Sound furniture
Shida began with a question, how much does the structure supporting an audio component influence what we hear?
What started as an exploration of vibration, materials and mechanical behaviour became a 30 year investigation into how energy moves through an audio system, and how it can be controlled without compromising the character that makes music convincing.
That thinking is central to the design of our products. Materials are chosen for how they behave, not just how they look. Wood is used extensively, but it isn't the point. If another material produced a better result, that's what we would use.
The result is furniture designed as part of the audio system, carefully considered in both its mechanical behaviour and its appearance.
Sound visions
It began with a modest but carefully set up turntable at a local retailer, and I was genuinely taken aback. I’d expected a bit of nostalgia. What I heard instead was depth, texture and a sense of life that my CD player simply didn’t give me.
It left me with a question that has stayed with me ever since: what is it that makes sound feel engaging and natural?
Over time, I started to realise that it isn’t simply about the quality or price of the equipment. The equipment itself is obviously important, but so are the things around it. How it is supported. How vibration moves through a structure. What happens when different materials are put together, and especially how the equipment interacts with the room.
Coming from a design background, I found this increasingly interesting and started experimenting with it more seriously.
There was a lot of trial and error, and hundreds of hours spent listening. Plenty of things didn’t work. Some sounded better in one respect but worse in another. Occasionally, though, something would come together and the difference was obvious. The sound became clearer and more natural, with better tone, texture and a greater sense of ease.
What Shida makes now is really an extension of that process. Experimentation with materials and construction is ongoing, as is listening to the results. There isn’t a formula that can be applied to every product. Different materials behave differently, and what works in one application may not work in another.
A lot of time is spent on the details because they matter. How something is joined, where materials are placed, how vibration is allowed to move, or prevented from moving, through a structure. Nothing is included simply for appearance or because it seems like it should work.
The aim is fairly simple: to make something that allows the equipment to perform at its best, without adding a character of its own to the music.