Dieppe Couple Creates Sound System That Costs $120,000. Yes, You Heard That Right…
DIEPPE – From the floor to the ceiling, corner to corner, the harmonic voices of five acapella singers performing Hallelujah cocooned the living room of Thierry Ruel and Isabelle Lafargue. Every note and vocal riff was heard. And for a moment, it was as if the world outside disappeared.
The sound came from the luxury RUEL R+ sound system Ruel created, which looks like two red pillars. He says the system is the first in the world that combines modular, one-way, line-source and wide-dispersion technology in one system. Other speakers in the market have these qualities, but independently.
“The line-source system allows us to have a really even sound level throughout the room. There’s less attenuation with distance so you can be far from the system and still hear the music, and you can be close to the system and it doesn’t bother you. It’s not too loud,” Ruel explained.
The one-way system has no filter between the amplifier and the speaker, giving out a “natural and transparent sound,” he said. “And it’s wide-dispersion. The speakers are designed to be placed against the wall and the dispersion is 180 degrees. So, even when you’re on the side of the speaker you can still hear all the frequencies.”
The system, which includes a minimum of 16 modules of speakers – stacked eight on each side – and an amplification system, is handmade in Dieppe. It uses Russian Baltic birch for the body, gold-plated connectors, custom-made audio transducers that are re-modified by Ruel, with finishes by Lafargue, a porcelain and oil painter whose work is exhibited in Canada and the U.S.
“Like a piece of art, like French haute couture, we choose every part and we make everything by hand here in Dieppe,” said Lafargue, Ruel’s wife and co-founder.
Each system is also built for the specific room it will be used for.
“It needs to go up to the ceiling to get this even sound pressure level,” Ruel said.
It takes time to make each system – around three to five months. And the price is not low.
The RUEL R+ system costs between $120,000 and $240,000. But Ruel said that’s competitive for the high-end residential sound system market globally. Check out these speaker systems, which range in price from $350,000 to $6.6-million, and you’ll see what he means.
So far, Ruel has already sold one of his systems in Quebec and has signed with a distributor in the U.S.
As someone who studied electronics and computer networks, he worked for years as a sound engineer. He also worked as a sound technician in his native France and in Canada. He knows music because he plays the piano and he tunes them.
“It’s all those experience and the challenges I faced that gave me this idea that I had in my head since a long time,” he said. “A few years ago I decided to try and do it myself because I’ve searched and nobody did it before me.”
In 2015, he began the journey. He secured funding from National Research Council Canada to conduct research for the R+ and showcased it to the public for the first time last year.
The system in their living room is a prototype, but a new R+ is being built for the Montreal Audio Fest and a private VIP event with producers and artists this month.
We like to have this link with the artists. It’s very important to us. You know, no artists, no speakers,” he said. “We feel it’s a responsibility to [properly] reproduce the work of artists.”
RUEL’s founders moved with their four sons to Canada from Saint Pierre and Miquelon, a French archipelago off the coast of Newfoundland, in 2012. They had visited Moncton often as organizers of a music festival on the archipelago, bringing artists from here to perform there.
Lafargue, who used to organize cultural events for youth and children and now also teaches art, says she sees that art education can change children’s perception. That’s why RUEL will donate at least 10 per cent of its profit to art education for youth.
“We believe that art education can change the world and we believe that we need more art in school, more art for youth, and encourage also artists to be able to live [on] their art. It’s a part of our business since the begining, perhaps because we both are artists too,” she said.
While the R+ system has seen interest from people all the way in Asia as the couple showed their work at trade shows and private events in the U.S. and Canada, they remain focused on the North American market for now.