History:
The year was 1992, I had taken a ten-year hiatus from performing as a musician and was just getting back into the groove. The previous ten years had seen a huge leap in acoustic guitar pickups, mics, and preamps, but there was not a single decent speaker system for acoustic instruments. With a musician's ear and having been a woodworker most of my life as well as building speakers since my teens, I decided to fill that niche. Within a year Acoustic Guitar magazine heralded Daedalus Cabinets as the "audiophile approach to acoustic amplification." As the line expanded these systems found their way into homes and recording studios and in 2002 we launched our first home audio speaker, the DA-1.
What makes us different?
First are the solid hardwood cabinets and high sensitivity without the use of horns, but there are other distinctions which I feel come from my grounding as a musician and my love of guitars and acoustic instruments. For me, what makes music come alive tonally is akin to what makes a great guitar stand apart, and to my ear, far too many speakers damp out these subtleties in their search for a clean 'pure' tone. My philosophy dictates that those subtleties are necessary for an accurate reproduction, the challenge for me is to not add any resonance or harmonics yet allow the instrument's resonances and harmonics to come through effortlessly and without coloration.
Today:
Our speakers are among the finest in the world at any price and are essentially artisan-made commissioned works. Every pair is unique and made for that individual, much like the experience of having an instrument custom built by a world-class luthier.
Lou Hinkley