aircraft maintenance engineer. During my career, I learned all about airflow, instruments, electronics and avionics, and it turns out that airflow, electronics and engineering are the three primary tools you need to really develop speakers.

“I didn’t know this at the time of my injury, and a lot of people still don’t realise how critical airflow is to a speaker’s design, but it’s just like double glazed windows – when there is a vacuum between the layers of glazing, the sound doesn’t get through.

“And if audio is distorted, people don’t connect with it. The sound becomes muzak instead of life. We find a lot of people will then not use their speakers because, after a while, the sound is so foreign. Psychologically, we don’t relate to that well.”

Airflow in the cabinet can also dramatically affect bass response. If you choose a speaker with clean airflow and no internal standing waves, you get much tighter bass.

Garth explains that when loudspeakers are made from a cabinet that resonates, that resonance acts as a pressure difference, which comes back through the cones.

“This is one of the major problems with some in-wall speakers. Because they don’t have a natural chamber the plasterboard around them resonates.

“That resonance comes through as a slight peak and listeners can detect that peak as a bit of a harshness. It’s a bit of an aggressive sound and it’s always at the same frequency.

“After a while you don’t hear it. Our brains have the amazing ability of turning down unwanted sound, but it turns down everything 300-500Hz either side of the peak, so we actually lose a lot of detail. That’s why people say they can’t hear what people are saying on TV. By forming our cabinets so strong they can’t vibrate, so your brain won’t turn it down.”

As a result of his injury, Garth also suffers from hyperacusis – an oversensitivity to sound. He says this has been of great benefit in designing his speakers.

“My brain doesn’t turn volume spikes down; everything is constantly running at full volume. It is perfect for speaker designing in that respect. I can actually detect faults in our speakers quicker than our computer testing gear can.”

In recent years, Theophany speakers have made significant headway around the world. And they have gained some powerful and infl uential fans along the way.

Two-time Academy Award winning sound engineer Hammond Peek (Lord of the Rings and King Kong) recently stated: “In over 34 years of recording audio this is the best home theatre sound I have ever heard.”

“When I record sounds for feature fi lms, TV dramas and documentaries I am looking for clean, clear, distinct sounds full of character, texture, body, detail and emotional interest. Individual voices resonating in a massed boys’ choir. The haunting tones of a sole violin allowed to breathe emotionally by not being recorded too close. The enveloping sound of wood pigeons whooshing just over my head in a sunlit forest.

“To get good sound I sometimes spend long hours humping my gear over hills and deep into forests, then I wait patiently to capture that perfect recording. I often have to get rid of background chainsaws, lawnmowers, stereos and other annoying unwanted noises. Occasionally I’ll even record at night when it’s lovely and quiet. Once I found myself hanging precariously among ropes in the bowsprit of a surging old-fashioned sailing ship recording the bow pounding through ocean rollers just below my feet.

“After all the efforts I take to record quality sound, I obviously want to hear it reproduced in all its glory. So much of what we experience and enjoy in life we take in through our ears, so why put up with listening to bad sound?

“I just love hearing my sound played through these incredible Theophany speakers. What I hear coming from these beautiful loudspeakers is exactly what I recorded, with all the character, nuances, detail and raw power flawlessly reproduced.”

Today, Garth continues to have dreams while he’s awake and he’s waiting for what will be his next big discovery.

“I’m a wee bit strange, and I’m Christian, so I believe that there is some sort of supernatural element to all of this,” he says.

Without being corny, it appears that dreams really do come true.