Thread by @juanbuis

in 2022 sonos bought a mysterious dutch audio company for $100m because of a secret invention

today it announced its first product using their technology... and it might change speakers forever

here's the story of mayht and why sonos might be *years* ahead of the competition 🤯

growing up in the 90s, brothers timothy and mattias scheek were always playing around with speakers — taking them apart and turning them into new ones

later, they started their own company, creating beautiful high-end loudspeakers

...but they wanted to invent something new

speaker technology hasn't changed much in the last 100 years, and they wanted to innovate — so they started experimenting

one night when timothy is laying awake, he has an epiphany — he figured out a way to dramatically change the size of their speakers

the next day they build a prototype, and it sounds incredible — they immediately know they have something special on their hands

they quickly start a new company to fully focus on their new technology, which they call mayht

when they go to silicon valley to raise funding, they present mayht and get an interesting reaction:

"how did you do this — did you hide another speaker somewhere?"

one of the executives grabs one of their own speakers to compare — it sounds terrible in comparison

then things go quickly — they raise $10m from @martingarrix and others, and after presenting at CES, sonos sends them an offer

they sell for $100m and mayht is fully integrated into sonos, where timothy and mattias lead a product team

then there's radio silence for 2 years... until today

sonos just announced "one of the most significant audio breakthroughs in audio engineering in nearly 100 years"

arc ultra is their first product with sound motion, a rebranded version of mayht's technology

so... what does sound motion actually do?

in essence it makes speakers sound much bigger than they are because of their new, extremely compact driver design

but outside of mayht and sonos, very little people have actually heard their new speakers

today's launch is the arc ultra, which is a tv sound bar that'll surely sound great

but imagine this tech in a bluetooth speaker, or a pair of headphones — those products might be *much* smaller and better-sounding 🤯

can't wait to see what they'll release next 👀

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