Mellow Acoustics

Mellow Acoustics was founded in 2011 by Tim Mellow who felt that hi-fi design had become too complicated and focused on technical specifications, whilst losing sight of what really mattered – the integrity of the sound.  

Tim Mellow

Tim Mellow is an electronics and acoustics engineer with 35 years of experience working at several companies including 12 years at Nokia. His OTL tube amplifier design published in 2010 issue of AudioXpress has proved a popular DIY project. Tim is also the co-author of an updated version of Leo Beranek’s classic 1954 book 'Acoustics' and has published 11 papers in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, which can be accessed using this link. Tim presented a paper on his Oscillating Sphere Concept, to the 144th Convention of the Audio Engineering Society in Milan 2018, which he developed while designing FrontRo.

Our story

Having always admired the clear and detailed sound of electrostatic loudspeakers, Tim Mellow set out to create a new design that was more efficient, compact, and attractive in the home than anything previously available. Also, nearly all loudspeakers he heard sounded nothing like music played live in the room because most real instruments don’t beam the sound towards you at certain frequencies. Hence, loudspeakers generally lack the room-filling effect of live music that immerses you in reflected sound to produce that lovely sense of space and airiness. 

Tim spent over five years, designing and developing his own concept for a new type of hi-fi speaker, driven by his desire for a way of reproducing recorded music as if it were a live performance. A benefit of the improved quality of the reflected sound is that it is recognized by the ear as belonging to the direct sound so that the two are combined (Haas effect), which in turn enhances the stereo image. If you close your eyes, you can hear where each musician is located.