The only thing better than listening to your favourite music, is listening to your favourite music via a superb audio system. As the team at Addicted To Audio explains, these days that doesn’t mean sacrificing aesthetics, as some of the most impressive options are equally beautiful to look at.

Are you a music lover and do you have a lazy $1.5 million lying around? The chances are that the majority of us would answer ‘absolutely’ to the first question and ‘absolutely not’ to the second. But, bear with me, if you’re looking at high-end audio options there are naturally other price points to consider.

That $1.5 million figure is the utter, utter top of the range ticket that you could spend on a state-of-the-art system from Goldmund, the Geneva-based specialist manufacturer of speakers, amplifiers and audio systems. And the company knows it’s not for everyone. That’s why only five pairs of the Goldmund GAIA active wireless speakers are manufactured each year.

A Swiss dip

In February, a group of around a dozen sales representatives, distributors and suppliers, along with an interior designer, a videographer and one journalist were given the opportunity to see and, more importantly, listen to Goldmund’s speakers in person. They did so on a whirlwind trip to Geneva organised by Goldmund’s outlet in Australia, the high-end audio retailer, Addicted To Audio.

It was an extraordinary visit – one that saw the cohort not only visit the pristine Goldmund offices in Switzerland, but also the luxury apartment-like showroom of Audemars Piguet on the banks of Lake Geneva, where we were shown a remarkable collection of watches – the best of which could cost the annual pay packet of many a lowly journalist. The reasoning for this?

Well, after leaving Goldmund in Geneva we headed to Athens and an array of fine dining options and luxury hotels provided for the fortunate visitors. As soon became clear, the purpose was to showcase audio alongside a total luxury experience – amply demonstrating that, just like magnificent hotels and other opulent experiences, audio can be a luxury item. 

The difference, however, is that while you may walk away from a stay at a majestic hotel like the Grande Bretagne in Athens with a glorious memory, when you invest in a high-end audio system, it becomes a luxury possession that you can keep enjoying every day.  

The trip was curated by the founder and CEO of Addicted To Audio, George Poutakidis, and his team, spearheaded by his business savvy daughter Mercedes, who has recently joined Addicted To Audio after completing her MBA. And what was behind the company’s largesse? Awareness, says Poutakidis senior. His industry is one that has always attracted the aficionados, the audiophiles, for whom, he says, “aesthetics aren’t as important”. 

Evolving industry

But things are changing and suppliers like Addicted To Audio are keen to expand their markets – to introduce their products to architects, specifiers and interior designers. And this is where aesthetics make a huge difference.

“We’ve seen some exceptionally beautiful products at Goldmund, for example, which don’t look like speakers. They’re an art form in themselves,” says Poutakidis. “You could have any of the Goldmund speakers in an apartment, in a home, and they’d be a statement piece. So I’m hoping that architects and interior designers start to understand this is something they should incorporate as part of the project.”

After all, as Poutakidis points out, many designers think nothing of specifying kitchen appliances worth thousands of dollars. Why shouldn’t that also be the case with an element that can make such a huge difference to your quality of life every day? 

“Let’s really value and elevate it and make it a statement,” says Poutakidis, “like an oven, like a benchtop, like a $50,000 fridge. We want interior designers to be starting to select products based on the design of the property that they’re working on.”

To illustrate his point a number of brands and suppliers conducted presentations in Athens, including Dynaudio, MOON by Simaudio,  ELAC,  Q Acoustics and Cambridge Audio – all offering a wide range of products, that look as good as they sound, across varying price points. 

But far from being simple sales pitches, the presentations initiated a deeper dive into group discussions around the trends witnessed in the industry, the growth of aesthetics as an important factor in audio system selection and the evolution of individual businesses – how they have grown and adapted to align with changing markets.

If music be the food of love

“When you think about what music does to you – it can evoke emotions, it can make you laugh, it can make you sing. It can make you dance, it can make you cry,” adds Poutakidis. “It can relive moments in your life. It can play back your life story with music. Think what it would be like going to see a movie without a soundtrack…”

He has a point. 

And he’s also right when he talks about the power of music as a shared experience. “I value sound, I value the audio experience and I want to deliver that to my family and friends when they come over,” he says.

Addicted To Audio special guest and dealer, Jozef Banati from Spaice Group  thinks it’s even more fundamental than that. “I don’t think designers understand the vastly positive influence that a well-articulated audio system can have on someone’s life,” he says. “We have a huge wellness business that’s growing in Australia and immediate benefits and health implications are being touted as the reason to put it into a home. I personally have always seen music as a bath for myself. It’s brought me a lot of joy.”

Like Poutakidis, Banati sees parallels with other luxury items that designers are likely to specify. “We see swimming pools as quite a significant expenditure in the space of a home being built. You can easily spend $250,000 on a pool and sometimes even more when you look at landscaping.

“And if you look at the actual use case of it, you’ve got six to eight good months a year. And even if you use that every weekend for a few hours, you [will get limited] hours a year of true good usage. Compare that to your TV or even your sound system linked to your TV, which can be 80% of the inhabited time in some people’s homes.”

Changing the mindset

Banati also reflects on the downsides of the traditional audiophile customer base. “It’s important to break up that stereotype,” he says. “I think it’s definitely a boys’ club. And I probably find the industry historically a little bit pessimistic. We go into these really beautiful hi-fi shows and we sit in front of a $400,000 pair of speakers and immediately we’re looking for what’s wrong and not what’s right.

“We constantly talk about how something could be improved and we stop just wanting to enjoy music and I think that’s where we are disconnecting from our buyers.”

And what message does he think those buyers and/or interior specifiers should be hearing? “That audio is a worthwhile part of your modern home,” he says. “It’s worthwhile to put it in and it’s worthwhile to enjoy it.” 

Addicted To Audio has showrooms in Melbourne (VIC), Newtown (NSW), Adelaide (SA) and Perth (WA). To learn more.

The writer travelled to Europe courtesy of Addicted To Audio.