THE B&W CONNECTION

When you read Vivid Audio’s brochures and delve more deeply into the technologies it uses in its loudspeakers, you might start to experience a certain sense of déjà vu… the strange feeling that you’ve heard about Vivid Audio’s technologies previously… but maybe in relation to some other very famous loudspeaker manufacturer.

If so, you should trust your sixth sense, because Vivid Audio was founded in 2004 by two men who spent a very long time at B&W and were instrumental in that company’s success: Robert Trunz and Laurence Dickie. Trunz was for many years not only B&W’s managing director, but also its majority shareholder. Laurence Dickie was a research and development engineer at B&W for thirteen years during which time he developed for B&W not only the ‘Matrix’ cabinet bracing technology the company still uses to this day, but also its most famous flagship loudspeaker design, the Nautilus. Also instrumental in founding Vivid Audio were Philip Guttentag, B&W’s South African distributor, and Bruce Gessner and his wife Deone—all of whom were partners at Gessner Guttentag & Associates, a well-known South African acoustical consultancy.

Though Vivid Audio was originally founded in South Africa, and all its production facilities are still located in New Germany, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, its design, technical and administration facilities are now situated somewhat further north… in West Sussex, England.