Profile of Mike Kalellis & Arion Audio

Interview by Alan Hyman

Please tell us how and when you first became interested in audio.

I became interested in music at a very young age. As a pre-teen living in SoCal, I always had KHJ or KRLA playing on my transistor radio. One day I tagged along with my father while visiting his friend. His friend happened to have a full blown MacIntosh system, including the speakers. I was instantly mesmerized by all the blue lights, dials and meters. I don’t recall the sound but was permanently imprinted by the visual. I became aware of high-end audio at that moment. At the age of about 10 I recall my neighborhood friend, a nephew of Jimmy Durante, received a portable stereo record player as a gift from his uncle. We enjoyed playing records for hours. I was hooked.

What is your educational background?

My studies were focused on industrial design and mechanical engineering with a minor in fine art. The most important element of my education is life experience. I have been involved in many, many projects, both professionally and just for fun, throughout my life and cherished each experience as an opportunity to learn something new or gain more insight.

What does Arion stand for?

Arion was a mythical ancient Greek musician who, after being threatened by pirates at sea, was saved by friendly dolphins attracted by his last song. While grateful for his rescue, the dolphins carried him safely to shore. This legendary mythical account underscores music’s power to communicate beyond barriers. It symbolizes music as the universal language, able to create connections and evoke beauty and emotions. The story of Arion is a perfect narrative to inspire music lovers to connect with the joy of music experienced through high-performance audio speakers. Like Arion’s music our speakers transcend the boundaries of our physical world.

Why dipole line arrays and woofers?

We decided to focus on dipole line array speakers many years ago. They have several inherent advantages. Dipoles are relatively easy to position in a home listening environment. Another feature about dipoles is that when the back wave and front wave meet at the side of the speaker, they are often out of phase and cancel each other. This cancellation at the side of the speakers is a real asset because it removes most of the interaction between the speakers and the side walls of the listening room, often a significant factor in positioning conventional speakers.

Line arrays have several advantages. The attenuation of the sound wave during its travel through the air is less due to the greater dimensions (length) of the line array (AMT array). Theory stipulates that, with the exception of a small area close to the sound source called “near field”, the sound wave experiences a drop in amplitude by 6 dB for any doubling of distance. In the near field, the attenuation is only 3 dB. The near field extends to roughly 3 times the dimension (length) of a speaker array. The near field for a long line array reaches beyond the normal listening position so they experience a drop in amplitude by 3 dB for any doubling of distance.

Arion Apollo and Athena series speakers use a single element (single-line) line array. This is a unique feature made possible by our custom made-in-house extended range AMT drivers. Some of the advantages are, no phase or timing issues (that are often found with multi-row arrays) and the desirable polar response they produce. Another advantage of a true line array is that the vertical spectral content of music is virtually the same throughout the length of the line array. The seating height does not matter with Apollo or Athena speakers unlike point source speakers where it is important for the ears to be aligned in relationship with the tweeter. Additionally, our single-line array speakers have minimal vertical dispersion at any frequency. Hence, there is no sound bouncing from either the floor or the ceiling. No deleterious interference from these surfaces is created as in virtually all other kinds of speakers. These features help make speaker-room integration easier.

How did you decide on the AMT drivers as the basis for your technology?

AMT (Air motion Transformers) drivers are very interesting devices. They address many issues and satisfy many of our requirements. First, they are a line driver which is the most suitable profile for use in a line array configuration. Our AMT drivers have a very low mass active element that converts electrical energy into mechanical energy and have very powerful magnet motor assemblies which makes them very capable of resolving very complex wave forms. They are designed to be high sensitivity drivers (for an audio transducer) and be almost a purely resistive load on the driving amplifier so they are very easy to drive. They can be designed to be well damped which helps extend their range. The active element is always within the core of the magnetic field which aids in linearity. All these features and more allow me to design speakers that represent my interpretation of what I believe high performance speakers should be.

How did you decide what type of DSP (Digital Signal Processing) unit to use?

Just like all other stereo equipment, not all DSP is created equally. First, a brief view of why we use DSP. Our speakers are designed specifically to be used with digital active crossover management to gives us more control of the system’s performance. Active speaker systems eliminate potential losses that are caused by passive crossover components. Along with digital crossovers, high performance room (signal) correction is used to achieve excellent in-room response in both the amplitude and time domains at the listening position. A very important feature of advanced room correction is the system’s ability to achieve a desirably impulse response. How critical is impulse response & transients? The impulse response of a speaker system gives you an indication of how well it can handle transients and provide a clean and powerful impact. A clean impulse response also gives you some indication in terms of time alignment between drivers, as incorrectly aligned drivers in a speaker will show two or more distinct impulses rather than a single powerful impulse. The impulse response also shows you early reflections and other problems occurring in the room that may alter the inherent speaker’s performance in terms of transients and imaging as impulse responses carry localization cues. I want the same consistent performance that we achieve in our lab to be duplicated in our customer’s home. High performance DSP/Room Correction allows us to meet our goal. We partner with Trinnov because we believe they offer the most advanced, user friendly systems.

Speaker-room integration is very important. Our listening experience is largely affected by the room and how well the speakers and room work together. Arion speakers and the use of advanced digital crossovers with room correction greatly simplify the process of integration.

From what I could tell from your website some of your speaker models are scalable.

Almost all speaker manufactures are very small companies. That makes it very challenging for them to achieve any significant economy-of-scale. Many speaker companies use cheaper or lower level cabinet parts, drivers and crossover parts in their lower priced speakers to meet a target price point. Their flagship speakers usually use better, more expensive parts and sound better, though not always.

Our Apollo and Athena series speakers use the same technology and are configured and built using the same parts and modules and are scalable. This is a very important feature in many ways. Using the same high-quality parts, advanced technology, and high-tech construction throughout out models means that all our models exhibit the same high performance and excellent sound quality. We don’t want our customers to sacrifice performance and sound quality when they buy one of our “smaller” models. We suggest to our customers to choose the model which best fits their room size. All our models sound basically the same but differ in total output (SPL). Regardless of which model our customers buy they always get our best!

Being a modular design, therefore scalable, we can take advantage of modest economy-of-scale and design and build high performance class leading speakers. Being modular a customer can move up the line if they move into a larger room by adding additional tower modules or stacking additional woofers. The Atlas and Iris also use much of the same technology but are not modular or scalable.

How many audio shows a year do you normally attend?

I usually plan on exhibiting at two audio shows per year. Depending on our schedule we might participate in more and sometimes only in one show. We almost always have our own room and bring in partners to supply the associated equipment. We are open to someone else using/showing our speakers as was done at the Capital Audiofest 2021 show where our Apollo 12 speakers were used in the VPI room. We also try to support small local or club meetings.

Where do you envision the industry going?

That’s a difficult question to answer. It somewhat depends on how you define our industry. High-End audio is a relatively small market. Consumer level audio is a huge market. Obviously, the common denominator is the almost universal love of music and its importance to us. A Mid-Fi segment can be carved out too.

Since High-End gear is expensive and most audiophiles who buy it or aspire to own it are seasoned individuals, the acceptance of change is slow. I see High-End audio in a slow but constant state of product refinement and reinvention with an occasional blip of something unique. There seems to be much more emphasis on aesthetics than before. There is plenty of solid engineering and development too. I suspect this segment will not change much and solder on for a while.

Everything has become so specialized in consumer level audio. Demographics and new or refined technologies will play a role in what consumers buy. Our imagination is the limit. There is still more performance available from the digital side of things. I see more integrated-compact, more affordable great sounding systems that are powered and rely heavily on DSP going forward. Mid-Fi is somewhere in between and growing because of the cost of High-End gear.

What do you like to do outside of audio?

I enjoy spending time with my family and friends and spending time at the Jersey shore and swimming in our pool when we are home. I also enjoy travelling to interesting places to learn about the local history. My wife and I enjoy going on whale watching trips. For most of my free time as long as I am designing and developing something, I’m happy. It can be automotive, audio or house related or almost anything else.

Finally, what is your taste in music?

I like most music. If I connect with a tune then I usually like it regardless of the genre. I have even been surprised by a few rap songs which are like poetry and have a good message.