When Mark Krikorian demonstrates the Audality wireless speakers to people coming into the Lawrenceville store, he said they sometimes don’t recognize Billie Eilish’s top hits rumbling the bass.
That disconnect is because of the clarity of sound from the speakers, said Krikorian, the president of Audality. Unlike Bluetooth or WiFi, Audality’s wireless transmission does not compress a song’s audio, which creates a better listening experience.
“It’s doing for audio what HD did for TV,” CEO and founder Paul Raley said.
Audality, formerly known as PRA Audio Systems and founded in 2010, has raised about $600,000 in a funding round that Krikorian expects to top out at $6 million. Investors are mostly family and smaller funds, but company executives are now courting institutional venture capital. Before this round, Krikorian said the company had raised about $3 million in other family and friends rounds.
Krikorian said the funding round will mostly be used for sales and marketing for Audality products.
The company started by marketing to musicians by providing wireless guitar amplifiers for live shows. The product appealed to musicians because it boasted higher sound quality without having the limitations of cords. Audality’s first product was a guitar system, of which the company sold out and are now working on a second-generation version.
The company has about 150 musicians, including Atlanta-based jazz guitarist Dan Coy, who endorse the product on the Audality website. Krikorian said they’ve had more New York and Los Angeles artists use the product but hope to get into Atlanta’s hip-hop scene.
“We had musician recording artists work with us early on to develop this technology to make sure it met their standards,” Raley said.
Audality is branching out into the consumer market and has five speakers of different sizes available for those trying to up their sound quality in their homes. Speakers range from $400 - $1,300 and can be synced together to create full sound systems.
The speakers come with a transmitter that’s about half the size of a credit card and plugs into a phone, Krikorian said. That transmitter connects to the speaker and allows the sound travel without compromising audio quality. The company has two patents on its wireless instrument connection technology and 15 more filed, Krikorian said.
Raley said all the manufacturing for Audality products is done in Atlanta, and the city has been a great home base because of status in the international business market and the talent coming out of the universities.
Raley sees the Audality’s technology as the future of all audio equipment, including headphones, amplifiers and other electronics.
“We’re already starting to release quite a wide range of consumer products, and we’re rolling a bunch more behind it,” Raley said.
