Could you tell us about your background and how you came to start Lenehan Audio?

In 1969 my brother Russell and I walked into Harvey’s Sound in Surfers Paradise and saw a pair of JBL L55 Jubal Loudspeakers driven by a Sonab integrated amplifier and a turntable. We listened and were captivated . I think it was Henry Mancini playing on that turntable. That was the day we started. Within five years I was building and selling speakers for money only because I had too many and mum said they must go. Lenehan Audio was officially trading though as an entity from 1994.

What type of music do you prefer to listen to. I guess as a small manufacturer your business takes up a lot of time. Do you get much of a chance to enjoy any live music?

Classical, Jazz, R & B, and everything else. I love Dire Straits, Rage Against the Machine and Faithless. Without live music you can forget fidelity. Fidelity to what? I am a member of the Friends of Music and attend everything that is available on the Gold Coast and as much as I can get to in Brisbane. The Gold Coast Philharmonic practice sessions are savored.

Are there any other HiFi manufacturers or people in the industry you admire?

The two that come to mind are George Short from North Creek Music Systems and Vince Bruzzesse from Totem Audio. Both these designers are in my mind near the absolute edge of current loudspeaker design. Although associates in the Lenehan Audio team are currently involved in valve and digital design my knowledge of electronics and digital design is a little too scanty to comment with any relevance on other industry areas.

You sell a single model loudspeaker. It is a small two way standmount design. Is there a reason why you have concentrated on this one loudspeakers design especially when there are so many other highly regarded, superficially similar loudspeakers available. What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of your chosen loudspeaker format?

I’ve only currently got one model, the ML1, because the little beggar has become a rod for my own back. I have been developing the ML2 and ML3 for 3 years now and up until recently they were still being beaten by the ML1. We are now very close to having a loudspeaker range though (fingers and everything else crossed).

Basically I do not see the ML1 as occupying a niche in the market, but more as a device that makes music. I am terrified of releasing other devices just because they play louder or make more bass etc, etc. I do have one very understanding customer who has placed a deposit and been waiting nearly two years for his ML3’s.

Your web site has a lot of interesting information and possibly controversial statements. You say: in a single word “accuracy”. I think many people associate “accuracy” with measurements. Can you explain what you mean when you use this word and how you determine if a loudspeaker is accurate or not?

Accuracy and musicality are one in the same. If you sit in front of a live string quartet, maybe at three meters and in a decent acoustic, would you call that accurate or musical sound? Neither of course and both of course. I’m not about to lose the word accurate just because some jaded audiophiles equate it with edgy digital bipolar bright sound.

Trying to determine what is accurate is in fact asking a question that is absolute and no matter how convinced I may be that I’m correct the fact is the question is insoluble and moot. Should a reproducing system reproduces warts and all what’s fed to it’s inputs or should it take those 16bits and 44.1khz signals and interpolate them within it’s bowels and spit out a sound that sounds like a real piano?

My loudspeakers are designed in such a way that when they are partnered with current state of the art ancillaries the sound that eminates from them is as close as possible to what I hear when I listen to live acoustical unamplified musical instruments and voices.