The following is a guest post by multi-platinum, Grammy award-winning record producer and designer of audio products Jack Joseph Puig, who joined us at the #DellExperience at #ces2017. He recently collaborated with Dell on the design and development of the new XPS 27 All-in-One, and the professional version, the Precision 5720 AIO.
The traditional audio delivery systems of the past are just that, they’re the past.
Something happened a few years back that made a lasting impression on me and forever changed my outlook as a music creative.
We had just finished a session in our Hollywood recording studio, celebrating as we let our finished work playback so loudly through the state-of-the-art, giant speaker system, that we could feel the richness in our cores. The energy stayed with me throughout my drive home until I turned the corner into my car court where my friends sat struggling to turn the volume louder on the music they were listening to on their laptop speaker. It was at that moment that I realized I needed to be a part of a solution. I just couldn’t sit back and accept the substandard consumer listening experience we had all just come to expect.
Portable audio is at an all-time high with content accessible wherever and whenever. But that comes at a cost to all media. No longer do we have control over the consumer’s environment. No longer do we know if consumers will really experience the essence of what all creators of content are hoping to convey.
It’s not often one has the ability to help shape the future of something, which is why when I had the chance to work with Dell to set a new standard in PC audio, I knew I had to help raise the bar. Little did I know how much we would end up surpassing even my own expectations.
For 18-months, the Dell designers, developers, engineers and I worked tirelessly to create the best sounding all-in-one PC ever. As an artist and record producer, I wanted to design an all-in-one that would produce authentic sound on a professional level but would also deliver an authentic consumer audio experience. Consumers who care about good audio simply expect to have to add a peripheral audio device to get the full range of sound and quality they desire. What if we could replicate a hifi audio quality experience and visuals of reference monitors, to match the video quality for movies, gaming and music experiences?
Well we did! We accomplished this using a 10-speaker design including six front firing speakers, two passive radiators and a pair of down-firing speakers for specialized room ambiance. We implemented 50W stereo amplifiers to deliver greater than 90dB of sound pressure level, for a total loudness that will fill many large or medium sized rooms. We also targeted a frequency response range to extend to cover the full musical range, all the way down to 70Hz and up to 20 KHz.
In professional environment producers are concerned with making sure that there aren’t any unwanted artifacts like distortion, pops, clicks and noise. In some ways the studio is almost a sterile environment. We worked painstakingly for 12 months tweaking designs, down to the internal wires to create the result we were looking for. That result is an audio experience that you can feel, not just hear.
The human species have 30 senses. We have grouped them into five senses commonly known by us all. The more senses we can touch the better for all creators having their vision communicated. The 70Hz frequency is key to bass and low frequency content effecting our feel sense.
We had the stretch goal from the beginning to hit 70hz, as it was an absolute must to give the XPS 27 and Precision 5720 AIOs the ability to be convincing on all media content, from a movie to a EDM-heavy bass song. When you have a system that can’t go down below 100Hz, you are not able to reproduce the fundamental frequency of certain instruments and you lose a lot of the experience, the ability to really feel it.
Something else I wanted to implement, particularly for the consumer experience, was a uniquely designed full-range down firing speaker. The down firing speakers excite the surface that the computer in sitting on in the room creating reflects from that surface. This will allow the surface to become an acoustic amplifier that will excite the room your listening in which results in a sonic experience that feels like the sound is surrounding you.
We not only hit our stretch goal but surpassed it. The XPS 27 is louder and has a much greater bandwidth audio spectrum than any of its competitors, along with a list of other claims that speak to its superior design.
- XPS 27 has the best sound of an all-in-one
- XPS 27 is 2x louder and has up to 50 percent more bass than the 27-inch Apple iMac
- XPS 27 is 1.5x louder and has up to 10x more bass than the HP Envy 27
- World’s first PC with down-firing speakers that augment front-firing speakers for heightened sound ambiance
Now that’s music to my ears.
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Responsible for shaping the sound behind a number of legendary and widely diverse artists, including Lady Gaga, Rolling Stones, Black Eyed Peas, Keith Urban, U2, Beck, John Mayer and countless others; Jack Joseph Puig is an inventor, technologist and outspoken advocate for high standards in professional and consumer audio. Currently Jack Joseph Puig serves as Director of Creative Innovation for Waves Audio’s consumer division.
