Berkeley, CA (February 8, 2023)—IsoAcoustics’ speaker isolation technology has long been used in studios around the globe, but with the recent release of the company’s V120 Mounts for spatial audio setups, applying that technology to ceiling- and wall-mounted speakers, the company is entering a whole new mixing realm. Mastering and mix engineer Michael Romanowski, who was just awarded his fifth Grammy on Monday in the category Best Engineered Album, Classical, recently adopted IsoAcoustics V120 Mounts for his immersive setup at Coast Mastering.
Working from his Coast Mastering Studio in Berkeley, Calif., Romanowski has specialized in mastering immersive audio productions. “We master music to be as translatable as possible across all the different platforms, physical media, streaming, LPs,” Romanowski explains. “There are so many different ways people are listening to immersive sound, from sound bars to headphones, that mastering is absolutely essential—because there are so many places for things to go wrong.”
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Since coloration caused by the playback system must be avoided when mastering, Romanowski opted for the mounts on his height speakers, noting, “To me, the height speakers are really used more for cues about spatiality. Those little details that give us those cues live in the small bits, in the fine resolution and the detail.”
Romanowski’s hybrid 9.1.6 system consists of Focal Stella and Focal Diablo Evo speakers driven by Bricasti amps for the ear level, a Meyer Sound Amie subwoofer and six Neumann 310s on the ceiling, mounted to tracks so they can be moved to adjust for different immersive audio formats. They are all isolated with IsoAcoustics technology: “The V120s isolate the speakers from the track on the ceiling, just like the IsoAcoustics GAIAs do for the speakers on the floor. The speaker is vibrating by itself and doing what it’s supposed to be doing, rather than transmitting that energy to another source.”
