Industrial Design Archives

Noah Kaplan–Bringing Entertainment & Design Together Again

Noah Kaplan—Bringing Entertainment & Design Together Again

A deep dive into how Kaplan and his company are at the forefront of the effort to make entertainment tech not just attractive but major statements in design

by Michael Gaughn
April 22, 2022

As much an artist as an entrepreneur, as much musician and music lover as speaker maker, Noah Kaplan has seen his business—Leon Speakers—grow rapidly, as both a presence and an influence, exactly because it’s the antithesis of an electronics behemoth. A creativity-driven craft operation that’s as much local as international, Leon is the speaker-company equivalent of a microbrewery. (No big surprise to learn, then, that Kaplan shepherds one of those as well).

But there’s little point in providing deep background in this intro since a lot about Leon emerges in the interview that follows. Just know that the artistic impulses that define and drive its efforts have synced up nicely with the larger movement to bring design back to home entertainment, making Leon one of the most significant forces in the push to make components not just visible but forms of expression, and, ideally, works of art.

PART 1

The Leon Speakers founder is a leading force in the movement to reintroduce a long lost sense of style into luxury home entertainment

“For decades, the prime directive when it comes to luxury home entertainment has been ‘hide it all away’—an edict that’s caused all the various gear purveyors to find ingenious ways to make everything from speakers to electronics to projectors virtually disappear. Problem is, it has also often led to unfortunate compromises in performance (although you’d never know it to look at the marketing). Maybe even more unfortunate, it’s resulted in some huge lost opportunities for making innovative design statements in the home.” read more

PART 2

The man behind Leon talks about the other companies helping to drive the movement to make entertainment tech fashionable again

PART 2

“In our previous conversation, Leon Speakers’ founder Noah Kaplan described how his efforts are grounded in the work of innovative mid-century industrial designers like Dieter Rams, who found ways to turn pieces of entertainment technology into compelling design statements. Picking up the ball again below, he discusses the contemporary companies that share his don’t-hide-the-gear approach to not just integrating but showcasing technology in the décor of design-conscious homes.” read more

PART 3

On translating the desire to bring design flare back to entertainment tech into real-world product

PART 3

“Having, in Part 1, discussed the movement to free entertainment technology from its anonymity by transforming it into distinctive design statements and, in Part 2, limning some of the companies that are helping propel that effort, Leon’s guiding spirit and tech-design evangelist here talks about his own contributions to the cause, citing examples of how he’s put his theories—and inspiration—into practice.” read more

PART 4

The interview concludes with a glimpse of a time to come when entertainment tech will once again fully embrace innovative design

“As we wrap things up, Leon Speakers‘ Noah Kaplan neatly brings things full circle, weaving together all the threads he laid out in the previous three installments. The focus here is primarily on the future—not just of Leon but of home entertainment in general as it continues to spread out, in increasingly sophisticated forms, throughout the home, and thanks to more nuanced and responsive technology and design, evolves from an often awkward add-on to an integral and stylish part of the domestic environment.'” read more

Noah Kaplan–Bringing Entertainment & Design Together Again, Pt. 4

Noah Kaplan—Bringing
Entertainment & Design
Together Again, Pt. 4

by Michael Gaughn

capturing the spirit of the ’70s, without the kitsch, at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio

a custom python-skin design for Wu-Tang Clan’s Raekwon “The Chef”

“We’ve got to show that technology companies today are as interested in how things look, how they’re sourced, how they make you feel,
and how they’re end-of-lifed”

The interview concludes with a glimpse of a time to come when entertainment tech will once again fully embrace innovative design

April 21, 2022

As we wrap things up, Leon Speakers‘ Noah Kaplan neatly brings things full circle, weaving together all the threads he laid out in the previous three installments. The focus here is primarily on the future—not just of Leon but of home entertainment in general as it continues to spread out, in increasingly sophisticated forms, throughout the home, and thanks to more nuanced and responsive technology and design, evolves from an often awkward add-on to an integral and stylish part of the domestic environment.

—M.G.

You mentioned that the mandate with Muscle Shoals was do to a ‘70s-based design. That era’s kind of dangerous because no matter how you approach it, it can quickly descend into kitsch. How do you avoid that when you’re approaching a style like that or something similar?

That’s where subtlety plays in. We always call it a drip. We don’t ever want to go into full IV mode. I’m super conscious of that when we’re designing. Our designers are working on stuff usually five to ten years, so we’re always designing for ten years on. We have some super crazy concepts, but we’re making sure it’s a very slow progression. So first let’s add new materials, then a color choice or a fabric choice. And then let’s add design options, like trim options. But in most cases still, especially in American design, we’re working with very subtle and simple styles.

Now, we do make sound sculptures that are full-scale expressions of ourselves. And the customer who wants a sound sculpture is somebody who loves art, so they want that piece to pop. Another customer might want a product that makes them feel something at the same time that it fits the right aesthetic of their home design, but they also don’t want it to yell at them. So it’s a tightrope still, giving people what they want while also pushing the boundaries just a little. Because you always know who the customers are who want you to totally trash boundaries and just create. But that’s three or four times a year compared to the ten thousand times a year when we create for the people who need stuff everyday.

Theo Kalomirakis always reminds me that during the pinnacle of his career, in the ‘90s, he had client after client who just wanted to play. And if he could sympathetically get them on the same wavelength with him, that they were going to be creative and were going to play, that’s when he did his best work. By the 2000s, those people started to go away. Most of his clients just wanted glorified screening rooms and it wasn’t creative anymore.

I like those words “sympathetic” and “play”—two of the things we try to find all the time now. If I get to get on the phone with a customer, which is rare, look out. We’re goin’ there. Like when we just did that thing for Raekwon, who wanted that python skin and so I’m finding that python skin. That’s what we want. That’s a desire. I had a conversation with a customer this week who’s moving to an amazing place in LA but has no idea what to put in there. She showed me with her phone, and she had not one piece of art. And so I’m, like, you wanna play?

So, like Theo, I’m always looking for that one person who wants to go and dig deep. Because I think intrinsically all people do. We’re ready to reconnect with a little bit more of our soul; we want to find something that makes us feel good. And what I really love about what Theo does—he’s creating an escape room, a playhouse. Sometimes we get too serious about stuff. It’s not that serious, and you should be allowed to make mistakes. You should be allowed to build something and then not even like it. We’ve built whole apartments with customers and, not because of us, they didn’t like it when it was done. And, you know what? No worries. Let’s find what you do like.

I feel like we have such a creative industry. All the people we work with are super creatives, and willing and able to start the conversation of, “Hey, I know that’s what you think you might want, but did you know?” Because a lot of people don’t have awareness. And here’s the scary thing: If I asked a hundred people to name five artists, I don’t think they could. Some people might say Van Gogh, but how about one that’s alive? If I asked them to name one architect, I’m not sure they would know. I don’t judge people for that. I just know there’s so much more depth out there than that. So like Theo, I’m always want to play with those thoughts as a way to find someone’s soul. And that’s a really deep, interesting way to design and build stuff for people. That’s what’s cool about architecture and art and design to me.

Let’s talk about the next 3 to 5 years. How do see things playing out, and how would you like to see things play out? What do you think are the trends?

I think the trend actually is going to be in learning—learning like how different trades interact with each other, because as technology infiltrates everything, we’re actually shifting really deeply into IT. And you hear a lot about wellness—about Kelvin lighting and how it affects your health and your mood. That’s a great trend. I want to work in an industry that makes you feel better, not worse. And so I love these multidisciplinary things happening.

I was on a call the other day with an integrator who was saying the usual thing of, “We’re always called in last, so we’ve got to train designers and architects to bring us in early.” And I said, “What have we got to train you on?” We have to start learning more about the terminology of architecture and design, the history of design. Through that, we’ll get to this next zone where design and technology are finally remarried. We’ve got to show that technology companies today are as interested in how things look, how they’re sourced, how they make you feel, and how they’re end-of-lifed. We talk often enough about how this can be a sustainable practice. It doesn’t have to be all about growth and this maniacal big, bigger, bigger.

The future will be more about the wellness of an overall space, which is super interesting to me. So I’m working closely with an architect out of Paris, Daniel Pouzet, who’s one of my favorite designers—a very naturalistic designer. And he’s really thinking about what is going to make the client’s life better through design. So I became obsessed with the idea of, if you see an object that makes sense to

Kaplan introduces a Leon Ente SoundTile speaker system created in collaboration with artist Mike Han

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

this sound sculpture, custom designed for an Ann Arbor, Michigan cafe, won a BORN award for its combination of functionality and aesthetics

Kaplan with Theo Kalomirakis

Theo Kalomirakis |
A Personal History of Home Theater

a sampling of Daniel Pouzet left | the Villas at the Nay Palad Hideaway in the Philippines right | the Nest Rest and the Swing Rest

you and resonates with you and makes you feel better, it’s going to add to your overall wellness, it’s going to relieve your stress. We can’t overlook how much stress we’ve all been under. And everyone’s spending so much time at home. That trend’s going to continue.

So what are we going to put our energy into? Are we just going to keep buying commodity things off Amazon? Probably for a few more years, but eventually we’re going to let all that stuff go and think about those few things we actually need or desire. So I’m thinking about everything from how the digital landscape is changing, about how we’re going to present NFTs and new art forms all the way to simple things like what materials can we build with that can be additively manufactured—printed on demand. We’re meeting with a company in Ireland to help us with additive manufacturing because I want to create a sustainable business that doesn’t have a giant environmental footprint.

The trend that makes me nervous is when I see conglomeration, which can hurt the spirit of design, because something that was super important to a founder can become unimportant to another group of people. So I hope there’s a move to independent businesses, creative companies flourishing, small, new entrepreneurs coming up—the next person who can inspire us to repropagate ourselves. But in terms of any trend toward one thing, we all know that the trend is moving in the direction of design.

Michael Gaughn—The Absolute Sound, The Perfect Vision, Wideband, Stereo Review, Sound & Vision, The Rayva Roundtable, marketing, product design, some theater designs, a couple TV shows, some commercials, and now this.

Noah Kaplan–Bringing Entertainment & Design Together Again, Pt. 3

Noah Kaplan—Bringing
Entertainment & Design
Together Again, Pt. 3

by Michael Gaughn

“I’m working on product lines right now that will completely change the way we think about screens”

click on the images to enlarge

a sampling of Leon projects shown in a variety of design environments

On translating the desire to bring design flare back to entertainment tech into real-world product

April 13, 2022

Having, in Part 1, discussed the movement to free entertainment technology from its anonymity by transforming it into distinctive design statements and, in Part 2, limning some of the companies that are helping propel that effort, Leon’s guiding spirit and tech-design evangelist here talks about his own contributions to the cause, citing examples of how he’s put his theories—and inspiration—into practice.

—M.G.

Until recently, rooms and their functions had been relatively consistent, so interior design could afford to evolve slowly. But digital technology has really flipped that on its head. How do you manage that intersection of traditional design and constantly evolving tech?

The history of design and technology is really short, from about 1850 to 1890—the pre-Edison era to now. So you’re talking about a hundred and fifty years of really intense progress. And incredible technologies keep popping up—I couldn’t have predicted ten years ago that TV screens would be a hundred inches. When I’m talking to a designer, they’ll say, “Hey, the client wants a hundred-inch screen in the living room.” To me, that’s like saying, imagine you wanted a refrigerator in your living room. I’m not going to let you put that in without a cabinetmaker and without trim around it. So we’re trying to create ways where you can have authentic materiality around a product that’s a commodity. A screen is just the content now, whereas a Philco screen from 1950 was a furniture piece. It used to be that both the object and the content were important. The screen has become nothing but a black window, and our job as integrators is to make that thing sing and make it resonate with the space.

This reminds me of conversations I’ve had with Tim Sinnaeve from Barco about how flat panels used to be thought of as something anonymous that just hung on the wall when they’re not on, but how, just given their size, we need to completely rethink what their presence means in a room.

For instance, I design and create NFTs. We’re thinking about, “Where are we going to show them? O, wait, we already have amazing televisions and digital screens all over the house. Perfect. But are they artistic?” More and more, digital is going to become part of the normal vernacular of design, like where a luxury client will have a really broad NFT collection.

I’m working on product lines right now that will completely change the way we think about screens. Screens are a window. They’re an escape, they’re informational, and they have a lot of functionality. But, hell, they need a ton more design. Yves Béhar, who’s one of my favorite designers and creates for Herman Miller and other global brands, designed the Samsung Frame. And his first thing was, “This thing has to look good off.” That’s the job we all have now. And so that’s what’s cool about making parts that are discreet. But I’m imagining like even with an in-wall speaker, what if the fitting looked more beautiful? Or maybe it’s custom painted or made out of woven, braided brass or solid wood—whatever matches the style. I think it will be a slow introduction back to style, but a lot of vendors have to create tools, similar to Lutron, where you can easily show the vast array of styles, to help someone choose.

Is there one product you’ve created that best sums up everything we’ve been talking about?

One of our simplest products we do all this with, which is an everyday one for integrators, is the Edge Media Frame. I always hated hanging TVs on walls. I didn’t like the black screen, I didn’t like seeing down the side, I didn’t like that you could see the differentiation, I didn’t like the materials. Remember when TVs used to be, like, silver? It was painful.

With the Media Frame, we looked back to say, ‘What made a piece like this work with the home in the past?” The Edge is a simple way to frame, stylistically, and say, “Hey, instead of just seeing this black window, let’s put trim around it so you can’t see down the sides. Let’s clean up the edges. Let’s allow the customer to choose custom fabrics.” Instead of just seeing black metal or plastic, all of a sudden you’re seeing an explosion of color. People are using fabric now for the grilles on the soundbars. So they get to choose the fabric and the wood, and then, of course, they get to choose their TV and screen size—and now you can get to choose what’s on the screen. Right now, it’s just the Samsung Frame, but LG and Sony have their versions coming out that will enable the screen to become a player of images or art, of photography or NFTs or whatever you collect. To me that’s beautiful.

So our job as integrators is to paint a picture of a branded product that doesn’t feel store-bought. And now we’re talking about the exact marriage of design and technology, where multiple trades work together to make something seem beautiful and simple, because design, ultimately, is complexity solved. Our job as integrators, with something as complex as a media room, is to make the space feel comfortable and have nothing feel out of place.

Do you tend to design products with a specific style in mind?

Stylistically, I think a lot of people always picture really modern homes, and we’re always shown that most modernist home. But most people are a little more transitional about what they have. And it definitely changes from the Rockies to the coasts. What all our customers have in common is that they know what they love, they know what resonates, so they’re definitely design-conscious. Now, what kind of design? That is not for me to say. We have worked with designs that you would consider farmhouse all the way to super ultra Postmodern. So when I’m thinking about a period or style, what I’m looking at is the soul of the person. Because that’s what interests me about each house. That’s why I love building custom products for individuals, and that’s why we keep adding to these palettes of options. We learn from these people.

I was walking a house in Aspen and I was, like, “Whoa! We do not have anything that’s right for this house. We need to rethink everything. Look at how sharp the lines are, look at the contrast.” Right now, contrast is in. You’ll see houses totally clad in black, with warm wood—super-contrasty materials, super-long straight

Leon’s designs for the legendary Muscle Shoals recording studio in Sheffield, Alabama use authentic designs and materials from the ’70s to evoke the era

lines, gigantic windows—stuff that makes it really difficult for the designers and integrators to work with. So I look at each style and see how do we fit into that, and how do we create products that have flexible parameters to be able to do that?

Like when we had to design for Muscle Shoals, we had to go back to the ‘70s to help them. They just wanted stuff that was period-centric. So we found cloth from the era. We built out of materials from the times. We tried to make the screen look bent and curved. We made the speakers out of multiple tones of brown, something we would never do today. So you’ve got to keep up on your trends.

Coming Soon: Part 4—Looking into the near and distant future of designing entertainment tech

Noah Kaplan painting his portrait of Marvin Gaye entitled “What’s Going On?”

Part 1

Part 2

Part 4

the Samsung Frame TV wedded with Leon’s FrameBar soundbar

the Edge Media Frame is meant to overcome the bland anonymity of most video-display designs by creating a custom look that complements, rather than fights, a room’s décor

“What all our customers have in common is that they’re definitely design-conscious. Now, what kind of design? That is not for me to say.”

Leon’s designs for the legendary Muscle Shoals recording studio in Sheffield, Alabama use authentic designs and materials from the ’70s to evoke the era

Noah Kaplan–Bringing Entertainment & Design Together Again, Pt. 2

Noah Kaplan—Bringing
Entertainment & Design
Together Again, Pt. 2

by Michael Gaughn

“One of the best companies we work with, Admit One, has engineers now to help customers choose things like their fabric, shades, and light fixtures so the tradespeople can go ahead and figure out how to integrate all that technology.”

click on the images to enlarge

The Josh AI Nano voice-activated system controller
top | placed within custom millwork
bottom | integrated within a Lutron home-automation keypad

The man behind Leon talks about the other companies helping to drive the movement to make entertainment tech fashionable again

March 30, 2022

In our previous conversation, Leon Speakers’ founder Noah Kaplan described how his efforts are grounded in the work of innovative mid-century industrial designers like Dieter Rams, who found ways to turn pieces of entertainment technology into compelling design statements. Picking up the ball again below, he discusses the contemporary companies that share his don’t-hide-the-gear approach to not just integrating but showcasing technology in the décor of design-conscious homes.

—M.G.

Since home theaters are the most technologically sophisticated room in many high-end residences, they’ve functioned as a kind of lab to get people used to tech and how to integrate it into the design of the rest of their environment.

I love what you just said because that was the intention of that space. The intentionality of a home theater space is generally managed by a design team. The integrator works in tandem with a home theater designer who handles all of those little details like the chairs, the fabrics, the paneling so the integrator can say, “Where can I put my technology? Cool.”

We’re starting to see integrators bringing people like designers in-house. One of the best companies we work with, Admit One, has an on-site interior designer, and they have engineers now to help customers choose things like their fabric, shades, and light fixtures so the tradespeople can go ahead and figure out how to integrate all that technology.

above | For this collaboration with Admit One Home Systems out of Edina, Minnesota, Leon created custom speakers that play off from the lighting in the skylight beams

The best firms know how to work in tandem with the other trades. It’s just a giant responsibility to put on an electrician to say, “I want all the light sockets to look this way, and I want you to choose the Lutron light socket and then choose the style and finish from the thousands of finishes available.” So we’re seeing this new interim position of design being an immense part of the conversation between clients, designers, and integrators.

The integrators of the world need to know the language of the designers and architects. And I think that’s an amazing trend. Like Josh AI just came out with the Nano—a beautiful little fixture that easily fits into spaces so designers can comfortably work with it.

How has the interest in having high-quality entertainment tech in spaces beyond the theater room played out with what you’re doing at Leon?

Home theaters really were a harbinger. So let’s apply that to the living room. At Leon, we call something like that “living space theater,” which is a mix of blended technology and oftentimes complementary design. We rely on interior designers because, by the time we’re involved with the interior, the designer is more involved than the architect, so we know whatever we do has to work with the interior-design intentions.

It’s really cool to actually see a design get introduced. We consider ourselves as much a design company as a speaker company, and a lot of our calls are about design consultations. So we’ve started bringing in architects and designers to work with us here on staff. So now we have an insider view.

above | This CEDIA Integrated Home of the Year from 2018 features Leon Profile Series side-mount speakers and a Media Décor Eclipse art lift

Do you find there are other companies that are basically on your wavelength that you can collaborate with?

We work with a lot of bespoke manufacturers that get it. Séura is a great example. I work very closely with the people on their team, like Gretchen Gilbertson. She has a very similar design belief to mine about how to bring technology into the house in a way that’s multifunctional. Number one, it has to be built properly so it can meet the technical specifications, but it also has to have the right style and quality to fit in a luxury home. She creates a tremendous palette of products.

Lutron is an amazing company that does a great job of not only creating perfect integration with things like with its Radio RA and Homeworks control systems but also has an immense portfolio of fixturing. It’s amazing how well they train people. They show integrators how to make the lighting and shades work perfectly but they also train their designers to be able to choose perfectly. So, for us, Lutron is always a design leader. They have an amazing asset catalog, they’re always up to date and modern, and they’re always making changes. You see Savant starting to make moves toward this, more on the lighting side, bringing in other disciplines to try to add shades or add lights. I see a lot of others working on this as well, so I would say it’s a trend for most.

But the hardest thing for a tech company is letting go. For me, I had to completely let go and say, “I want an actual architect to design the products. I want real interior designers to choose the fabrics.” So I brought them in and said, “What do you need us to do to make this conversation work for you?” They’re definitely not talking about frequency response—that’s my job. It’s like, I’m the plumber. They don’t care about what the cone material is on the woofer, but they absolutely care whether the cabinet is made of sustainably sourced black walnut.

Coming Soon: Part 3—Noah discusses some Leon projects that highlight where his company is and where it’s going

Part 1

Part 3

Part 4

For this collaboration with Admit One Home Systems out of Edina, Minnesota, Leon created custom speakers that play off from the lighting in the skylight beams

This CEDIA Integrated Home of the Year from 2018 features Leon Profile Series side-mount speakers and a Media Décor Eclipse art lift

Lutron’s Alisse lighting control, shown here in brushed brass, comes in 11 designer finishes

Noah Kaplan–Bringing Entertainment & Design Together Again, Pt. 1

Noah Kaplan—Bringing
Entertainment & Design
Together Again, Pt. 1

by Michael Gaughn

“In the ‘40s and ‘50s, you’d buy a console at a department store and it had your record player and your storage and your television in it. It was a piece of beautiful furniture that was a simple centerpiece of your home.”

the Marantz 2270 stereophonic receiver (1971)

above | Leon Speakers’ Edge Media Frame takes on a retro look in this custom design for the legendary Muscle Shoals recording studio in Sheffield, Alabama

below | Meridian’s DSP8000 XE speakers

making fixtures “pop” | rather than hide these Leon Detail Ultima speakers away, adding custom-made braided brass lattice grilles turns them into a distinctive design statement

The Leon Speakers founder is a leading force in the movement to reintroduce a long lost sense of style into luxury home entertainment

March 9, 2022

For decades, the prime directive when it comes to luxury home entertainment has been “hide it all away”—an edict that’s caused all the various gear purveyors to find ingenious ways to make everything from speakers to electronics to projectors virtually disappear. Problem is, it has also often led to unfortunate compromises in performance (although you’d never know it to look at the marketing). Maybe even more unfortunate, it’s resulted in some huge lost opportunities for making innovative design statements in the home.

The heard-but-not-seen ethos has become so accepted that many people still reflexively react with horror at the idea of actually having components on view, no matter how beautifully made. But in our hyper-design-conscious age, it was all but inevitable that the vessels for image and sound would eventually find themselves being coaxed back out into the light. And two things in particular seem to have helped fuel that return: The vinyl revival and Apple.

For all its dubious aspects, vinyl deserves a lot of credit for getting a significant subset of the populace to reinvest in the whole ritual of music listening. The renewed appreciation for things like the design of album jackets, the tactile sensation of holding LPs, and the analog intricacy of turntables has opened the door for well designed and crafted items like speakers and amplifiers to be brought out of hiding and creatively put on display.

Meanwhile, Apple, during the Jobs era, took the cheap, inflexible, and all but inscrutable MP3 players the traditional electronics companies were trying to force on the public and reinvented them as the iPod, which, with its reassuring heft, intuitive operation, and undeniable sense of minimalist style (which owed an obvious debt to Mid Century design), radically changed how people thought about how they interact with entertainment.

Enter Noah Kaplan. As much an artist as an entrepreneur, as much musician and music lover as speaker maker, he’s seen his business—Leon Speakers—grow rapidly, as both a presence and an influence, exactly because it’s the antithesis of an electronics behemoth. A creativity-driven craft operation that’s as much local as international, Leon is the speaker-company equivalent of a microbrewery. (No big surprise to learn, then, that Kaplan shepherds one of those as well).

—M.G.

Leon is known for being far more design conscious that most entertainment-technology companies. How did that come to be such an important part of what you do?

I always like to start with how design and technology used to actually work together. The architects and designers of the mid 20th century like Charles and Ray Eames and Mies van der Rohe created the furniture and the fixtures and even the technology. Or think about Dieter Rams, who designed all the products for Braun. These architects and designers were creating the styles of the time.

I always like to point to Henry Dreyfuss, who designed iconic stuff like the Bell desktop phone, Honeywell thermostat, and Polaroid Land camera. With the 20th Century Limited, he was responsible for everything from the logo to the dinnerware to the train engines.

That is a perfect example because it was designed from the creative direction of a single artist or a single designer. The reason Dieter Rams was so good was he created minimalism as a reaction to post-Victorianism. He later regretted that because he didn’t realize his designs would lead a change toward minimalism forever, even though it was an important step that got us away from adding too many details, which was really a result of pre-industrialism.

We went from an era where the technology was obscured by the design, to an era where technology and design were in almost perfect balance, to one where the tech was hidden so there was really no design.

I’m completely fascinated by this and by where we’re going. Back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, you’d buy a console at a department store and it had your record player and your storage and your television in it. It was a piece of beautiful furniture, maybe made of teak, that was a simple centerpiece of your home.

The market has moved away from that, which has created a really hard dynamic for integrators. You don’t ask an electrician or plumber to specify the fixtures, right? You don’t say, “Hey, while you’re at it—I need you to choose from the 15,000 options I have for a faucet.” You can’t be both the technician and the designer, so integrators constantly have to rely on other trades in these installations.

Integrators keep saying, “We always get called in last on a project.” And there’s a reason for that because there really isn’t an effective interface yet between the integrator and the interior designer or the architect—and, frankly, architects and designers don’t really want to know about all the technology. It’s not what they do. Just like a designer doesn’t want to pick the pipes for the plumbing—they want to pick the pretty parts at the end.

It doesn’t help that entertainment tech now derives from an engineering base compared to where it was, which was really design-based. And yet a lot of the people in our industry are amazing enthusiasts who appreciate the hell out of classic design. They can appreciate a beautiful vintage speaker that sounds amazing and can be the focal point of the home. Now fast-forward to where we went to more of a mass-consumption model where you no longer had people like Saul Marantz putting a wood case around a receiver, and it’s like having the contractor specify the products that might be visible in the room. And those things might end up in a living room, not tucked away in a side room.

When somebody decides “I want music in my living room,” we’re into a distributed-audio world, an integration world. We moved to invisible products because it’s impossible for a customer to decide from all the options for fitting a tower speaker into the living room. We moved to an era of discreet audio so the integrator could say, “Let’s get everything to blend in so we’re running the technology and creating the best performance we can.” But it all became devoid of design. An in-ceiling speaker is a great solution but it certainly isn’t a design element in the home.

What impact has all this had on your evolution and the evolution of Leon?

Since everybody loves small speakers that are hidden, as a designer I had to figure out new ways to hide technology in the space. Since the ‘80s, we’ve been looking at products manufactured overseas that are usually made from plastic and other cheap materials. But materials like that don’t really have a home in the luxury space. So vendors had to come up with either design compromises like, “OK, let’s hide all this stuff,” all the way to, “Hey, let’s make beautiful objects”—like Meridian. “Let’s make it a standout piece.”

above | Leon Speakers’ Edge Media Frame takes on a retro look in this custom design for the legendary Muscle Shoals recording studio in Sheffield, Alabama
below | Meridian’s DSP8000 XE speakers

We have to find a happy medium where the manufacturers use authentic materials that blend in with modern spaces—things like hardwoods or real metals or custom finishes. We also have to start thinking about collaborating with architects and designers. I finally reached the point where I said, “I’m cutting out the middle-man. I want the architect to design the next palette of products we’re going to build.”

And that’s really a return to design leadership—which is often the architect, who’s designing the overall vision, the aesthetic, of the space. But that means tons of other trades have to pipe in. The interior designer is going to have their vision. Us technologists, we’re going to have our vision. We know technology’s so important in the house, and we want it to feel like it fits in. And in a luxury space, it needs to be made of the same bespoke materials the homes are made of. So those conversations have to be led by designers and architects, to help reconnect those threads we lost.

Now that integrators are doing lighting and shades as well as sound and video, and there’s more interest in things like smart homes and wellness, I can’t imagine how a single tradesperson could choose the fixtures for all those elements. The existing solution is to make it as invisible as possible. But I feel our job is to rethink fixtures, and to retrain designers, architects, and integrators on what it means to create fixtures. We tend to say, “O, this light looks like this, so I want to match this light.” But you can enhance a style not only by matching but by complementing—having it stand out, be a pop of energy, a pop of color—something that excites a space.

It’s hard to get people to really care about industrial design because it’s not part of the mass consciousness. In the ’50s, there was huge awareness of movements like Populuxe, and people like Frank Lloyd Wright were treated like pop stars.

I know. We removed those figures—teams have replaced single people. Like, who’s designing the Ford Taurus? Come on, dude. But when it comes to sports, we’re rock stars. We can tell you a thousand athletes. We can tell you exactly when were their rookie years, what they wear, when they won. That kind of enthusiasm has to come back for design—but it has to come back in a new way. And I’m not sure what that way is going to be. You can already see some people who are design influencers. There are a lot of things on Instagram or TikTok about people who are true lovers of design who will open your eyes. You’ve got people searching the web for the coolest stuff—Cool Hunting is one of them. So there are super fans emerging, but the challenge is there. Like, I would love to know who’s designing the motorcycles. We used to.

In Part 2, Noah talks about how he has put his love for industrial design into practice at Leon

Noah Kaplan with his
c. 1958 Philco Predicta TV

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

click on the images to enlarge

classic examples of Dieter Rams’ minimalist industrial design for Braun

above | the TP1 transistor radio & phonograph (1959)

below | the SK4 phonograph/radio console, dubbed “Snow White’s Coffin” (1956)

“Since the ‘80s, we’ve been looking at products manufactured overseas that are usually made from plastic and other chap materials. But materials like that don’t really have a home in the luxury space.”

“I feel our job is to rethink fixtures, and to retrain designers, architects, and integrators on what it means to create them.”

Industrial Design

Noah Kaplan–Bringing Entertainment & Design Together Again

Noah Kaplan–Bringing Entertainment & Design Together Again, Pt. 4

Noah Kaplan–Bringing Entertainment & Design Together Again, Pt. 3

Noah Kaplan–Bringing Entertainment & Design Together Again, Pt. 2

Noah Kaplan–Bringing Entertainment & Design Together Again, Pt. 1

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