Spoke Sound’s artful audio speakers

Spoke Sound | Durango | Product: Home & Lifestyle

Less than a year removed from representing the University of New Hampshire (UNH) at the 2021 NCAA Skiing Championships (which were canceled mid-event when COVID-19 reared its ugly head), Will Bodewes launched a unique audio speaker manufacturer in Durango. 

Bodewes, who grew up in Wisconsin, followed his family to Durango after graduating from UNH. He’d been cooking up the idea for Spoke Sound since 2018 but didn’t release the first product until early 2021. 

The speakers — which double as pictures to mount on the wall — are based on licensed distributed mode loudspeaker (DML) technology that produce sound from a flat surface, instead of the traditional cone used in most speakers. Spoke Sound’s “speaker pictures” project sound out to cover 180 degrees, while legacy speakers project sound waves at angles of 45 to 105 degrees. 

Notes Bodewes: “The bigger the picture, the bigger the speaker, so if you have a really big print, it can kind of sound like a surround-sound system just coming out of one speaker.” 

Bodewes describes his “aha moment” when he discovered DML and saw game-changing design possibilities. “Our technology turns the whole surface of a photo into a speaker,” he says, describing a simple, app-controlled product with an on/off switch and a reset button. “It’s pretty seamless.” 

After negotiating rights to the patent, Bodewes located suppliers to print the artwork on canvas and manufacture the circuit boards inside. He now brings all of the components to Durango to make the final products. 

Customers can choose art and photos from Spoke Sound’s catalog to adorn the canvas, or else upload an image of their choosing for a personalized speaker. Depending on its size and features, speakers run from $195 to $375.

This article is part of the 2021 Made in Colorado feature. To learn more about the Colorado companies changing manufacturing in the state, click here.