Damballa’s bespoke sound system is a marriage between obsessive craftsmanship and a thoughtful approach to speaker design. The team at Automatic Audio from Montréal, Québec went back to the drawing board to design something meaningful for this project – instead of building a run-of-the-mill ear-piercing club system, their aim was to transplant the home Hi-Fi experience to a large public space. The best home Hi-Fi experience is centered around a quest for absolute comfort, and this thought process was translated into low distortion components enabling extended fatigue-free listening, horn geometry inspired by the previous century’s golden era of loudspeaker design, and large cabinets that are just as hypnotic to look at as they are to hear.

All of the speaker cabinets are constructed with sustainably grown Douglas Fir from British Columbia. This particular wood has long been a cornerstone of construction in Canada and the northern United States, from railroad trusses to structural beams in buildings and bridges. While its blend of softwood and hardwood has important acoustic and structural benefits, it also tells a story of the tree’s life experiencing brutal Canadian winters and humid summers - each change in grain representing another solstice endured and overcome. Douglas Fir’s contrasting grain pattern absorbs the oak stain differently, rendering a unique zebra-like appearance. The cabinet walls were finished with Osmo’s natural oil-based stain, head and shoulders more environmentally friendly than its incredibly toxic counterparts. Although Osmo stains require a slow, more careful application, taking small steps to care for the world we live in is a core value of both the company and the clients who purchase their speakers. Every choice made by the team at Automatic Audio is deliberate, and done to fully embody their values: slowing down and taking the time to feel the immense joy and focus that comes when everything converges and you are truly passionate about your work. Just a glance at the grain structure makes it very clear: the wood has a story to tell, and the team at Automatic Audio are here to listen.

The heart of the system is a pair of MegaBarbs, a super-sized version of their flagship home speaker Barbara. Their low-frequency cabinets sport an 18” 500 watt paper-cone woofer tuned via large bass- reflex ports to provide smooth sub-frequency extension at high output by accounting for port velocity. MegaBarb’s high-frequency cabinet is composed of a hand-spun white glass-fibre Le Cléac’h horn handling high frequencies, and a folded midrange horn inspired by the iconic Klipsch Lascala. The folded horn midrange, through its technical benefits, injects a tinge of magic into vocals and acoustic instruments. MegaBarb’s triphonic system is intertwined by a bespoke crossover circuit featuring audiophile-grade components geared towards high power applications.

To create a variety of listening experiences across the space, Automatic Audio’s Bean speakers fill the front half of Damballa. Effortless clarity and the same infectious folded-horn midrange sound signature as the accompanying MegaBarbs create an environment where conversations can flow freely without being overpowered by the music. For an intimate listening experience, the back-nook is equipped with the wall- mounted Frida speaker. Frida is inspired by vintage studio monitors and Altec theatre speakers, providing focused sound that highlights the details within recordings. The sound system is driven by top-shelf amplifiers manually tuned to extract every last drop of performance from each speaker while accounting for the room’s acoustics.

The overwhelming amount of intention poured into every aspect of this sound system reflects the months AA’s team spent sawing, sanding, staining, soldering, sweating, learning, and persevering to exceed their own expectations. After a long trek from their shop in Canada to Brooklyn, this system is ready to inspire many more folks than just the people who built it.