Not An Audiophile – The Podcast featuring podcast episodes with Garry Wise from Kleio Audio. Garry chats to Andrew Hutchison about his need for a headphone amplifier that started the long journey to the Kleio brand of pre and power amplifiers. With some help from author Douglas Self, Garry has created a high end, Kent-centric amplifier brand to be proud of.
Podcast transcripts below – Episode 013
TRANSCRIPT
SEASON 1 – EPISODE 013 – UK made HiFi Amplifiers: HiFi legend, Douglas Self consults with Kleio Audio for award winning amplifiers.
Garry Wise: I went home and, wired it into my hi fi and all this kind of stuff, and it was a proud moment. And I’ll tell you what, you sounded brilliant for about 30 seconds and.
Andrew Hutchison: Hello, welcome to not an audiophile episode 13. Hey, not an Audiophile is really, somewhat different to other podcasts because, everyone that we have on is a industry professional of some kind or another. And today we’re, interviewing another industry professional, although he was very much a customer, and decided, hey, I’m not going to buy another amplifier, I’m going to build one. Today we’re speaking to Garry Wise at. Well, I don’t know the name of the company. It’s, It’s. Is it Kleio or how would you. How do you pronounce it? It is Kleio.
Garry Wise: So it’s pronounced it Kleio. Off.
Andrew Hutchison: It’s as simple as that then, is it?
Garry Wise: Yeah, I’ve heard it called everything. Kelly. O.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes, Kleio.
Andrew Hutchison: But, yeah, but isn’t that your fault? I mean, you.
Garry Wise: From what I’ve read, I can take responsibility for that.
Andrew Hutchison: Well, you know, it’s. So it’s got something to do with Greek mythology. Is that the gist of it?
Garry Wise: Yeah, basically, yeah. I was struggling to find a name and I remember looking at all these books and saying, oh, how to name a business? And it was sort of, I’ll have something memorable and then should I find something which, you know, relates to music and all this kind of stuff. And then I started looking at all these brands and some of them are so predictable with their names. And I thought, you know what? started reading this sort of Greek mythology website and I thought, that looks kind of right, that would be quite nice. And I run it past my wife who’s sort of the boss, and she said, oh, yeah, that sounds good. Let’s go it. Do it. So there we are. And I thought it was quite good, actually. Five letters.
Andrew Hutchison: Well, that’s. That’s right. I mean, it. Look, it looks good. It. I mean, and look, it’s. It is pronounced apparently the way I thought it would be, but, it is. I probably. I initially thought, yeah, Kleio. And then I later on I. Oh, is it. There’s like, there’s a little twist there with the extra letter, but anyhow, no, that’s great.
Garry Douglas’ headphone amp is manufactured in the UK, not overseas
So what, I mean, well, let’s introduce you properly. so Garry, Garry, you, many years ago now, really, in a way, from what I am led to believe, so at least nine or 10 years ago, decided that you wanted to Be in years.
Garry Wise: Really?
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah. You decided you wanted to be in the hi Fi business, which, is a noble idea, but, you’ve obviously gone about it in a very methodical way, although I’m led to believe you’ve actually had the preamp and the integrated amp, on the market for a while. can you tell us a little bit about that? But before we let you answer that, let’s say, you are, very proud of the fact that the product is not, just designed, but manufactured in. In. I was going to say the uk. And I guess it is the uk, not just England. I guess you might have stuff from, you know, over the border, but you can tell us about that. But that’s. So, that’s part of it. And it’s a brand that perhaps the listeners have not heard of until now, but I came across it sort of somewhere on Instagram, I think. And I just love the look, the styling, and I love the cheers. Well, I love. I felt as if this had some serious bones underneath the casework. and I guess the fact that it’s machined from solid was maybe gave me that feeling. But look, tell me all about it. What. How did. How did this start?
Garry Wise: I think I had a moment of insanity, I think, trying to join the hi Fi district.
Andrew Hutchison: But we’re a friendly bunch of people, right?
Garry Wise: Oh, well, I’m discovering that along the way. So there’s the odd one. it’s a long story, to be honest, and, I think if I got paid for every time I’ve told this. Probably have quite a lot of money priming you, basically. Well, you never know. Not huge amounts. It all kind of started around, 2010, to be honest. My. My wife, went to uni as a mature student and that was a choice. We got married quite young and she fancied going to do a degree, which was fair enough, really good, really supportive of that. And, I was in the process of kind of looking at upgrading the hi Fi, which I’d had since about 2005. That, was not my first proper system. So we can chat about in a bit if you like. And, I needed. I had an MF80 integrated amp and it didn’t have a headphone socket. And I started like, oh, I need to get a, headphone amp for this amplifier. You know, it’s really bugging me. And I started, you know, doing the research, you know, like, us. High five. She’s, yes, do start looking at all the different brands. And then I was trying to set a budget of how much I wanted to bend and
00:05:00
Garry Wise: you go down the rabbit hole. And I think one day I just, I said to her, I’m not sure how much money to spend on this, this headphone amp. And she was, I think I was doing her heading, to be honest. She said, can’t you just buy one? Like make your own or something? It was just some flippant comment.
Andrew Hutchison: Make your own or something.
Garry Wise: Make your own. Yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: An open invitation.
Garry Wise: No, exactly. Yeah. And I thought maybe, maybe I could get a kit from ebay or something like that. I don’t know, some kind of, okay, random thing. But I’m one of these guys who sort of goes all in with, with something. and I started looking at building head, the headphone amps and headphone amp design. And my brother in law, he kind of has tinkered around with electronics through the years and he’s not a pro, but you know, he’s good at a schematic and he can put something together.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Garry Wise: And we kind of just had these odd conversations and this is how the story evolves. The next thing you know, he said to me, oh, I’ve got this. I said, what about if we just make like a integrated amp with a headphone socket instead? If we’re going to all this effort of, you know, kind of building something out of a little kit. And he was like, oh, why don’t you read this book of power amplifier design by Douglas Self?
Andrew Hutchison: That book?
Garry Wise: Yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Garry Wise: And I was like, well, I ain’t got, I haven’t got a clue about anything to do with this. But I thought, yeah, you know, sounds fun. Let’s have a little read. I could have got a page in. I don’t understand this. So chuck that to the side.
Andrew Hutchison: Yep.
Garry Wise: And then we just ended up this thing of like actually forget the headphone amp, push that to the side. Let’s try and make our own integrated. And that was probably my downfall because that was where we all started.
Andrew Hutchison: yeah.
Garry Wise: It was, it was a brave move from there. Sorry, Andrew.
You don’t have a headphone amplifier yet. You still haven’t
Andrew Hutchison: No, all I was going to say is on the basis that you, in your range of products to skip ahead, you don’t have a headphone amplifier yet. You still haven’t?
Garry Wise: No, I can’t.
Andrew Hutchison: Project head box, but I actually. And there is, ironically there is, there is no headphone socket on your integrated either, is there?
Garry Wise: No, there isn’t. No.
Andrew Hutchison: So you haven’t really, you haven’t really got around to your headphone amp yet. But let’s, let’s go back to the story though. So
Garry Wise: Oh no, that’s fine. So no, basically I kind of view that we work together and try to do a few bits and then in the end my brother in law, he kind of sort of like oh, I don’t think I can help you with what you want. You know, I’m not really good at designing stuff and I was kind of left. I’ve got this passion to kind of do something at this point and he, I thought do you know what? In for a penny and for a pound. I’m just going to email this Douglas Self guy. No, really understanding. He’s going to email him and see what he can if he does any sort of freelance work. So I kind of chanced it and I got a reply. M back within 24 hours and said yeah, I’ll do some consultancy. hang on, let’s.
Andrew Hutchison: Whoa, whoa, whoa, just slow down for a second. So you’ve got the Douglas Self Guide to How Amplifiers Should Work. And I forget the name of the book but is it the classic text I presume. Yeah, which, which I thought was written like in the 70s. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so, so you go, I’m reading this book from the 70s. Yeah, I’ll ring up the author. He seems to know what he’s talking about and of course you know.
Garry Wise: Exactly.
Andrew Hutchison: He certainly does. Right, so. And you get him on the email within 24 hours.
Garry Wise: Yeah. And I think there’s this thing is, okay, this is big level of like God tier, kind of engineers in the world. But what everyone forgets is everyone’s just people. They’re all humans, they’re all trying to earn a living and it’s sort of, oh, you can’t, you know, you can’t contact that person. They’re sort of one of the top leading hi fi engineers. It’s like well, audio engineers, you know, you just go, well I think he wants to make a living like we all do. So that’s just.
Andrew Hutchison: I’m completely impressed and what you say is of course completely right. But it’s just, I mean I think the thing is the legend of that name when it comes to amplifier design is such that it’s, it’s, you know, it’s you just. I don’t know, you’ve impressed me. I mean how? Well, I mean you’ve impressed me as much. I’m impressed two ways. One, one that you. I’ll just do this and then I’m second. Secondarily completely impressed. That you got this very fast response to your email.
Douglas was determined to make an all British audio product
So what, so what, so what path did you go down then?
Garry Wise: Well, so then we kind of, you know, it was all kind of business, like, really. And sort of, you know, how do we, What do you. What do you want to make? I don’t really know. Pre power combo. And I was like, yeah. I said I was just going to go for an integrated. And he kind of soaked the seed of. Well, you could, you know, it depends how flexible you make your design. Yeah, you could use the preamp for one of them and just, you know, then have the power amp side separate and put it in one case. unfortunately, we kind of. We did, we did quite well. We got all respect done. we got a lot of block diagrams working, but we kind of. I don’t say forenet fell out. That would be the wrong word. I’m obviously very respectful, but I think there was an element of. I was very, determined in what I wanted to make. This had to be an all British
00:10:00
Garry Wise: product.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Garry Wise: Made in the uk. And we kind of get into the level of let’s do lots of expensive prototyping in China. Let’s do lots of stuff here. And it kind of, for me, I didn’t have. Yeah. I didn’t have the budget to kind of.
Andrew Hutchison: Yep.
Garry Wise: Support that. And I kind of felt a bit swept away. Yeah. Right. Okay, well, thanks. Thanks for everything you’ve done. Let’s kind of park things for now while sort of assess.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Garry Wise: Where we are. So I kind of did my own. My own research locally to find some guys who could do some sort of PCB layout and manufacturing and all these kind of things. And I bumped into a bunch of guys who I would say took me where I need to go. And it’s, it’s kind of ironic because, I rung them up and they said, I will come round and, let’s have a conversation. I said, well, I haven’t got an office. I work for my dining room table at the moment. And they said, oh, it doesn’t matter. They came round and they sat down and it was all really nice. Had a cup of tea and biscuits, classic stuff. And it was really good. And they walked away and said, what would you actually want to do? And I said, well, this is what I’m doing and this is what I want to do. I want it to be all made in the UK and all this kind of thing. I had my passion.
Andrew Hutchison: You hadn’t had your passion beaten out of you yet by reality.
Garry Wise: Not yet, no. That came many years later. But no. So we, we kind of went back and forth. and they said to me, right, I can see what you’re trying to do. They went away, obviously. They took some stuff away of them and everything. We signed the NDA and all that kind of stuff. And they went, Garry, to be honest, I think we can help you out with this. our md, John, he’s done a little bit of work in the audio side. he’s not a top end, total end audio engineer, but, we think we can deliver you exactly what you want. What do you think? And I thought I said, you know what, I’m one of these guys who gets left by their gut instinct as well, to be honest.
Andrew Hutchison: Of course.
Garry Wise: And which is help. But they really, they really read the room well.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Garry Wise: I said, okay, when I get some money, that’s all funding, should we say, let’s see if we can do something. And I’ve got a couple of grants, you know, Nothing major, so 1500 pound here and there as part of like a UK manufacturing kind of thing. And I gave them this brief to kind of design this preamp, with all the necessary PCBs associated with input selection and like a processor board for the volume control. And we spec’d it all out and they took some of. But were a lot of spec level stuff which I wanted to incorporate from the work I did with Douglas.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Garry Wise: And they said, all right, okay, fine, let’s, let’s see. We come up with. And that was kind of mid-2013 at this point. Yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Garry Wise: Wow.
The power amp side of things, we had to outsource that
And around. Yeah, time goes.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, time wizards. Yeah.
Garry Wise: And I got to. It was just before this, it’s before Christmas in 2013. And they said, Garry, we’ve got your working prototype.
Andrew Hutchison: Wow, that’s a hell of a Christmas present. Yep.
Garry Wise: Yeah. Do you want to come and collect it? And I was like, yeah, okay. So I go down in my car and drive down to Folkston, which is on the Kent coast.
Andrew Hutchison: Yep.
Garry Wise: And they give him this box. It was like a fruit box, you know, we get like apples and pears.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, yeah.
Garry Wise: And in it there’s all these this big plastic grated sort of thing with a load of. I’ll send you a picture. And it just had a load of pcb.
Andrew Hutchison: Please do send a picture kind of. Yeah.
Garry Wise: So various PCBs just. Yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: Various aspects of the designs, sort of. Yeah. I was going to say hot, hot melt glued together.
Garry Wise: Yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay. Yeah, but zip code.
Garry Wise: Exactly yeah. Ah. And it was very. All very rough and.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Garry Wise: Kind of stuff. And, I went home and, wired it into my high fi and all this kind of stuff. And it was his proud moment. And I’ll tell you what, you sounded brilliant for about 30 seconds with static feedback and that kind of stu. and I rung them up and I said, oh, I, wouldn’t have next. I said, yeah, played it for about 30 seconds. It sounds great. I said, but then he started doing this and they said, oh, don’t worry, Bring it back down. We’ll have a look at that. And they did it. And next, you know, it came back with all these wires kind of all over the place and. But funny enough, he came back the second time. Yeah. And it played brilliantly. We had it on for. I use it as my main system. So you had to hard. Like it didn’t have a power on which you’d have to plug in straight into the main wall. Yeah, all that kind of stuff. But it was. But it was great. And I kind of thought, I’ve got something here which, I can work with. I forgot to say as well, we kind of. The power amp side of things, we had to kind of look to outsource that because the main focus was going to be on the preamp statement. Making that really good. Yeah. So we went to Ice Power in the end.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Garry Wise: Because they. Well, no, it ruffles a few feathers here, but I think what gets misconstrued is that as a manufacturer, you, need someone who’s going to work with you. And it’s very. Well, people say, oh, go to Purify, go to Hypex, go to all these brands who, you know, probably shouldn’t name, but it’s about how does the customer service work?
Andrew Hutchison: Well, you named the other two Class D amplifier module makers.
00:15:00
Andrew Hutchison: That’s fine. Everyone knows who that.
Garry Wise: Yeah. So you kind of. It’s. For me, it’s like, how. What’s my, relationship like? What’s my account manager like? How do I get technical support? And how that was. And it was. It was phenomenal. And to be fair to Ice Power, not m trying to do a promo here, but they said, oh, we’ll fly someone else. Work with your guys if we need to, and all this kind of stuff. And.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Garry Wise: And it was really good. So I kind of. I’ve got some sort of loyalty there with this product in. But they really helped me out in the early stage.
Andrew Hutchison: are you dealing with. Are you dealing with Denmark or where does the thing happen.
Garry Wise: Yeah, that, that. So I deal with them. M. Directing in Denmark. Yeah.
You were getting great sound 10 years ago, you’re saying
Andrew Hutchison: Okay. Yep.
Garry Wise: Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: Which is, you know, which is. Which is cool. You know, that’s. That’s. That’s good. And there’s nothing. I mean, look, I mean, I think that, you know, you say ruffle a few feathers, but I mean, I think that people are both, customers who want to buy audio products who are, you know, are enthusiasts and. And know what Class D is or what they. They think they know what it is. And, And many manufacturers, of course, it’s all. It’s. It’s. It’s swinging that way. And I respect you. We’re not, you know, we’re not more than 10 years away from, A bit of a Class D invasion, I think is. More and more people realize it’s. It actually a. It now sounds pretty damn good. And, And I think any reliability issues, that, may have been there. I mean, you know, we’re talking 20 years ago, really, I think, for the. You know. I mean. And you’re. And you’re talking actually 10 years ago. So, I mean, I guess those modules have been improved since then anyhow. But you were getting, you know, you were getting great sound 10 years ago, you’re saying.
Garry Wise: Yeah, definitely. 100%. Yeah. And that. That. That was good. So, I mean, back to the. At least the kind of, where we were. So we did a. Kind of. So we had our.
Andrew Hutchison: So you had a good lasher. prototype that was sounding great.
Garry Wise: Yep, that was great. And then we moved on to a sort of a few refinements from there.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Garry Wise: Kind of like, how can we make this a bit better? You know, so kind of. I had a. I kind of had like a tape loop in there at one point. So I took that out and moved up the PC. Pcb. to get an extra set of, sort of XLRs in there as well and kind of just rented it. I wanted it kind of stripped back to an extent.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Garry Wise: and I used my. Say, my musical fidelity x 80. That’s my little. I know it’s a. It’s a. It’s a budget amplifier, but it was kind of, It was very basic. Yeah. You know, a few. Few RCA ins and, like a record link and a kind of out. And that was it really. but it was like the heart of the system, so I kind of wanted to replicate that anyway. And then we can’t say from a hardware perspective that was kind of. That was the Sound. We just. I kind of was happy with it sounds fine. So it sounds fine indoors.
The philosophical aspects of the design probably come back to initial conversations with Douglas Self
Andrew Hutchison: What ingredients in the preamp do you think? or what was there a Phyllis and I’m guessing this, the preamp. The philosophical aspects of the design probably come back to the initial conversations with Douglas Self, I would assume rightly.
Garry Wise: Yeah, we did do a lot of. Yeah, we did do a lot of. I was, I was very. When I was talking, I spoke to Douglas about it and that was kind of, you know, relay switching, nice little circuit paths and things like that.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Garry Wise: I fed all that onto my guy John, and he was very much like, yep, absolutely fine, let’s do this. Yeah, he had some experience with certain relays and things and components which worked well with some other things he’s done, and said, yeah, let’s. I suggest we use these brands and things. I think, I think it’s Panasonic and Panasonic relays and always.
Andrew Hutchison: Well, you can hardly go wrong.
Garry Wise: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, so.
Garry Wise: So it’s quite, it’s good stuff. So.
Andrew Hutchison: And that was, Yeah, so the goal being there was, was, you know, less concerned with cost and more concerned with, of course, reliability and sound quality. Is that.
Garry Wise: Yeah, yeah, 100%.
Was there something about the volume control circuit that you wanted to improve
Andrew Hutchison: And what, what about the volume? And I want to get into bogged down in fine details because I’m, I’m no expert, but was there something about the volume control circuit, the way that you dealt with that, that was.
Garry Wise: I wanted. Yeah, I’ve got. I, I used to live in a terrace house. So, not sure what the house is like in Australia, but basically expensive house on the side of the house. Oh, okay, fair enough.
Andrew Hutchison: So pretty much the same as your houses, really.
Garry Wise: Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely very expensive over here. and it was this thing of. I used to listen to music in the evening when I came home from work and I’d be sitting working on Kleio in my dining room. It’s like half past eight in the evening.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Garry Wise: Excuse me. And basically we to not annoy my neighbours. It was always that thing of like, how do I get the volume quite, quite right? And it was okay on the sort of what you call like an old fashioned knob where you could just tweak it, just touch it without the sound being impacted too much. But I was really what I really wanted with Kleio. and I’m trying to cover so many bases with this product, I’ve probably exhausted it all. But it was. How can I have it still sounding good at ah, 10 o’clock at night whilst not winding my neighbors up. Yeah, so it was kind of. The volume
00:20:00
Garry Wise: in its own. Is, 256 positions on that digital encoder.
Andrew Hutchison: Is it really?
Garry Wise: Yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay. All right.
Garry Wise: Yeah, it’s a. A Borns one. What, what we’ve done, we’ve made the software work in a way that, for the first one third of the volume control, it’s very small increments. Okay.
Andrew Hutchison: Oh, okay. So is it. It’s a motorized pot then, is it.
Garry Wise: Is it.
Andrew Hutchison: No, it’s a digital attenuator. Yeah, yeah. Okay.
Garry Wise: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: But that’s. That’s a. It’s a very, very fine, level of, Very fine. I was going to say. Yeah, wrong word segments, but, yeah, very, I mean, so what I was going to say half a db, but you’re talking a tenth of a DB at lower levels or something. Is that the,
Garry Wise: Yeah, some. Something like that. So he’s got. The first few notches are quite, quite small. I mean, as you get to over like a third of the way.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Garry Wise: The lights increase a bit more in the volume you’re getting. I mean, when you get over the set, the final third, they’re sort of bigger chunks and it’s just so you can have a little bit more control.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Garry Wise: that lower level, what I call the everyday,
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Garry Wise: Kind of environment. Yeah, yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: No, that makes complete sense.
How did you end up with the whole concept of CNC milling
Okay, so. So then when it’s, I guess you’ve got the basic, You’ve got basically the sound and the feature set, and obviously someone’s got to design a proper circuit board. But then at that point you’ve got to think about what case you’re putting it in. So how did you. How did you end up with the whole concept of. Of CNC milling out of us out of a billet of solid aluminum? What was the thought there?
Garry Wise: That was m. Me being overly ambitious again. okay, so. Took a bit of inspiration from a 2010 iMac I’d sitting around on the. On my, in my study at the time. And that was kind of a bit of a thing at the time. Sort of, you know, Apple using these big chunks of aluminium. and then there was obviously other. Other, brands which had done stuff, I think of like, back in the time, you know, like Jeff Roland.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Garry Wise: Design group. They kind of had that wavy front panel with the machine from Solid and stuff. And I kind of like that. But with the whole Class D thing, we could get away without having loads of ventilation holes and all them kinds of things. And I always. I know it sounds controversial but I needed a design which kind of my wife would be happy with. Within the lounge. Yes. I couldn’t have something which was going to be like big heat sinks and you know, takes up the size of a, you know, got bedside table, you know in there and cost the earth to run. It was kind of like this. Is this for me? Hi Fi music should be sort of integral into the whole family environment. So you know, it’s just a really good sounding box. It looks cool. and it sits in the rack or whatever. And that’s great. You know and maybe if you’re having an argument about what should we. Should we buy this one? It’s like. Well actually I prefer this one. It might be a bit easier to flex your credit card if it looks right.
Andrew Hutchison: I think, I think that, I mean that’s a very real world line of thinking and probably ah. Is a thought that doesn’t enter too many mid to high end hi Fi designers consciousness. Ah, but probably should because actually it’s not just about the so called sort of silly expression wife acceptance factor. But it’s also. Yeah, but it’s also just. It’s. It’s real world. You don’t want it to be. You don’t want to look like a piece of machinery in a way. And And clearly you’ve avoided that. And, and, and And it’s a very attractive industrial design which we’ll get to in a second. But so you.
A lot of the design for the desk was done by you yourself
So your thought was that you kind of like the hewn from solid look and feel. But is there I guess there’s a precision advantage, you know, as far as casework. Is that is that something that you were keen on as well?
Garry Wise: Not. It wasn’t. It wasn’t really about the position. I don’t think it was just a case of I wanted to make something look really good and would be a sort of like a statement in that way.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah. Okay.
Garry Wise: And it was then a case of how. How do I get. What sort of design do I want? I actually a lot of that design was probably 80% myself. because I used to have this book which sounds pretty sad now but I used to have this green book. I still got it downstairs and it’s got like a notebook and it’s just got all of my little ideas for the business and how I was going to do it and I’d have these little drawings which I’ll just not sketch out on a pen and Sort of, oh, that looks cool, that looks nice. Let’s try and make that. and kind of all these different ideas.
Andrew Hutchison: That’s fine.
Garry Wise: Yeah, yeah. One day it might be worth some money, you know. but it was just. I kind of evolved this, this way of thinking and I had the eight, the seven leds down the, down the side and I had the volume on the left because normally it’s on the right and it’s just kind of like. Just tried to mix things up a bit really. so I sent them off to. I got in touch with an industrial designer, who done some work for, a lot of work in the professional industry really, regarding sort of lighting desks and sound desks and things like that. So.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Garry Wise: so I kind of wanted to work with someone like that as opposed to just Sol. We’d make lovely aesthetic things for
00:25:00
Garry Wise: the home. and that was a good relationship. And I basically took all my, all my parts down there and said, John, this is what, another. No, another job.
Andrew Hutchison: Another job.
Garry Wise: This is what? This is what, another job? Yeah, this is what we need. And he said, right, okay, this is my little sketch. What do you want to do? And he came back and he sent me these eight ideas and some of them were awful and some of them were great. and in the end I just, I said this is my best one. Can you, And he said I was trying to explain to him what I wanted and I’m a very visual person. So I just, I fired up the computer, opened the file, sit around a bit and said, take this bit out, put this here. I ended up with that sort of keyhole shape thing on where the volume is.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Garry Wise: which everyone says, oh, if you copy that from quad. No, it was just basically I was trying to combine volume lights with the input select bar number M logo within the same section. It kind of just naturally evolved like that. So I kind of ended up with that and then it was all right, okay, fine, let’s get some prototyping done. So then we had some first stage prototypes of the casework. but that in its own has been a journey.
Andrew Hutchison: oh, I mean, this is. I mean, I mean, I know. And I think people who have not tried to make something out of nothing also realize, I hope they do at least just how much work. I mean, work. It’s not really work in a way, is it? I mean, it’s, it’s. You wouldn’t call it work, but, it’s, it. Maybe it, it does absorb an enormous Amount of time and thought though.
Trying to get something finished properly is the biggest challenge in the business
So you, I mean how long would you say that it took to kind of get the casework worked out? Was it six months or a year or was it not so bad?
Garry Wise: The casework was pretty good. We got that done quite quickly. I’d say fraught. Probably took about six to nine months in total by the time we worked out all the tolerances and all that kind of stuff.
Andrew Hutchison: still quite a project there, right?
Garry Wise: yeah, definitely. And it’s all time bound because I’m obviously sending a part back to a machine shop then working on some updated drawings who then need to slot that into their production process then say okay, well we’re going to do it this week and you should have it back by on a two weeks time or something like that. so before you know it, time can run away very, very quickly indeed. without even realizing. So yeah that, that is a bit of a thing but I think, I think more, more than casework. this is an issue we’ve dealt with even recently is finishing. I mean. Yeah, trying to get something finished properly is just the biggest, I think the biggest challenge in, in the business. Casework, easy PCBS and electronic design. Not a problem. Getting someone to do something consistently,
Andrew Hutchison: Consistently well at a good price.
Garry Wise: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: A price where you can, you know, you can actually sell the thing for a sensible price when it’s completed. There’s so many little component parts to this whole package. Yeah, I remember once and I look, I don’t know if it’s changed but you’re not the only problem. Years ago I was at name, having a bit of a tour around there and there was. Oh yeah, there was all these there was one particular room where they sort of had all the, a lot of casework, a lot of front panels and they were, I said oh, what happens here? Well this is where we, we run QC over all of the, all of the front panels and the lids.
Garry Wise: Right.
Andrew Hutchison: And the reject rate was quite high. Yeah. So look, we are talking small stuff. Don’t get me wrong. These were things that, they showed me a few examples of things that didn’t pass and I mean you know they were pretty subtle but they of course if you, you know spending £15,000 on a, on a, on an amplifier, the casework has to be perfect. There’s not even in your, Your price range, 5,000, it’s still got to be perfect. You know there’s no, there’s no it’s good enough. It’s just particularly when you consider that every iPhone that comes out of the iPhone factory is perfect and it’s not that kind of money. You just.
Garry Wise: Yeah.
Andrew: We’ve had an evolution on, on um, finish
Andrew Hutchison: So getting back to. So you spent nine months getting the casework. Right. How. So what is the finish? So you’ve got. Is it. It’s some kind of a aluminum grade. We don’t know and probably don’t care. But what, but obviously it’s, it’s something that machines nicely and finishes nicely. And then.
Garry Wise: Yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: So then how do you. You’ve got different colors available. What, what is that?
Garry Wise: We’ve had, we’ve had a bit of an evolution on, on finish. So we used to use, when we started, we used a sort of powder coat, which was kind of industrial and it was, it came out consistently.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Garry Wise: and that was great. That was, that was fine. But then we had issues with a limited colors and availability and the, that was, that was one, one challenge. alongside this, this kind of all relates. Andrew. So what, what happened was, my, my dad is involved with, he’s retired now, but he was involved with machining of stuff. He was like an engineer, but he didn’t do this type of work. And we had over a dinner table conversation
00:30:00
Garry Wise: and he said, oh, in his kind of fatherly way. So how much are you paying for that unit? And I said, oh, gave him the price. And he said, oh, you’re paying too much. And I was like, oh, really? He said, yeah, whatever suppliers, you know, you’re getting that from, they’re putting a little bit of margin on there for you. And this is all my learning curve.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Garry Wise: You know, like, you know, being working in this manufacturing field. And he said, I’ll put you in touch with someone who can do that cheaper. And I was like, okay, here we go. So I spoke to some guys.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Garry Wise: And they said, yeah, come down, come down, come down with all your stuff and we’ll have a look. And bear in mind I. Working with models at this point. And they said, yeah, well, I think we should change that, that base plate and we should change that rear and we should do this and we could put a bit more thickness in here. And I think if you had this and it. So I said, okay, how much is going to cost me? Yeah. Whilst they’re sort of, you know, mucking around with extra ideas. And they said, no, no, no, we’ll do it as a deal, you know, if you do, we do these mods for you. We’ll cover the cost if you, if you buy. If you do like a 4 off production. So yeah, okay fine. I could do 4 in my stock. That’d be good. So we did that. But what these guys have done in a fairly positive way they tightened everything up. The tolerances have gone up an extra notch so they kind of closed the gap and everything was sort of. Someone used the term a mosquitoes penis size kind of tolerance and it was great because everything really was. You couldn’t you know there was no gap on any. As any parts went together. But then we had a challenge of okay so that’s brilliant but how am I m going to end up. I can’t get this powder coated now because I’ve got all this.
Andrew Hutchison: No, because it’s too fine a tolerance.
Garry Wise: Too thick.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Garry Wise: Yeah. So we went around the houses and a friend of mine who’d done some work for us before, he said I think what you’re looking for is you need like a paint type finish but with but the actual light with no tolerance. And I said well okay, have you got any ideas? And he said yeah, often you should look at Cerakote which is some sort of American product they use on guns and whole host of things. In fact I later found out one, a really top end American speaker manufacturer actually use Cerakote but they don’t advertise it. Yeah. And they are kind of done some work with these guys and yeah and that’s where we are now. We use a Cerakote finish. It’s really tough. It hasn’t got any. You can use the same tolerances as we’ve got which are really tight but you don’t have to take them into account. So so that, that’s kind of where we found.
Andrew Hutchison: So it’s. So it’s not, it’s not anodizing or is the process similar? Is it a chemical process or. It is a paint.
Garry Wise: It’s, it’s. They call it a coating. Yeah. What they do they sort of use a fine kind of. We, we have to use sorry a part of when we did the EMC test in there with some requirements the metal to metal contact to boost up the you know the sort of containerization of all of the, not the signals and all that kind of stuff. So what we did we had to make sure there was good metal, metal contact. So we have the whole, all of the parts dipped in iridite which is a kind of like anti corrosive coating. So that the meth, the aluminum, the bare aluminum doesn’t tarnish over time and keeps up the good levels for them. So then with the, with the Cerakote, what they do, they mask up all of them areas and then they blast it with like a really fine sort of sand.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, okay.
Garry Wise: Yeah, yeah. And then you get like a. Just like It’s not a rough, like a rough finish, but it’s not in a way it looks rough, but it’s smooth.
Andrew Hutchison: Well, it cleans up. It sort of. Yeah.
Prepares it. So then what they do, then they put this coating over it
Prepares it. I mean it’s a great preparation blasting like that gives a nice even finish, you know. So that’s with a touch of texture to it. Does it? Or is it like very fine texture?
Garry Wise: It’s. It’s one of them. You can sort of see the texture.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Garry Wise: You can’t actually feed it.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Garry Wise: So then what they do, then they then put this coating over it. but it’s quite clever in that they. You. If you want it glossy, you can put the high gloss layer in. If you want it matte, you can do that if you want to kind of. You can sort of just make up like a wizard or something. Make up your own kind of potions. I want a bit. Yeah. M. In a cauldron. You put a bit more metallic finish in there and a bit of high gloss hardener in there and stuff. And that’s. And that’s what they do. And then the standard colors I’ve got on the website, just for ones from there thingy. But we can kind of tweak it sort of. Oh, that, that black looks nice but you can have a bit more metallic in it as well. So we’ve kind of. We’ve got the standard colors listed, but we use But we put a little bit more metallic in it so you get a kind of more reflection on the black. I still want to stand a matte black box sitting in my lounge. You know, it kind of you. That, you know, we, we’ve done that whether people like it or not. You know, it’s always subjective.
Andrew Hutchison: But the, but it’s a. It’s a. It’s. And of course it’s a very permanent finish. And
Garry Wise: Yes.
Andrew Hutchison: Which of course is from. You know, is clearly one of your key goals that you’re making. Things that will literally last a lifetime,
00:35:00
Andrew Hutchison: I guess is, is. Is. Is what you’re angling at. Yeah, definitely.
There’s a lot of manufacturing going on in the UK
So I’ve got a question which I’m just checking my notes. and I don’t know. Well, actually I did Have a kind of a question about the team of people that you surround yourself with and it really. You sort of. I mean you’ve really found all of these skilled people who are obviously leaders in their little area of manufacturing. and of course I’m slightly jealous because I always feel like there’s you know, there’s. There’s a lot of manufacturing going on in the UK and that you’ve got these, that you’ve got these people. Excuse me, You’ve got these people doing high quality work and they’re. I mean, and these are. These people are mostly in Kent, which is where you. Yes, where you. Yeah, you’re in, Is it Faversham?
Garry Wise: Yeah, yeah, yes, I’m in Favisham, which is sort of like the sort of north.
Andrew Hutchison: The northern. Yeah, the top end.
Garry Wise: The top, yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: It’s still not. Still not far from London though, is it really? I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, not a long way out and. But But these, these subcontractors, if we lower their, call them that, they’re they’re all sort of handy, are they? They’re sort of. There’s. There’s no one that’s at the other end of the country that you’re using as such, or is it.
Garry Wise: No, the only. If I look at sort of component supply, the bit of. It’s not plastic, it’s. It’s actually glass bit like you get on like a iPhone screen.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Garry Wise: but it’s. That comes from Berkshire.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Garry Wise: Which is, you know, probably sort of not. Not far north of London or to the west of London. And to be honest, that’s. That’s the far. The supplier who’s the furthest away from our base. Everything else. Yeah, all. Everything else is done in Kent. So, so this case work is done.
Andrew Hutchison: It’s not just a UK.
Garry Wise: Eight miles from my house, it’s.
Andrew Hutchison: Oh, is that right? So it’s not just a UK product, it’s a Kent product isn’t kind of known for Both. Well, I call it the. What I call more about gardens and flowers or something. And of course, I think you grow, you grow a lot of Because I’m a bit of a beer guy.
Garry Wise: Yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: A lot of hops. Right. So, yeah. And Kent is well known for amplifiers now as well apparently of. Of premium quality.
Garry Wise: Yeah, well you’ve got. Obviously you’ve got kef.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, it’s not too far away. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Garry Wise: And Cord Electronics. Oh, is that right?
Andrew Hutchison: Cords in Canada. Yeah. Okay. Right here.
Garry Wise: Yeah. I actually share the. My production facility, the engine. The engineering guys who do the casework they actually made called CD player casework.
Andrew Hutchison: Nicely done. You drop that smoothly. Conversation.
Garry Wise: Yeah, well, you know, it’s just saying it’s.
Andrew Hutchison: Well, their casework is, Is, is, Is, you know, is, Is quite amazing. Quite often it’s quite extravagant, isn’t it? So, definitely, yeah.
Garry Wise: Very, very bold design there.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Garry Wise: Yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Garry Wise: All right.
Andrew Hutchison: Well, that’s. Yeah, that’s, that’s. That’s kind of what I’m talking about really, is that you’ve got these other manufacturers, who need these services as to. No doubt there’s all sorts of other things made that require quality machining. So, yeah, it’s completely impressive.
Delacour loudspeakers are made in Australia and cost $3,000
yeah, so you. So, so when you got the first. The first.
Andrew Hutchison: So K105 is the preamp. K135 is the integrated, which I guess is largely the same but with some ice, modules. And I don’t want to imply. Oh, you just dropped some ICE modules in because obviously, clearly there needs to be a power supply for them and there’s. It’s.
Garry Wise: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: And yeah, it’s. It’s a different product. But when did you manage to get those sort of kind of fully resolved and out onto the market?
Garry Wise: I made. Well, we had a. It’s, been a little. There was a little hiatus.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay. All right.
Garry Wise: For a few years. And I don’t mind sharing your story because everyone always asks, well, hang on. You launched this. References to your product in 2015 and, then you. There’s m. More recent activity and basically.
Andrew Hutchison: You went on a holiday.
Garry Wise: Yeah, no, Well, I wish. No, we ended up, I say me and my wife had been trying for. On and off for about 10 years to have some kids and. Okay, we didn’t. And then I literally just launched the brand and then I found. We found that she was pregnant.
Andrew Hutchison: Delacour loudspeakers. No, I’m not going to tell you about how they’re made in Australia. They’re designed in Australia and they’re very high quality and they sound great. We’re not going to talk about that. $3,000 for the new 70s is great value for money. And the people that heard them at the Melbourne show when we released them the other day, love them. 16.99. You can buy the ready to assemble kit. All the hard work is done. Crossovers are assembled, cable looms are made, there’s connectors fitted. Soldering is all done. All you have to do is glue six pieces of wood together twice, one for the left and one for the right. The phone number is on the website, delacord.com or of course email us or any other way you care to get in touch. Release a carrier pigeon with a small moat attached to its foot. We’ll send you our 5 page PDF with all of the details. Thanks for listening. Back to the show. And we’re back.
Garry says Covid was interrupted in 2022 and started again in 2023
So, yeah, Garry,
00:40:00
so, you had a bit of a break, to create. Well, you’d already created the family to sort of to feed and nurture the family. and so, at what point then did you, I mean you said Covid was an interruption, so I’m guessing what, 2022, 2023, you, you kicked it off again. Is that what happened?
Garry Wise: We did, yeah. I, I’ve had some data inquiries in on and off over the years, kind of, you know. and I just want to mention a good friend of mine, Andy, Andy Holt, who kind of has been a bit of a sort of mentor to me along the way and he, he got in touch with me like in 2015 when we first sort of touched the market with the products.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Garry Wise: And he, he, he was the first person to see it, listen to it, he wanted to support it. But obviously we became quite good friends, along the way and we kind of had this thing of like, oh, yeah, well, he just goes, just bring it down when it’s ready, bring it down when it’s ready and all that kind of thing. So he was kind of my first, thing. But we, with COVID it was difficult time obviously for lots of people in different ways. But there was the, in the UK it was. You could buy stuff from a shop but you couldn’t go inside it and sort of demo the products. So it just seemed a bit fruitless to kind of, yeah. Have a new brand trying to launch when people just buying things that sold like Name and Riga and Lynn and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Flying out the shop, I mean it.
Andrew Hutchison: Was a great, you know, so it was a great time to sell stuff. But you needed, it was, I guess a lot of it was being done online and I guess because of that it was, it was known brands. Yeah. Okay.
Garry Wise: Yeah, definitely, yeah. So I thought it’s pointless. So it got to the end of 2022 that, around that time and then we kind of had, we had stock made up, you know, after we ironed out all of our issues over the years and got something which was really happy with. And then that’s when we started kind of pushing it, you know, kind of actually. Right. Let’s, let’s get in front of retailers and that’s been a whole learning curve and a different experience on its own.
Andrew Hutchison: I’m sure it has. So yeah. You say if, you’ve got. Have you been to any of the local shows, or have you just. Just basically driven around the country and showed a few retailers your product or what’s the
Garry Wise: I’ve. I’m kind of doing. I didn’t want to. I’ve had. I’ve got a couple of sales agents. Well, I’ve got one at the moment because one guy had Was you doing it part time between another role. But they’re kind of doing the rounds, going around to retailers and doing all that kind of stuff. But they work for other brands as well. Yeah. Yeah. So, it’s kind of like you don’t know how much air time your products get in. which is fine for me because I’m not trying to become a big manufacturer overnight.
Andrew Hutchison: But you know, you’re clearly not in a hurry. This is very well. And that. That’s meant as a compliment really. But the point is you, yeah, you. It’s fitting in with your life but it’s also the I don’t think it’s. I don’t. For what you’ve done, you’ve taken. You’ve turned nothing into something and you just simply can’t do it overnight. So when you finally get it more or less right, there’s no point rushing it. And I guess it. I think if the products as good as it looks. I mean I haven’t heard it but I have little doubt of the, of the quality of the. Of the way it’s made. I’ve seen some pictures inside, etc. I suspect it will somewhat sell organically as word gets out. Is that, Is that kind of part of it?
Garry Wise: Yes. Yeah, definitely. And I’m not trying to, run down kind of, you know, retailers, but there has been that thing of. I want to. Because I’ve put so much effort into it in my own. I’m not happy to just shift boxes and go to a lower margin. sorry, a bigger margin for the retailer in order to get the sale. It’s the kind of thing of like, look, this is who we are, this is what we’re doing. Do you want to be part of a. Helping a brand over. Over a longer period of time, you know, when we get the rest of our products out and Basically the people on our website I’ve listed so far, and we’ve got other demos and people buying demo kit already in the process. They’re people, retailers who have kind of gone, yeah, I like what you’re doing, I like what you stand for. we want to be part of it, help you out. And that’s kind of, that’s important to me. As opposed to having 200 retailers up and down the country just shifting boxes for the sake of it. I want someone to go in, make an informed decision on. They want this product and, and the retailers really behind it, to be honest.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, it’s a, it’s a, It’s a difficult, needle to thread, so to speak, to know. Yeah, I mean, literally finding supportive the right, the right people that really, I guess appreciate the work you’ve put into what you’ve tried to create.
Is it becoming less commonplace for UK brands to be made in the UK
Which is becoming, I guess, I mean, just speaking generally, is it becoming less commonplace for all of those UK brands that we know to be made in the UK now? Is that. I mean, we know just. I mentioned NAME before and I have heard rumors that NAME have. Have moved some of their manufacturing away from Salisbury. Is this something that’s. Is happening across the, country or.
Garry Wise: You know, I don’t know. I mean, I’m m. Kind of suppose I’d keep myself in my own little bubble, to be honest. But, I mean, I do hear similar sort of things. You
00:45:00
Garry Wise: know, some manufacturers are taking. They’re using more sort of assembled in the UK as opposed to necessarily made in the uk. Yeah, I mean, there are brands I actually do admire, and all that kind of stuff.
Andrew Hutchison: Well, what are those brands? I mean, because of cord, I guess, you know how good the casework is. But,
Garry Wise: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Andrew Hutchison: And they’re obviously because of that. I clearly they’re still largely made in the uk. I mean, I mean, you know, I opened up pieces of equipment and I. I mean, in fact I bought a transformer, the other day for an older musical fidelity, that the guy really wanted to be fixed. The transformer had, you know, gone open circuit and was unrepairable. Short or shorter turns, it doesn’t matter. But I needed a transformer. I actually bought it out of the UK from a transformer maker and I’ve forgotten their name now, but they clearly make toroidal transformers for a lot of different purposes. I mean, this. And there’s. I think there was a couple of others that I saw in the process of googling it. But that that was the one that actually Musical Fidelity suggested I get in touch with. And they did a great. Transformer was great and it fitted. It was almost exactly the same size as the original. So there’s still lots of component manufacturing happening there, obviously. So,
Garry Wise: Definitely.
Andrew Hutchison: So, what the hell was my question?
Garry Wise: I don’t know. I mean.
Andrew Hutchison: Well, the products that you admire. That’s right. That was what I was, wondering. Yeah. You started it, so finish it.
Garry Wise: Yeah, I did, yeah. Sorry, I better finish it. I don’t know. I’m. Cordy’s a good example. I do like the casework. It’s a bit. Some of the design could be a bit controversial. M. But ultimately they Making a statement and they stuck with that kind of design. I like that. but even other companies like Exposure, I think they’re based. I think not. What? Yeah, but design is quite simple, I suppose you could call it that. And I don’t mean that in a. In a rude way. No, no, but they make a good. They make a good sounding product. and it’s all. It’s all done here, you know, they don’t have the big marketing thing of like, name and all them kind of guys. But no, they, they do make. But the pricing is good, you know.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, they’re pricing. Yeah, no, I’m familiar with. I know the brand and I actually know Tony, ah. Quite well. And Oh, you do, yeah, and yeah. Lovely product. Yeah. Great sound and Yeah, I. I believe. Well, I mean, you know, I, I know they make them there. I mean, I. Everyone buys in bits and pieces from places, I guess.
Garry Wise: But yeah, well, we do the same. So.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, of course it’s unavoidable. it’s not like everything is made in the uk, so, yeah, yeah, I’m pleased that you, that you like that brand. I agree. it’s a bit of a. Exposure, is a bit of, a dark horse in a way because, when it started, I think the original, the guy that started the company and Julian Verica at Name were kind of mates and they weren’t that far apart from each other and started at the same time. But clearly the brands have taken two completely different paths ultimately and, and sound somewhat different, but yeah, one’s super famous and one not so much and yet both excellent products. So there’s a.
Less exposure is great, but maybe there’s a lesson in that
Garry Wise: Less.
Andrew Hutchison: There’s a lesson in that somewhere. I’m not sure what it is, but, But I mean, Julian was a huge personality, so maybe that. That was Maybe that’s part of it, I don’t know. But But yeah, exposure is great.
UK brands disappearing offshore but still flying Union Jack high
Is there any other any other brands that you spring to mind or ones that you. Ones that you used to like but they don’t make the stuff there anymore. Is that, is that part of it?
Garry Wise: Yeah, kind of. I suppose. Like I used to have Well I still got it. I say I’ve got Musical Fidelity Kit. I kind of like. I liked it. Obviously they’ve kind of been bought out. When Anthony Michaelson I think you know, retired.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Garry Wise: the guys project sort of took it on but it’s kind of. It sort of sits a funny place for me because it’s kind of a British. They still got British logos on their product on their website. But I think a lot of the R D now is done in Austria.
Andrew Hutchison: probably.
Garry Wise: But it’s still made in Taiwan. What is it man? Because I wouldn’t have any objections to find some more of their kit or whatever. You mostly use my own now. But it’s that thing of like. I don’t know what does it stand for? And that confuses me.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, okay, okay, so that’s an interesting point. So what does it stand for? Yeah, I mean it’s, there is a, there is a strong history of of UK brands disappearing offshore but still flying the Union Jack high and and, and changing the terminology to you know, designed and engineered in the U.K. and. Or England and It’s not really the same thing. Yeah, so I’m trying to think of other, other brands. I mean there’s, there’s a lot of little brands still making electronics in the UK obviously and you’re one of them. So But there’s others and I, I’m not going to mention a whole string of them but I guess it is now more the smaller brands that are making things locally. Is that the Is that your thought?
Garry Wise: Yeah, I believe so.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, definitely.
Garry Wise: Yeah. I know, I know a couple of guys who make sort of phono stages and headphone amplifiers and things like that and I, I talk to a few of these guys and Yeah, they’re kind of at the 300 pound price point make it
00:50:00
Garry Wise: and that’s, that’s great. They’ve got, they’ve got good businesses from that as well and Yeah, and that’s, that’s good. So. Yeah, but it is all happening, you know I think maybe at the. Not the. Where you’ve got to be a bit more specialist and start trolling the audio forums to find all these little brands. But yeah, they’re definitely out there. Yes, I think, I think we’re quite.
Do you think you will, uh, getting the word out there with Kleio
Andrew Hutchison: Do you think you will, from the point of view, getting the word out there, do you think you will go to like the Bristol show at some point or something like that? Or is that not really.
Garry Wise: I would like to. The problem I have with the shows, and I probably sound like some opinionated guy here.
Andrew Hutchison: Please do. Because we like, we like an opinion.
Garry Wise: Okay. I, I struggle with the shows, to be honest, because I’ve been to, I’ve been to a lot of them and it’s always the same kind of thing. You’ve got people collecting bags for all the brands, people, playing in a jazz, which I can’t stand. And you know what? I think I’d end up probably in an argument with someone because I was at the show one.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay. Yeah.
Garry Wise: And, it was his half a million pound folk, how kind of set up with all this stuff. And this guy, they were playing some classical and jazz and I was there as a, like a punter as opposed to a read, like a manufacturer. And it was early 2011. And the, bloke. Bloke chips in, who’s sitting down, says, oh, can you put some, Beyonce on this, please? Yeah. And the bloke went, no, we haven’t got any of that.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Garry Wise: Oh, well, he goes, well, we, we don’t play that type of music on this.
Andrew Hutchison: We don’t play that type of music.
Garry Wise: He said, he said, well, if I was to spend this much money on the high fi, I want to hear what it sounds like. And they, and they were like, no, no, no, no. Well, if you bought this system, maybe you’d start enjoying this type of music more. And the bloke was like getting quite confrontational. And he said, yeah. And. And he was going, no, because I’d use this for my whole family. And if my daughter wants to listen to Katy Perry and my wife wants to listen to this, this is the type of music, we’re going to be using.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, yeah.
Garry Wise: And he said, well, no, we haven’t got, we haven’t got that tough music. And this other guy chips in and said, calm down, calm down. He’s not trying to cause an argument. And I thought this is, this is just the pinnacle of like, what goes on here. You know, every room you go into has got Miles Davies playing or something. It’s like I walked down, the road of a corridor of a show once and someone had some Lady Gaga playing. Yeah, well, here we go. This is what, this is finally. Because in reality this is what people use their music systems for. You know, I don’t own any jazz music or anything. I’m not, not running it down. But when I get a Kleio prototype here and I’ve, you know, when I’ve had one back from a retailer visit before it goes out again or something and I wire it up, yeah, my wife’s got, I don’t know, God knows what on some sort of like, you know, R b from the 90s or I’ve got, you know, some rock music or something. You know, the kids have got their My Little Pony soundtrack playing for it. You know, that’s because, because that’s reality. That’s really what these systems are for. You know, let’s have some fun with it. You know, I kind of, I kind of avoid the shows just because I find them a little bit kind of of clique-y. But it’s a good way of getting out there so.
Andrew Hutchison: Well, in front of a certain audience by the sound of it. But what,
Andrew can’t stand the term audiophile. Can you lay some meat on the issue
Yeah, so you’re, you’re not a, you’re not a fan of the term audiophile, is that, is that,
Garry Wise: Yeah, that’s correct. I can’t stand that term.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Garry Wise: Oh, you hit the nail on the head now, Andrew.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, well, I mean, you know, we, I mean there are people listening of course, but they’re, they’re Of course. And some of those.
Garry Wise: No offense to the.
Andrew Hutchison: No, no, no, no.
Garry Wise: But the thing is, it is the thing.
Andrew Hutchison: I don’t know my. I mean, we’re having a bit of a joke when we say not an audiophile and, but, but we’re, we’re really, we’re really saying, you know, that we’re, we’re in the trade, you know, so we’re, we kind of are audio, files in a way, but I guess we’re very serious and we’re sort of. Everything’s sort of a performance orientated audiophile, although audiophiles would say that they are performance orientated, but I mean sticking to the laws of physics fairly closely and you know, I guess. But it’s not just that. It’s, it’s a. Look, it’s a bit of a, it’s, it’s kind of having a crack at the term, but not really because it’s now bizarrely and, and probably has been for 10 or more years in quite common usage, you know, and not in, not in a, not in a way that’s anyway, disparaging. Whereas back when I started in this audio, business, it was. It was kind of a term used. And this is, this is the problem. If you’re of a certain age, you real. You remember when the term was slight, it was disparaging, really. Oh, here comes another audiophile. You know, like. And, it’s not like that anymore, but it is quite funny in some ways to hear it used in a way that, you know. But you’re obviously thinking of the term applying to us to a particular segment of audio equipment enthusiast. do you. Can you. Can you lay
00:55:00
Andrew Hutchison: some meat on the.
Garry Wise: Elaborate.
Andrew Hutchison: Elaborate a little.
Garry Wise: Yeah, yeah, I suppose. I suppose it’s. At the end of the day, I, I got into this because I like music.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Garry Wise: And hi Fi gives me a good route to get the best out of the music. Yeah. So that’s, that’s my position. And I think, realistically, a lot of people. Is that what it’s for? But it’s come a bit of a kind of. I won’t use the term I was gonna, use, but kind of, you can treat all the heart. Okay, well, let’s use X tree. Hi Fi’s like a penis extension.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay, so what do you just Hang on a second. Do penis extensions exist? Is that what you say? I want to know more. I need to know more about.
Garry Wise: I don’t know. I’m not a consumer.
Andrew Hutchison: But, you know, you’re comfortable. Keep going.
Garry Wise: I will. Yeah, but it’s that kind of thing of. Oh, well, my system’s not as good as yours because I’m using these cable lifters what cost £100 for a bit of wood, you know, and, it’s kind of arguing amongst each other. And you know what? If you wanna. If you want to spend your money on that stuff. Brilliant. That’s great. I, you know, I’m sure the companies who make this stuff aren’t going to complain.
Andrew Hutchison: No, no, no.
Garry Wise: But it becomes this kind of inner, sort of fighting kind of thing about people just running down equipment for the sake of it. Whereas, like. Are, you actually listening to the kit? Because I don’t know if you are. And, And I think. And I see in other kind of things, I do a bit of cycling, you know, and I just want to. I just go out on my bike and ride for like 12 miles at a time and get some fresh air and clear my head from whatever’s going on. Right. But then you find that the enthusiasts go, oh, you shouldn’t be riding that Bike and why using M tires and why are you not wearing this stuff? I just want to enjoy my bike.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Garry Wise: And it’s the same with the high five stuff. And I think I know there’s a market to be made from selling all the accessories and all that stuff. And I get that. That’s great.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Garry Wise: But I do find that when it becomes kind of you’re losing purpose of what it’s for, what the hi fi is for, then are, you getting actually enjoyment from it? And I don’t know. And I think that’s. That damages, I think for me, the industry perception, obviously.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah. I think from an outsider’s point of view, you know, the outsiders looking in at some kind of, you know. And so, yeah, it’s interesting you’re describing the term and what you don’t like about it. Largely the way I don’t really care that people want to use cable lifters, but. Which is, you know, from my point of view is kind of funny. But, you know, but the thing is. But I don’t care that they do. But when, but then you make, you make hi fi, which is a good old term. You make it look a bit silly when people look in as music lovers into the hi fi world or the audiophile world. We all, not we, not you or I, but the ones that are going on about the particular brand of cable lifter that works, these other ones are rubbish. I mean, I don’t know if they do that, but I mean, you’re implying they do and that’s scary. I mean, if I found that on the Internet, I would, I would clearly turn away because that is an argument about 0.00001% difference, which I’m just not interested in. Because these same people probably have diabolical acoustics in their listening room.
You need to start with basic cables when developing a speaker
they probably don’t, but they. One thing’s for sure, you could tweak the acoustics a little, improve the sound a lot. Whereas the cable. Yeah, that’s the bit that, that does my head in is the, the tweakiness of it, but the. Not, not perhaps prioritizing the tweaks, you know, successfully.
Garry Wise: Yeah. Oh, I agree. And I think perception that, you know. No, no, I agree. And I think, I think there’s that big thing of, you know, oh, the manufacturers must be using these really expensive cables and rooms to do all their tuning, all that kind of stuff. And I think reality, it’s that kind. I’m not trying to, you know, tell everyone that Father Christmas isn’t real or anything. Like that. But realities that kind of, you know, that’s not really how products are developed, you know, and the manufacturers aren’t using 10,000 pound speaker cables to necessarily test their stuff they’re using. I’m using. I use basic bell wire to start with, you know, because I think you can, if you can get it sounding good on the, on the rubbish stuff.
Andrew Hutchison: Well, you actually kind of. No, I’m absolutely with you. We use very simple cables when developing a speaker because there’s a good chance that if you put a really fancy cable on it, it will only improve it. and, and it will improve it by some margin. But you need to start in the. I mean you need to use a cable that’s appropriately priced for the price of the product. In the case of your amplifiers, you’re not going to put a 2,000 pound set of cables on them. Right. I mean that would be ridiculous.
Garry Wise: So you know, I use some Supra by wired cables which I got about 20 years ago and I’m quite happy to admit the kit we use, I use. My speakers which I use for testing are a tenth of the price of yamp before I’m selling. So I use an old set of bowers and Wilkins 602s 3s, all the time. And right now people are falling
01:00:00
Garry Wise: down.
Andrew Hutchison: Around their WI Fi speaker or whatever they’re listening.
Garry Wise: And a set of Dali Zenza ones which I picked up for about £150 from Richer Sounds because realistically, you know, although I’m in the trade, I can get a discount. I don’t have a, I don’t have necessarily all the funds to keep investing speakers. And for me, I used these speakers for 20 years. I know how they sound, you know.
Andrew Hutchison: Ah, yes, on, yes.
Garry Wise: So for me I can go, I can put a bit of Kleio kit on it and go, right, okay, this sounds good. I can hear the improvement here, X, Y and Z. But then also let the let the retailer have the magic of exploring how that sounds. You know, I went to a retailer once, yeah. And we tried everything. We had Spendors, we had audio vectors, we had some DYN audios. And it was like, okay, right. They had may enjoy their journey. When I was there for about three hours it was kind of, oh, this sounds good with this. Let’s try this one. Now can we try this? And it’s kind of spec in the system for a customer based on what they think works well with the kit. For me I just need to make. No, it makes decent sounding Audio before I commit to the design kind of stage.
Andrew Hutchison: yeah, no, no, I think the bit that’s most important that you said is that you know how those loudspeakers sound. You’ve been listening to them for years and all sorts of different things, and that, that’s, it’s no different to, an audio engineer knowing his monitors. Well, he doesn’t need the latest monitor, he needs the one that he knows how things need to sound on that, so they sound right when the finished product is played on something else. And this applies equally to what you’re doing. So, I mean, you are the wizard, to use your previously mentioned term, as far as voicing the way that amplifier works or at least make making sure that the design sounds the way you wanted it to and that it’s fun to listen to. And, yeah, you’d be silly to actually listen to it on a fancy loudspeaker that you’re not familiar with how it performs. And you’re right. Then you go to a retailer and you can mix up a potion of whatever works together. As a matter of interest.
So what’s the general feedback when you take an amplifier out to a retailer
So what’s the general feedback when you take an amplifier out to, a retailer? Is there a little bit of surprise that the thing sounds as good as it does?
Garry Wise: yeah. I mean, surprise is maybe the wrong.
Andrew Hutchison: Word, but, you know, I mean, but I mean, you’re selling them, these people are buying them off you and they’re selling them to customers. So clearly they’re very happy with the performance.
Garry Wise: Well, one guy, one guy I spoke to, he used to be a name rep, and he came over and got, he’s wired it up, he’s plugged it in, he’s played about five minutes of music and come over and shook my hand and said, you’ve done an absolutely amazing job, mate, based on what you, where you’ve come from and what you’ve made. And I felt I’d be emotional at that point. Wow, this guy sells, you know, topping kit for the last, you know, however many years. And I just kind of. Things like that. Some things have gone well, some things have gone bad. One guy said it was the worst amplifier he’s ever heard. Really. But then.
Andrew Hutchison: Hang on, don’t fast forward over there. So he, so you, you made a time, you went there with your gear. He had a listen to it.
Garry Wise: I didn’t. My, my, my agent did.
Andrew Hutchison: Oh, your agent did? Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Garry Wise: And then he rung me up and said that demo didn’t go well. And I Said, what happened? He said, well, he listened to it. We, was there for about two hours. And he said it was the worst amplifier he’s ever heard in his life. And I said, okay, fine, well, thanks for the positive feedback. At the end of the day, wow, he’s like, cars. And, you know, I think I’ve heard you mentioned. Mentioned it before on your podcast. You know, people think different opinions, different cars. But what the, the ironic thing about that was though, at that point we hadn’t had any press reviews, but when I won. When I won the best of 2023 from, the year.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Garry Wise: they got on the phone and said, oh, could you come back and give us another demo? And I was like, is that right? Yeah. I said, no, because I, I don’t think you get two bites of a cherry on that because, you know, at the end of the day, if he was that impulse, if you liked it. Yeah, you should have. Like I’ve said about retailers buying into it and kind of.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ah, yeah.
Garry Wise: Supporting Vatican, actually. Okay, fine. we can set it on its own merit without the reviews. These guys just wanted reviews to kind of back it and then try. And I thought, no, do you know what? No. Maybe in a couple of years time when I’ve stopped being angry about it, I’ll let you go. Actually, no, you’ve had your chance and you’ve wasted time. You know, my guys had to go out there, use fuel and stuff, and, he’s come away with no sales.
Andrew Hutchison: So.
Garry Wise: Yeah. So, yeah, worst amplifier he’s ever heard in his life.
Andrew Hutchison: Interesting that he comes up with that bold statement and, Which is clearly ridiculous because, I mean, the worst amplifier he would have heard in his life is probably something made by Sanyo about 45 years ago with 8 watts with germanium transistors or something. But anyhow, so, so, so he, He.
Garry: It was somewhat divisive. I don’t know, it was divisive
Isn’t it funny that he makes that bold statement, but it sounds like it was not. I don’t know, was. Was it more of a. I don’t know, it was
01:05:00
somewhat divisive. It’s.
Garry Wise: I mean.
Andrew Hutchison: And sent. How did, how did this change. How did the amplifier sound change? Because it won an award. This is, this is.
Garry Wise: Well, that’s the bit I don’t understand.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, that’s. See that. That tells you a little bit about that retailer and I guess, less. Less of a.
Garry Wise: Less, ah.
Andrew Hutchison: Of a. I, was going to say. I almost said Golden Ear, which is a terrible term in itself and comes back to the audiophile thing. A bit. But I mean, clearly he doesn’t trust his own judgment. It was safer for him to say it was bad than say that an unknown product was good, I think is what I’m trying to say.
Garry Wise: Yeah. Or that it would be difficult for him to maybe sell to his customer base. I don’t, you know, everyone’s got their own. But, you know, people know who come. Comes in the door regularly and all that kind of stuff. So maybe that was it. But I’ve been quite. With all these retailers, I’ve kind of been a bit too friendly, as I’ve been told, you know, because I let people have it on demo without any real time for commitment. You know, I think most of the thing is, you know, you have it for a couple of days and say, I want it back and are you buying one? Yes or no? I kind of just let them have it for a couple of weeks, you know, because I don’t want to be Mr. Pushy. That’s not really what I’m about. And I really. I know it’s one retailer who’s, on our website, I won’t. I won’t name it. They just said, you’ve been really ambitious with what you’re doing, and we really support that. And I was like, yes. And that’s my downfall because I’m kind of like, yeah, after product for two weeks, don’t worry about buying it or not, you know, So I know that these are lessons I’ve learned along the way. But, yeah, the retail has been a. You know, I’m juggling a lot of things, really. I’m juggling design, marketing.
Andrew Hutchison: You certainly are.
Garry Wise: Finance.
Andrew Hutchison: someone’s got to run. Someone’s got to write the instruction manual. Who did that?
Garry Wise: That was. I came back. Well, actually, I wrote the instruction manual. and it was quite good because at the same time we wrote it, I was doing the, EMC and the CE compliance. So it was a case of. I had to put the. I got the guy to make sure that the, user manual was conformant with all of the current standards. You have to put in the user manual and all that kind of stuff at the same time. And he was writing stuff. You know, it was. Right. And I, I wrote. It was quite a learning curve because I wrote something. The guy said, you need to add this in. And I said, I think it was along the lines of make sure you switch off the power before or something. Normalize. Don’t cut the cable if it’s still plugged into the mains. And I said, 40 years gonna do that, right? And I have to find the reference. And the guy said, you got to treat everybody as an idiot, even if it sounds ridiculous. You’ve got to put it in black and white unless you want to get sued. And I was like, but. But Colin. I said, no one’s gonna. No one would do that, would they? And he’s like, don’t ask, Garry. I’ve been involved in all the lawsuits and stuff and things like this in the past. Just put it for the sake of a line of text. Just write it in there. And I was like, fine. Okay.
Andrew Hutchison: It’s a bit like the,
Are you familiar with the meme I’m going to lower ourselves and mention
Are you familiar with the meme I’m going to lower ourselves and mention? I mean, there’s a picture of like a, maybe a, you know, a Honda 4 of, you know, from the 70s. and that the meme says something like, when this bike came out, there was a whole chapter on how to adjust the valve clearances on the new model Honda. It mentions don’t drink the contents of the battery. It’s, It’s. Yeah, times have changed, I guess. So, Yeah. Although, you know, there’s always been silly people around cutting power cords with the power still on, I guess. Or has there. It seems. It seems hard to believe, but it is. It is the world we live in. And look, you’ve only got to write it once, you know, so, you know, the pain has been suffered and it’s done. Hey,
Garry Wise: Yeah, that’s true. It’s.
Andrew Hutchison: There’s. With things we could talk about for hours and I mean, boring things that perhaps people don’t want to hear about. And I. Because, I mean, packaging is another thing that’s, It’s, such a. Such an important part of a product, and yet it kind of gets potentially tossed away on the same day as someone takes the product home. So, But you’ve got to get it from A to B in a way that, it won’t damage the amplifier. And of course also that it looks kind of nice when you unpack it. and no doubt you’ve employed a packaging professional there, but we’re not going to go down that, that path.
Kleio is working on a number of power amplifiers. Is that getting closer the power amp models
I was just going to say, look, we probably should wrap things up, but is there something else that you’d like to mention? And of course there’s no reason why we can’t chat in the future. This is not the end of we will never speak again. Because I feel like when you bring out your power amplifiers Which I notice on the website are coming soonish. I don’t know when but do you have any. Is that getting closer the power amp models?
Garry Wise: Yeah. So. So obviously given our size, what when we designed the. The actual kind of roadmap for the product.
Andrew Hutchison: Yep.
Garry Wise: The numbering is kind of was. You know some people might recognize it but I kind of you to use
01:10:00
Garry Wise: like the BMW kind of numbering sort of thing. Yeah. So kind of like it was K1 was like one was the first series and then it was kind of like the middle number sort of indicated sort of what. What was in it?
Andrew Hutchison: A bigger engine?
Garry Wise: Yeah. The five was like Oh, it’s an amplifier, you know for example. So I’ll just put that on there. And then basically the preamp was 105 because it hasn’t got any power amp modules in it. And then one was going to be the mono, two was going to be the dual mono and the three was just integrated because it’s like the all in one sort of like you know.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Garry Wise: Unit. But the one for 115 and the 125, it’s just been one of them m things where by you know, we’re only small, we need to grow. We’re trying to. We’re actually, you know, I’m quite open with this. We know we’re looking at getting some investment for this business to really sort of turbocharge our efforts. Yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Garry Wise: And that’s kind of going to be good for us. And it means that we can get all of these products which people keep asking for. We go to a retailer of an integrated and a pre and they go where’s the power amps? We go, well they’re sort of in development. And they are. And they are in development. They’re 90 done. I just haven’t got the case work finished for them. So it’s that kind of thing where once we grease for wheels with our integrated and pre then we can sort of quickly get the kind of the power amps out. But I’ve. I’ve got a DAC which has already been done. and that. That’s going to be a slot in kind of upgrade to the 135. You’ll be able to sort of back that input 7 which is basically just like an MP3 connection because I needed a spare connection on the board has actually got ability to plug a DAC into that okay. Socket. So that’s going to be there. the same with the 105. I’ve got a headphone amp Coming out eventually and a phono stage. But it’s just a case of getting these. Kind of getting more momentum behind the brand as well. And then for me to kind of go, right, let’s, you know, as we. If things improve, funding comes in, let’s kind of bring all this stuff to the market and then hopefully, you know, we’ll be sitting here in a few years time and saying, yeah, that Kleio brand. Yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: Look, I, I Gotta. Well, you have made a wave. It’s just that it’s. It’s probably not left the shores, of Great Britain just yet because other than obviously by the power of the Internet, but I mean is. Is. Is export something that in due course you, I mean you no doubt would embrace that because it’s
Garry Wise: It’s.
Andrew Hutchison: It’s the way forward, I guess, the way you grow brand. But But it’s not something you perhaps thought about much at the moment. But I mean, you’ve got so much of it right. It looks. I mean, let’s just summarize because. Yeah, I probably should wrap things up with. I’m sure, you know.
Garry Wise: Sorry.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, yeah, no, don’t apologize. It’s the very. It’s a super interesting conversation, at least for me. Hopefully it is for the listeners as well. But it’s Yes, yes, I really do.
You’ve got the styling right. Once you’ve got that basic styling,
Andrew Hutchison: So, you. You’ve done it so logically. So you’ve got the styling right. You employed a professional, you. It’s beautifully made. I mean, these are things. And of course all reports as it sounds fantastic. So I mean, these are the three key things, I guess. But The thing is, it does have to look good. It is such an important thing and So that you’ve taken the time and you’ve got that right. So. And you’ve. Once you’ve got that basic styling, I guess the power amps fall into line and probably look similar, I guess. And. And Excuse me, but, So. And then you’re talking about taking in some investment and. And I guess productionizing things or speeding up. Yeah. Okay.
Garry Wise: In fact, I think a bit more control.
Andrew Hutchison: You’ve actually got bigger, Premises. You’ve got premises these days or you. You. You’re not still building them on the dining room table, right?
Garry Wise: No, I don’t know. I don’t build anything on the donor table, actually. I’ll say. I. My sub. My subcontractor who does all the PCB design.
Andrew Hutchison: Yep.
Garry Wise: Not. Not designed sort of manufacturing because obviously, you know, they’ve got the right Kit for that. Yes, they do all of the assembly. So what I do is I get all parts shipped to them.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Garry Wise: Then they do it as a sort of packaging box. It, you know, away out we go, you know, that kind of stuff.
Andrew Hutchison: So it’s a smart way to do it because you don’t need a giant factory so really that you, you can grow the business, without any big jumps in investment, I guess to some degree where you. Yeah, yeah. You don’t have to buy or not another one.
Garry Wise: You know, I pay a fixed price for a finished package product as opposed to paying staff and having the relevant health and safety insurance and all that kind of stuff, you know, so I do pay a premium there, but in, in some ways. But I know that if there’s any faults and stuff, I can just go back to and say what’s happened here? You know, you can sort it out. It’s not. Not got a disciplined staff and getting put on a course to learn how to sold a property.
Andrew Hutchison: Well, you, you know where you stand as far as your costs that you, you.
Garry Wise: Yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: You can’t lose money effectively. So, you know. Yeah. Now look, Garry, I really appreciate your time.
Garry Wise: Thank you.
Andrew Hutchison: Pretty sure the listeners will as well. It’s an interesting story. I mean it’s, it’s, it’s a big part of your life, obviously, to, to make that decision to do it and then you’ve
01:15:00
Andrew Hutchison: actually done it, which is, which is, you know, very impressive and congratulations on, on getting it to the point where it exists and you’ve got it in retailers because it’s, it’s not, You and I know how hard it is to do as anyone else who’s started with nothing and tried to, Yeah, nothing in the sense of a clean sheet of paper and try to take something from your imagination and make it real. And it’s of course very satisfying. So good on you and thank you so much. a pleasure and thanks for your time and we will speak, again soon. Anyone who’s. When I say soon, it could be. Well, it’ll be. It might be power amplifier time, who knows? And that sounds like that’s about six months away or something. But, you never know if people have got questions and they, they may well have questions. Kleio, is. Which, is K L E I O is I guess.co.uk I forgot to check the URL.com.
Garry Wise: Just straight. Okay. Yeah, I thought I’d go big, you know, avoid the.
Andrew Hutchison: Well, yeah, yeah. You’re planning on exporting to the US so domination indeed. Yeah. So that’s, that’s where there’s further information. We’re obviously going to have pictures when the, when the podcast goes up so people will know how good the amplifiers look. But more information there, the awards, reviews, what have you. And I was just going to say if anyone’s got questions of course they can email you but they could ask them on our YouTube channel where this podcast will also be. No one really listens to audio only files on YouTube but it is a great place to put comments and ask questions. So I will wrap up this time. Thank you Garry. very interesting conversation and thanks again and have a great day.
Garry Wise: Great. Thanks for having me on Andrew. I really appreciate it.
Andrew Hutchison: A pleasure, a pleasure.
01:16:40