These bespoke speaker cabinets from Leon are crafted from cherry wood. Photo by Jon Snyder/Wired
Barring the occasional HDTV or high-end receiver, most home theater components aren’t much to look at. Especially speakers. More often than not, they’re black. They are boxy. And if you’re lucky, they may come with a nice glossy finish.
But for those who want to inject a little hi-fi sophistication into their living rooms, one company offers a unique service: an entire sound system hand-built to complement not just your flatscreen, but also your room decor or any other opulent design ideas you may have.
This white glove treatment comes courtesy of Leon, an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based speaker company that’s been specializing in bespoke audio systems for the better part of 15 years. If you were at CES this year (or the Wired Store last year), you may have come across one of the company’s more garish creations: the Trithon Reyn TV, a 40-inch LED flatscreen tucked inside a black walnut cabinet, mounted atop an antique surveyor’s tripod, and wrapped in 13 feet of python skin. This $35,000 modern-day relic is a more extreme example of what Leon does, but you get the idea.
I recently had the chance to try out one of the company’s more down-to-earth configurations — a setup that included the new HzUT-LCR sound bar (for my front soundstage), a pair of custom Detail Series Ds114-X-A surround speakers, and an A10-UT passive subwoofer paired with the company’s L3-1K amplifier. This alphanumeric orgy is also known as Leon’s 5.1 Ultra-thin Living Space Theater system. My particular configuration ended up running approximately $6,875. Customization, it turns out, is not cheap.
The whole process began the way it would for anyone else ordering from Leon: I gave the company the make and model of my HDTV (an LG 50PK950 plasma) and some basic design guidelines. It’s worth noting that Leon is capable of matching everything from specific paint swatches to wood builds on credenzas, should you know what you want up front. I didn’t. So while I love python skin and turn-of-the-century projection devices as much as the next guy, I decided to go with a more subdued design scheme for my system. To wit: wood. As the majority of the floors in my house are covered in it, I figured crafting the speakers out of a hunk of cherry might class up the joint a bit.
Mission accomplished. When everything arrived a few weeks later, I was greeted by one of the smartest-looking compact home theater systems I’ve seen. Whether it was the amp’s tank-like enclosure, the perfectly finished speaker cabinets, or the magnetically attached grills, the build quality on everything was nothing short of exquisite. For both the A10-UT sub and my surrounds, Leon used a piece of cherry wood, but also added a nice flourish in the form of beautiful dovetail spline joints on the edges. The entire design scheme looked great against the inlaid baffle on the surrounds, and the cherry ended up being perfect complement to the sleek black aluminum baffle on the sub.
As for the 20-pound L3-1K sub amp, it was another exercise in sleek minimalism. This 1,000-watt, class A/B amp has a tabletop or rack mountable design and comes with plenty of tweaking options, including a single-band parametric EQ, continuous phase control and frequency/gain control. Its heavy-duty steel chassis and brushed aluminum faceplate weren’t anything to scoff at either.
Subs are arguably some of the least-exciting components in any home theater setup, but the A10-UT was both thin and gorgeous. At 4.5-inches deep and armed with a 10-inch aluminum cone driver, it can fit into any number of cramped situations. Even better, it can be converted into a super thin, down-firing sub for covert placement under a couch or chair. My particular version was far too pretty to hide.
Finally, as advertised, the Horizon sound bar was also a perfect fit for my flatscreen. The streamlined cabinet, which matched the exact finish of my LG, is equipped with 2.5-inch aluminum cone woofers and 22mm cloth-dome tweeters, yet is still only 1.5 inches deep and 4 inches tall. All told, the system looked like it had been made specifically for my living room–a truly impressive feat considering the vagueness of my design guidance.