STACK #146 Dec 2016

FEATURE MUSIC

Thanks to SONOS, we set Holy Holy's Oscar Dawson up with the PLAY:5 and PLAY:1 speakers as well as a BOOST. Here's what we listened to, and how Oscar's learned ears enjoyed it.

f you want to know how best to get Belinda Carlisle’s voice to carom perfectly off your loungeroom walls, a musician is going to be one of the best people to ask for speaker placement advice. However there’s an extra layer of cred to those remarks when they come from Oscar Dawson. One half of atmospheric rock duo Holy Holy, Dawson is also an accomplished producer, having worked with Ali Barter, Ben Wright-Smith, Alex Lahey and more. That means the science of sound is all up in his cells, and he’ll have an immediate take on your set-up. “When I walk into a room like this and see a speaker horrible,’” Dawson says. We’re in his Melbourne apartment, and he’s gesturing to the SONOS PLAY:5 we’ve just installed on a low table against the wall in the loungeroom – a loungeroom like that there, I normally think, ‘This is going to be

shaped very much like that of any small urban apartment, with a uniform shape and vertical walls. Sounds obvious, but the science is interesting. “Often

But the SONOS:5 and accompanying SONOS:1 have made a significant difference to what we’re hearing, after we activate TRUPLAY through the SONOS app. By sweeping your phone across the room’s extremities (a process which takes a

the problem with a room like this is it’s cube-ish; it’s not random,” Dawson explains. “That’s why when you go to music studios, they’re not blocks; they’re shaped with [slopes] and they’ve

minute or two), a digital 'map' of the space is formed, and the speakers adjust their output to match the room’s angles and doorways. “It sounds brighter, less muffled – it sounds good!” Dawson says. Through the SONOS app you can select your music, play different things through different speakers, and adjust their output independently. “Normally I hate this sort of thing – but I didn’t have to throw my phone at any point, put it that way,” Dawson smiles. We go through some James Blake, Radiohead, D.D Dumbo, The Drones and The Smiths, and then discover the “nifty” trick of moving to the next track by sliding your finger along the top of the SONOS:5. You can also adjust volume by tapping the speaker, which is brilliant if your phone is hiding. Dawson’s Spotify and iTunes load into the app without a hitch (Pandora is also supported), and it turns out all of his iTunes podcasts have turned up as well. “Which is the most important thing of all – the podcasts I’ve downloaded,” he says. “I tend to listen to a lot of podcasts.” That’s what’s so awesome about the split

PLAY:1

speakers – Dawson can listen to This American Life (“Ira Glass is my hero”), Planet Money (“a bit nerdy but I like it”) or Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History (“the episodes go for hours, because he goes into such depth”) in the lounge, while you can listen to Darwinism in the kitchen. And in a few short weeks’ time, we’ll be listening to Holy Holy’s brand new record: the hugely anticipated Paint , out February 24. Before it drops, set yourself up for the best possible listening experience with SONOS – available at JB Hi-Fi.

PLAY:5

got lots of things on the walls, so the sound can disperse. When things are uniform like this, the sound frequencies just bounce,” and he vacillates his hand back and forth in a horizontal swipe.

Paint by Holy Holy is out

February 24 via Sony.

The PLAY:5 in Oscar's lounge

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