Warwick Audio Technologies Ltd Announces Partnership With Sonoma™ Acoustics On Hi-res Headphones

Warwick Audio Technologies, Ltd (WAT) announced today at CanJam London that its High-Precision Electrostatic Laminate (HPEL) transducer will be utilized by Sonoma Acoustics LLC, a new headphone company founded by a group of industry pioneers in high resolution audio and music production. Dr. Mike Grant, Executive Chairman of WAT commented, “We believe that HPELs will transform the headphone industry for users. WAT’s vision is to become an essential technology partner to brands across the headphone industry. We are, therefore, delighted to announce this partnership with Sonoma Acoustics as the first brand partner to bring this innovative new technology to market. Their product promises to fully demonstrate the outstanding audio quality of HPELs.” At CanJam, Sonoma Acoustics will provide initial design and performance data on the Model One headphone system, its first product to incorporate the HPEL transducer. The company has not yet announced availability and pricing. David Kawakami, General Manager at Sonoma Acoustics, said, “We have worked with WAT to build the Model One from the ground up to be optimized for hi-res audio. It has some big shoes to fill with the Sonoma name so we are taking our time and being very careful to get it right. We will have more information on availability and pricing at CanJam at the Rocky Mountain Audio Festival (RMAF) on October 7-9 in Denver, Colorado.” Dan Anagnos, Chief Technology Officer at WAT, elaborated on the background of the WAT/Sonoma Acoustics relationship. “While working as Chief Design Engineer for Sony in the U.S., I was recruited for the Super Audio CD (SACD) project. As a very high level corporate project, the team comprised handpicked executives from Sony and Philips. Now, those same people have started Sonoma Acoustics to pursue the headphone opportunity made possible by the HPEL transducer. The new company shares its name with the famous Sonoma Workstation which this team developed as the world’s first multitrack Direct Stream Digital (DSD) recorder/editor in support of the SACD format.”