The Home Cinema Alliance - Tech Talk Podcast
A consumer-facing podcast hosted by industry veterans, Stuart Burgess from Immersive Cinema Rooms and Simon Gregory from Cinema Rooms.
Each episode, we bring you News, Reviews, and Interviews from inside the industry covering Home Cinema, Home Theatre, and all things tech.
Get involved podcast@homecinemaalliance.co.uk
The Home Cinema Alliance - Tech Talk Podcast
The Journey from Automation to Dedicated Home Theaters
Stuart Lillis takes us behind the curtain of Limitless Automation, sharing how his 25-year journey in home entertainment has shaped his approach to creating extraordinary cinema spaces. From his humble beginnings as a "spotty teenager emptying vans" during the era when plasma TVs were replacing CRTs, to founding his own successful company, Stuart's story reflects the evolution of our entire industry.
"My passion has always been working in people's homes," Stuart reveals, explaining how he loves figuring out what clients do in their spaces and enhancing their lives through technology. This client-centred philosophy becomes evident as he discusses his design process: "Whenever I'm designing a room for clients, I always think of the seating first. It's the most important bit to get right." This refreshing approach prioritises comfort and usability over flashy technology or brand names.
The conversation takes us through the pivotal moment when Stuart received just 24 hours' notice that his previous employer was going under, catalysing his decision to launch Limitless Automation. Rather than seeing this as a setback, Stuart embraced the opportunity, though not without facing the classic entrepreneurial challenges, such as destroying the family car within two weeks when using it as a makeshift van, which was just one amusing example.
Stuart offers valuable insights into the technical aspects of home cinema design, emphasising the importance of room treatment and proper speaker placement. "The bang for buck on room treatment is huge," he notes, highlighting how many clients focus too heavily on expensive electronics while neglecting the fundamentals of acoustics. His passion for creating spaces that truly deliver on their promise comes through clearly when he states, "It's an honour to spend your client's budget" – a philosophy that guides his approach to every project.
Would you be ready to transform your home entertainment experience? Explore how properly designed cinema spaces can bring your favourite films, music, and shows to life in ways you never imagined. Connect with Stuart through the Home Cinema Alliance or visit limitlessautomation.co.uk to discover how your space can come alive.
Coming up on this week's episode of the HCA.
Speaker 2:Tech Talk podcast. Whenever I'm designing a room for clients, I always think of the seating first. It's the most important bit to get right or to the starting point. One of the best phone calls I had was actually from a client who they spent a lot of time out of the country. He called me at half ten to let me know that he held back all these movies. He didn't want to do it until he came back and the first thing he did was he unpacked and watched a movie at like half ten eleven o'clock at night and he had to tell me it was one of those of great thanks for letting me know, but I'm kind of going to bed now.
Speaker 2:And you know, actually the name was because my passion's always been I like working in people's homes.
Speaker 2:I like dealing with families. I like working out what they do and it's so cheesy and cliched, but enhancing their lives and bringing entertainment into that. And then, at the other end of it, where, during lockdown, people are investing in their homes again and, being completely honest, I mean, home cinema was on the decline previous to that, when people started investing in their homes and we were getting the benefit of all these technologies finally galloping and taking off. So little things like having fast broadband connections at home.
Speaker 1:Maybe that's what you should do. Maybe it's a new slogan for your business. Or when you walk in the door of Limitless HQ, it's like it's an honour to spend your money in massive neon.
Speaker 1:Thinking of building your dream home cinema? Don't know where to start. Start with the HCA. At the Home Cinema Alliance, we connect homeowners with the very best in the business. Our members are trusted designers, installers and technology experts who know how to turn any room into a breathtaking cinematic experience. Whether you're building from scratch or converting a spare room, our members are here to help you every step of the way. Visit our website to find your local member at homecinemaalliancecouk. So today I'm with Stuart Lillis from Limitless Automation. That is a bit of a tongue twister.
Speaker 2:Alliteration was not on my mind when I thought about it In hindsight.
Speaker 1:yeah, that's about the third take, probably. So we're up in Edinburgh. We were both at a Cedia Tech of Business Summit yesterday and today we're in a lovely little hi-fi shop in Edinburgh. Don't know Edinburgh, so whereabouts in Edinburgh.
Speaker 2:So we're in Gilmore Place, just down from Brunsfield, so it's a lovely part of Edinburgh, um, and this is our good friend's uh Audiophila, where we've done this little collaboration space, kind of showing a little bit of the best of what we both do and they are.
Speaker 1:The shop is open by appointment only and it's very hi-fi very, very.
Speaker 2:That's where the kind of synergy is great, because they're kind of appointment only and, uh, they will kind of build the system that you want to listen to that day, rather than pick a, pick, a piece up from the shelf and that's what you're listening to so actually before we get on to the meet the member side of it.
Speaker 1:So up here you've got a 5.1 this is.
Speaker 2:This is an old school 5.1 and it's an interesting space. We're up in a mezzanine but it's good because it's you can have a more challenging space acoustically, so it kind of helps, kind of highlight, like whatever, whatever space you have we can create. I've got something I've got to say.
Speaker 1:Actually, I was chatting with one of the other members the other day and I said, after being in this industry for nearly 20 years, I actually sometimes I mean, I'm doing one in knightsbridge at the moment for a client and I look at it and go 5.1. Yeah, and I'm like, but everything in my brain is screaming. I mean, okay, 5.1, or it actually might be 5.2.2, but like everything in my brain is screaming 7.9 point. But it's like the room just doesn't put it up.
Speaker 2:Well, do you know, I'm a huge believer. And there's the two things If your budget doesn't stretch and everybody wants to go to Atmos if you've not got Atmos budget to do it properly, don't do it Kind of invest where you should. And I'm a big believer also in if the speaker's in the wrong place don't put it in, let's find a different configuration.
Speaker 1:We did a job a few years ago with Paul at Artcoustics and it was a snooker room and it was 14 metres long and he was like don't worry about rears. Uh, and I'm like sorry. And he's like, just don't worry about rears, do like the sides, the sides, the front wides, the front, the atmos, don't worry about rears. And for me, um and it was for me, from my point of view it was like I stood in there and listened to the atmos demo disc where I think it's a sycamore leaf or something spinning around. I could hear this massive jump client didn't. Client really wasn't aware of it, um, and it sounded brilliant. And I think sometimes it's actually scaling the back and taking those speakers away. You're quite right, because we're here where it's not supposed to be, but it's still a bloody good system. Absolutely yeah, so right, let's get to the we're talking about.
Speaker 2:That was the quickest tangent ever. That was massively off the side, isn't it?
Speaker 1:we've, as we said earlier, for people who have adhd and ocd. This might go on for a while. So, um so, tell us a little bit about yourself and your, your history, sort of how did you get into the industry? So let's go right the way back to you know, a while ago so I am always been a huge audio guy.
Speaker 2:That's always been my thing, um, obsessed with music since kind of 11, 12 year old I kind of. I got handed a bunch of vinyl when I was 12 years old and it blew my head off, you know. It completely changed my direction um 90s kids, so kind of grunge was exploding, all that kind kind of thing, so just yeah, so huge length of audio. I naturally I studied to work in recording studios, so it was music and audio technology with electronics. So when we kind of look at kind of our T60 times have recently been a big craze and yeah, that's kind of old school what I did back then. But this was always the. This was the Saturday job for beer money. I just fell into doing it. So I'm one of these strange people that has just always done this. It started off as a pocket money kind of thing as a spotty teenager doing it the weekends and fell in love with it. I was very lucky in the fact that there was only two CI companies in Scotland really at the time.
Speaker 1:There isn't now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, still a grown industry up here, but yeah, so it was all high end. So I was exposed to the kind of the real kind of luxury end of the market early on and it's kind of a kind of working class stock from Glasgow. It just blew my head off. I hadn't been exposed to any of this before, you know and kind of A kind of how people live, and it was back then you weren't really doing any of this and this You're. It was back then you weren't really doing any of this and this you're a multi-multi-millionaire, you know. So, so kind of exposed to the high end really early on, which was baptism of fire.
Speaker 1:But looking back, I wouldn't have had it any other way it's a good way to get into history, I mean I I rewind my back to like when I was 16 and on my saturday first saturday job was at dixon's yeah, and I was the gaming expert and you fast forward 34 years, bloody hell, 34 years and I'm still much into gaming now than I was back then.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It still annoys me that I've been away from home for three days and I've not played Assassin's Creed yet.
Speaker 2:See, I can't do it. I cannot own a games console.
Speaker 1:Yeah, really.
Speaker 2:Because I'll get obsessed with it. I will be, you will lose me and the business will shut down and I'll go into a hole and just.
Speaker 1:You better be a Twitch streamer, then you'll just be online.
Speaker 2:Oh, no, legitimately the last games console I owned was a Mega Drive 2.
Speaker 1:Jeez, that's where we are. That is good. Sadly, I think I've pretty much had every games console since the NES.
Speaker 2:I've looked at them, most of them.
Speaker 1:There's a few I didn't have. I didn't have a Sega Mega CD or whatever it was.
Speaker 2:I famously lost a day with a PlayStation 3 with my wife's friend, asked me to pop by and set it up while they went out Boxing Day shopping, and eight hours later it was probably eight hours, maybe four or five hours later they called me to say are you home yet? I was like, still here killing zombies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, zombies like just yeah, I cannot win one of these things. But it's funny actually, because that actually again I'm going to sidetrack. Uh, that actually takes me to like I've got a client and uh, I think it's about three years ago, we put a set, a high, we put a hi-fi system in for him. Um, it was uh reference fives kefs I think, and the hechannel amp. And every time I go there because I'm not immersed in the hi-fi world and I'm more in the cinema AV world that every time I go back there I just find myself listening to stuff on Rune, you know, I've got the iPad, rune's on the iPad he's got a lifetime title subscription and I'm just listening to stuff and I'm going man, this just sounds so good because stuff and I'm like man, this just sounds so good because I'm not exposed to that every day and I'll be like I need to go.
Speaker 2:I've been here three hours. One of the best phone calls I had was actually from a client who they spent a lot of time out of the country. He called me at half ten to let me know that he held back all these movies. He didn't want to do it until he came back and the first thing he did did was they unpacked and watched a movie yeah, like half 10, 11 o'clock at night, and he had to tell me it was like one of those of great thanks for letting me know, but um, yeah I'm kind of going to bed now.
Speaker 2:It is nice, though, when that happens we've got a customer that you know.
Speaker 1:We did a 15 seat cinema for them in 2019, I think it was, and I remember remember like a six-month service call or something like that, and Leslie the owner came down and I don't want to get struck so I won't say the expletive, but she came and said Stuart, your beep cinema is amazing.
Speaker 2:And I'm like thank you.
Speaker 1:And she said oh, we just use it so much. You know, ben uses it for football. You know we use it much. You know, um, ben uses it for football. You know we use it. I mean, the other day we had a party and they're the type of people that had their parties catered, yeah, you know. So they get as drunk as the guests, which is always good. Although we no drink we neither of us drink anymore, yeah, um. And she said yesterday morning we were down there watching sunday brunch. I'm like it's a half a million pound cinema, what's your sunday brunch it for? She went oh, we all had the stinking hangover and it was the darkest room, darkest, coolest room in the house.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 1:She said we were all in there just like relaxing, watching the Sunday brunch because it was chilled out.
Speaker 2:But just that, when you get that phone call and you, it just keeps you buzzing you touched on it there as well, and I love when we create these cinemas and what we do is we create dedicated spaces so that you have the best possible room for the director's artistic intent. But how many times do you come in and your client is working from the cinema? They love the room because it's such an awesome space. It wasn't designed for playing music but it sounds great for music and they'll listen in there and they'll make all their phone calls in there because it sounds great. It's a nice place to be. He's like yeah, but you hadn't created the room for that purpose at all.
Speaker 1:Well, I know our friend Owen Maddox at CinemaWorks. You know when he did his showroom, sorry, when I did his showroom along with Roddy hi Owen, and him, and him he put the bar area at the back.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you speak to him now and he's like it's brilliant because I could just go in there.
Speaker 2:I can own the laptop, but I can shut the door because the cinema is generally quiet and he said I could just work away.
Speaker 1:But I can have something on the TV, and I did it when I had the demo room. You know, I'd have Holmes Under the Hammer on on a four metre wide scope screen whilst I'm doing work on the laptop. But they are just such great spaces.
Speaker 2:It's funny because I actually talked to Owen. We've all gone. Owen's a legend in the game. Yeah, it was exactly the same. I was chatting about building my own dedicated demo space now.
Speaker 1:Stop skipping ahead, we'll get onto that.
Speaker 2:But the best advice he gave me was like I like using an up desk because I don't stand still for two minutes and I don't know where I'm going to place it. It's like you're wasting your time, like you will once you have an awesome space the cinema just if you've got a bench at the back. That's where you will work.
Speaker 1:I promise you you're probably right, and up until recently I was doing my, replacing mine after I moved across the road and I was going to do the same, but that's changed now. But we'll get on to that in another podcast when I've actually done what I want to do. So let's go way back again. So when did you start what is now Limitless?
Speaker 2:So Limitless is actually was. It's just going to be seven in a couple of months, so seven years old, but I've probably it's about 25 years, or maybe a little bit longer if I admit to myself.
Speaker 1:So before Limitless, were you working for other people? Yeah, so I worked, worked for other people.
Speaker 2:So I kind of I worked for that CI company and I was just the junior engineer kind of started off as the weekend guy like literally spotty teenager emptying the van. It was right when CRTs were getting replaced by plasma, so way back in the day when a 40 inch TV was a three person lift and it came in a crate and you couldn't fit anything else in the van.
Speaker 1:That sets the and the lift wasn't working. Yeah, always.
Speaker 2:So that kind of sets how old I am and the era. So I've been doing it a long, long time and if you look at automation and cinema space back then, compared to what it is now, technology wise and just how we live in our homes has completely changed. So back from then I went and I've worked for one of the largest integrators in Scotland. They were actually an international company, so we're chatting earlier on used to be down in London an awful lot doing a lot of projects down there and kind of getting a real kind of eyesight into kind of how the market is different, kind of down south as to up here and kind of even between Edinburgh and Glasgow, which is two of the biggest cities for me. They're different markets, oh, massively yeah just yeah, it's just well.
Speaker 2:Edinburgh's a little bit different. They, they, um, you've. Everybody says you've got a lot of older money here, but I think a lot of it is, um, the finance industry is massive in Edinburgh. So for a lot of people in Edinburgh there are these luxury homes, but they're second homes to people that are in London and things like that. So I get a lot of that, whereas Glasgow you kind of get a lot of more kind of younger professionals and things like that. So the way that they live in their homes and how they treat the systems are completely different. And that's one of the best bits of advice for anybody getting into the industry is just talk to your clients and find out what they do, what they don't do, which I find most people don't, which is really frustrating.
Speaker 1:I think you're completely right, because I think the problem is so many people. Is this Tangent 57, sorry?
Speaker 2:Maybe, yeah, maybe We'll tack them up. We'll put something on the bottom of the screen.
Speaker 1:But yeah, because you're quite right. It's like the first, most important thing is like how many people are going to sit in the space and what are you using the space for?
Speaker 2:It's not what the client needs. That's not what the client wants, so did that. Obviously got a background in the audio recording so went away and did a little bit of pro audio. When I got jaded by the whole home automation side early on, went away and worked for a manufacturer actually a manufacturer distributor realised that the sales life was not for me. Although there's the element of sales to what I do, I don't think I'll ever be the natural kind of out and out sales guy. That's just I tend to kind of drop seeds of what I think will work and the client can kind of figure out what they want and then we keep the system around them. I've never had any sales training, so I think it works for me.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of the time it's just, you know, I've always said just be honest with the client, give the client what they want. And I've always said put, I always put a little bit of me into every install and the only time that ever really I felt that was well, we had a cinema that flooded.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nothing to do with us we had a cinema that flooded and I had to rip the cinema out and put it back again. And I put it back exactly as it was before I left it and it was literally six months old. Um, and, and I wanted to do something different. The client's like, no, it was perfect how it was and and although the client was paying me to do it, our insurance company was paying me for it. Um, actually, I don't think the insurance ever paid them. I think they were paying me to do it. Um, it was just, it was gutting. Yeah, ripping apart something that you would build for your client and your client was loving then to have to, you know, then ripping it apart was just soul destroying. Yeah, and, and putting it back together was great and and it's as good as it was then, um, if obviously not slightly better because it's six months younger, yeah, but it was. It was soul destroying. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:But, uh, do you ever get the one that I always find quite interesting when you have you've created an awesome room and then their friend comes over, is like I don't even want to talk, I want this, I want this room.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you're like well, let's talk. What do you? We designed this room to suit what they watch. Like you say the first thing, do you need a cinemascope? If you're watching mainly sport, you don't need a city wide, you need a 16 by 9. It's simpler, less complication and probably a good bit more budget friendly. So let's do that for you, you know, and it's just. But having to tell a client I'm not saying I won't do you this room, but I think we should talk.
Speaker 1:Or they see your colour that you've done for the previous client, or, in my case, your colour you did for the previous three clients and you look at them and go right, here's the colour swatches from our friend Roddy, a fellow Scot. You give them the colour swatches you can have any other colour apart from blue, and they come back to you and they're like I really like blue. No, any colour apart from blue. So right now we got off on another tangent.
Speaker 2:From that tangent yeah. So I had that sales experience. It was good again early on kind of early 20s realised yeah, sales role is not right for me. Kind of back to the technical side. So I was going to say for the first 20 years of my career I was in the basement technical bod and then being quite big in social not big in social media, but I like to kind of put what we do out there on social media and it works really well for us. But yeah, for the first 20 years nobody wanted, wanted to talk to me. So I'm now quite happy to talk to people when they do it.
Speaker 2:So I went away, did a lot of different things. I actually got poached back to that company because they had this massive project in Aberdeen. That's still I think it's still the largest connected home in Scotland. It was huge. So I got poached back to manage that, fell into that role again. And then that company I got called in Stewart we're going under 24 hours notice, one of those.
Speaker 2:So it was just like alright, okay, you kind of knew it was on the cards a little bit but didn't think it was anywhere near there and I thought there was a chance of it being salvageable. But yeah, so in the back of my mind it was on the cards a little bit, but I didn't think it was anywhere near there and I thought there was a chance of it being salvageable. But yeah, so I kind of in the back of my mind, oh, it's all something I'd love to do for myself, and I thought about it. I think I would have procrastinated a good bit longer and it might have never happened. I'm naturally quite risk adverse, so whether it would have happened, I kind of needed that out there and do it and it was literally that was that. It was just the fire was in the belly, then all piss and vinegar went home. Um, it's one of those they can have.
Speaker 2:Two in the morning I can't remember which way, it was around two in the morning registered the company or registered the domain. Four in the morning did the same and I was back in the office at eight o'clock to kind of start kind of making plans of of what I do, did all the same mistakes that everybody in the same boat do. Kind of ran out using the family car, destroyed the family car within two weeks, realising it's not a van, used the collection of tools that you had. You thought I've been doing this 25 years. I've got every tool I need. And yeah, no, you don't, and actually I was thinking about it the other day. You just look back and you've got this lovely branded van. I've got probably more power tools than I need, because we're all kind of a bit obsessed that way. But to do everything that we can to create these amazing spaces like how, did that happen.
Speaker 2:It's like a blink. And now we're this professional company.
Speaker 1:And I think we should do that. You know not being a mindful spiritual podcast, but you know, I think actually that. I think that you know I'm not a religious person, but I do believe, like that situation was thrusted upon you, then you made that choice, but then also I I'm a big fan and I'm guilty of not doing it, and a lot of people are is that sometimes you just need to take a step back yeah take a step back and look at what you've achieved.
Speaker 1:I mean, I moved across the road a few years ago to a bigger building yeah, I've not built the showroom in there yet, um, but actually I sort of sit there and go. I, you know, I wasn't there and I'm now in there yet, but actually I sort of sit there and go. You know, I was in there and I'm now in there, and I think sometimes you've just got to step back because, as you know, with this industry you'll just go, go, go, go, go. So so, yeah, I, you know it's great, you know, van looks awesome, by the way.
Speaker 1:I saw that part in the parking spot that I was trying to find this morning.
Speaker 2:I've gone big, I like to go big on these things All branded, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So what sort of types of jobs do you do now? Has it changed over a period of time?
Speaker 2:It's definitely changed. I think we're probably in line with a lot of people In general. Actually, the name was because my passion's always been I like working in people's homes.
Speaker 2:I like dealing with families. I like working out what they do it's so cheesy and cliched, but enhancing their lives and bringing entertainment into that. But I was given 24 hours notice. I needed to and I had bills to pay. I had a young family just found out a few weeks later a second child was in the way. So, yeah, I just had to get out and make money and pay bills straight away. So again you had no choice, I had no choice. I'm not a huge fan of the Limitless Automation name, believe it or not? Oh, okay, so I've registered Limitless Cinemas and things. But I knew that I want to work in residential. That's where my passion is. But I'm going to call it automation because I also do a lot of lighting control. Lighting control is kind of a big passion as well, so part of that's the KNX or building management systems and things. It's like do you know if we have to go into that? And I'm kind of glad the residential entertainment side won, but the name worked for both of those.
Speaker 1:But now, seven years later, it's like what does automation?
Speaker 1:even mean yeah, and I think I mean we could have a whole podcast on that. And you know, I know for myself and I know, again talking about Owen, you know he was Connected Works. He's now Cinema Works Absolutely. You know, I was Just Add Popcorn, I'm now Immersive Cinema Rooms and I think both myself and Owen we flipped our business to be cinema companies that also do automation. Yeah, yeah, that sort of works. But I'm doing a job at the moment where the client's sort of like said I'm not sure if I'm going to carry on doing cinema. Yeah, and I know it's not because he's also spent a considerable amount of money on automation. But there is a small seed in my brain which was like if he hadn't spent that whatever it is tens of thousands on automation, would he still be doing cinema? Yeah, yeah. But I think for me it's like, and I know for Owen it's like you get a buzz out of doing the cinema and actually you know I can't stand.
Speaker 1:First fix wiring and home control and I think there's a lot of confusion in the market between what's the difference between a good automated system like a KNX or a Savant or a Control 4, a Crestron I'm trying to think of others so I don't annoy anybody and an Amazon A won't say the word or an Apple S. What's different? What's different between an Apple S and some Philips Hue light bulbs? So I think the automated market or the home automation market, the smart home market, whatever you want to call it, but you've got brand knowledge behind that now. So I think if you do change it, it's potentially you do something like Owen did, really, which you do.
Speaker 2:The limit, yeah absolutely, I think we could have.
Speaker 1:I like that.
Speaker 2:It's quite good actually no, it doesn't.
Speaker 1:It works. Did you say you registered it? I'm going to go get that one.
Speaker 2:I think we all put way more weight into our names than any client ever does, and I'm always a little bit sceptical about when people change their names automatically. Have you just phoenixed a duo go under, and there's always that assumption. So I'm like so let's just stick with it. People don't actually read into the name that much, you know, and it's.
Speaker 1:A limitless loop of media content You're enjoying it for weeks and weeks, and weeks. That's it, yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think we're much like a lot of people. So when I would make sure traditional kind of automation we do full connected homes, still do connected homes. That's all kind of a big part of what we do. Lighting controls, lighting in general is a big passion of mine. It can completely change your space and that obviously dovetails in with cinema massively. Um, but a lockdown happened, yeah, I think, like like so many of us, um, and it was without kind of tooting your own horn a little bit, because I know we're all kind of crap at that, but uh, it kind of separated those that could from those that couldn't. And I actually talked well, roddy, again, that's a um, a really good friends with roddy talk to him every week and it was like one of you know each other.
Speaker 2:Funny enough, it wasn't my company. We were competitors for like 15 years.
Speaker 1:That's hilarious.
Speaker 2:But there was never any. It was one of those where you're kind of you came up against each other, but it was fun. It was never a kind of combative thing. It was like you knew you're losing to a good company. The customer was always going to get something great and there'd be a bit of needle and it'd be all fun. And it was never nasty, it was never combative, it was competitive. So it was all really cool, but I forgot what I was going to. What did he say? Yeah, so many little things, bits of advice he's given me in the past. It was just like one of those where he was like, yeah, you just need to steer into cinema. I mean, it's like and it was for me. I was like I've worked for this massive company.
Speaker 1:That's because you have a company selling cinema stuff. Now, that's absolutely true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it was one of the best things I ever did and you kind of steer into it. It was like and it was just a massive confidence booster. And then at the other end of it were during lockdown, people were investing in their homes and we were getting the benefit of all these technologies, finally kind of galloping and taking off. So little things like having fast broadband connections at home.
Speaker 1:As I said, working from home is now much bigger than it was much, much bigger.
Speaker 2:People want quiet spaces to work and they need they need the escape as well. When you're working at home, they need to go and switch off for a bit, um, but having a gigabit connection so that we can get proper kind of 4k hdr content at the click of a button, which we couldn't do five years ago uh, there's no, it's always gonna. There's no, no excuse for bad coffee. There's no excuse for bad audio. You know, it's a, when you come in and somebody's they're paying for cubos or tidal or whatever your flavor, and it's on like a little smart speaker like this and you're like, oh, why, why, why, why it's. It's never been easier to have to have proper audio in your home. And that goes back to cinema as well, you know, and it's so we kind of we kind of steered into that a little bit um, and got a bit of a reputation as being like the cinema guys in central scotland which was amazing and featured in a few magazines and all this stuff. That's stuff that I never expected. I think we always have this thing. We're just this little company up in Scotland so nobody really notices us and there was always this artificial barrier in Scotland. We would win projects up to a certain size and then, if it was anything above that, we'd get a specialist from London, would come up and they would do it. So people just didn't really realise.
Speaker 2:But I think again, I think up here as well, there's a bit of chronic underselling going on. We don't lose a room to a room that the house deserves or the client deserves, what they actually want. You come in and you have a chat and you'll do a render and all these kind of things and say, look, this is what would really make this place sing. And then they go away and they have a chat, and then they get, they do cost analysis, which you have to do, and then it's you don't lose to a similar room, you lose to a room that's way, way lower. And then you know that they're kind of like, oh, we could go on another two holidays we could do this, and you know, and it's just, and then three years later you get called in to see if you'll do that room again. You're like, yeah, but this is buy nice or buy twice kind of scenario.
Speaker 1:I was about to say it's that you know I want the Porsche but I'm going to buy the. I don't know whatever. You're going to buy the VNG or whatever in a day, and it's like nothing wrong with each car, but you always, if you always, wanted the Porsche, stretch to the Porsche. Yeah, because you won't ever regret not buying the Porsche. You know sort of thing, and I think, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:I mean again, talking about Paul from Acoustic, you know he's told us a few stories where people have just come in and he's told them why they need this. Not really put a value to it. This is what you want. Oh, and, by the way, it's just a matter of money. But they've already bought into it because you know it's our job to turn around and say, yeah, okay, but you could do this screen, but this screen is going to want so much more brightness and maybe a wide-angle lens on it or short-throw lens. So what I would do is invest in this and I think once the client gets it, they will go with it. So, touching on that, so do you? Or, touching on the future, do you see yourself staying as limited automation?
Speaker 2:Or you do oh, yeah, definitely, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. We'll also have the cinema side to it. Well, but not in the name. But I think, do you know? It's because so much of our work is word of mouth and loads from social media. Some of the best projects we've won is through social media and I always find that kind of hilarious. We're kind of going through all these stages of making massive investments into demo rooms and things like that and the amount of clients. They spend dozens of thousands of pounds and you can have a chat to them and say so where did you hear from us? Oh, we're watching social media. So you've not heard a thing. You've got no friends, so this isn't a word of mouth kind of situation and you've got all that trust in there. But I think if you're active in things like instagram stories, people see the level of detail you go into the one, the story you did just recently, which I think you copied us in at the hca.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and we repost it.
Speaker 1:That just got some really good views, yeah, and I think people just like to see it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, and again, you know, going back to owen, you know, I know he had a job recently or he got a client recently to demo him, which was a little bit of a Saturday morning, don't think it's going to go anywhere. The guy turns up and has realised that he'd watched all of his YouTube videos and he'd listened to all the episodes of the podcasts that he recorded. So he knew straight away the difference between a standard screen and a scope screen. He knew the difference between a, you know, a standard screen and a scope screen. He knew the difference straight away between toning your speakers and not toning your speakers. And, as owen said the following day, when we spoke on the sunday morning, he said it was great, he said we could just get onto the fun stuff.
Speaker 1:Oh, I mean, um, and I think that's where you know what we're trying to do with the home cinema alliance, which obviously you're a member of, and and the hga media is, you know, capturing that content to sort of like I mean the whole sort of podcast topic of the month that we started to do because we've recorded the first one, um and uh is sort of talking about our industry. And talking about cinema, because I think when people realize the difference between a really well-crafted little media space or a dedicated cinema room and they see the benefit of it, they'll actually see how much they use it. I mean, when we had the demo room you know this was during covid it was brilliant because we I'm 15 minutes away from my office we microwaved some popcorn, chucked the dogs and chucked the dogs in the car the wife and the daughter and then drove up to the office and we sat there and watched aladdin or the girls watch, you know, britain's Got Talent or something like that in the cinema while I did some work. I'd rather work than watch Britain's Got Talent. But yeah, you know, it was just, it was fun and these rooms could be so much fun, yeah yeah absolutely so.
Speaker 1:is there anything you're looking at going to in the future, Any more services you're looking to offer? Solutions, products?
Speaker 2:Well, I think I think, with what we do, because we've got we've kind of got that kind of name for kind of creating these spaces and things being very personal and kind of continuing with that kind of ethos, I think the creating more spaces where people can see what we do is kind of important for me. I was, I think there's there's that, there's the two schools of thought they can have. People are a very anti demo room or they're just not into it at all, whereas I think I'm a big believer in, I'm quite tactile. You can touch and feel and have a little play.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you're creating the demo room, aren't you? Well, yeah, yeah, well that's it.
Speaker 2:But then it's fine, like where we are today, like strategic partnerships with Carlo or here, putting some of the Cinema Build acoustic treatment behind not these slatsies or not, but in my interior.
Speaker 1:Right, it doesn't sound slatsy as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, that's true, you've got to have contrast.
Speaker 2:Exactly, but it's actually his lighting and things as well. So the acoustic treatment in there, behind showing what we do At very, very close to here, there's going to be an interior designer that we're doing a little space with them and completely different flavor from here. So it's more of a lighting kind of side of things because we're showing off. We've got a bit of Lutron lighting in here and we're going to do a different brand in there. I like to stay brand agnostic wherever I can. So it's the best solution for the client and a different solution for there because it just works for what they do.
Speaker 2:So if it's more of an interior flavor you're after, there will be a bit of audio in there, but it's more of a kind of background music, not kind of Carlos clients are more. They know what they're after. They're kind of it's not normally their first or second purchase, it's the third or fourth and they want something that will kind of really blow their heads off. You know, whereas with a lot of these clients it's more. Sometimes the audio has to play second fiddle to the aesthetics, but still no excuse for bad audio at the end of the day. So we have something more discreet, satellite solutions in there.
Speaker 1:So a similar thing planned for the show Is the show in Livingston. No, that's in Edinburgh again.
Speaker 2:It's very close to here but, like I say, it's a totally different animal from here, and then we will have the limitless demo room. It's forever delayed, so we're waiting for things to slow down. They never seem to slow down, so we need to just book out time and just get it done, but that will be more the full, immersive, bespoke cinema, whereas Can't use that word, no, oh, sorry, you can't use bespoke, immersive or bespoke.
Speaker 1:Sorry, yeah, so A limitless room. I'm wearing some Orbus boots.
Speaker 2:Sorry, yeah, so what was it? So that's something like a limitless room? Yeah, it's just a limitless room.
Speaker 1:I feel like you already got that one, so you're going to have a demo room there.
Speaker 2:Demo room in there, yeah, and we're kind of still at the deciding stage what products go in there and kind of how we make it work. Like I say, I like to not focus on the black boxes and kind of figure out the space and the experience first, but there's a few key brands I know that will be that just seem to be the Meccano.
Speaker 1:We're also having something different because obviously you've got, as you say, you've got the science favour here.
Speaker 1:I mean actually talking about Mellon Giff, a bespokehomecinemascouk. So yeah, I remember talking there when they were doing their showroom and they were opening the second one and I think their showroom is acoustic and their other showroom is meridian and I'm like, why wouldn't you do both? And then I think it was Owen who said to me why would you do both? Because you've already got something that sounds of acoustic in our acoustic. You've already got to say this. And then you want what's the point of doing a second one? Because you want to show a client a different scenario.
Speaker 1:And we have a similar situation where Simon, who works with me, his room, which is currently our showroom, is Paradigm Anthem, but then quite often he'll take the people across the road to Epsom to friends of ours at AWE where they've got Bowers Wilkins, but then, likewise, you could take them down the road to Ron at Kef and show them Kef. And I think actually it's just showing different solutions on like for here, what a decent hi-fi system as well as a cinema system would be like. But yeah, I know what you mean because I've been there moving across the road. It's like do I put acoustic in again? I love Paul to pieces, I love the support and we've done some great cinemas with them. But it's like, this is my chance to do something myself. But then you start going down the rounds of well, maybe I'll put Trinov in and maybe I'll do this and maybe. And then you're like no, because you know, I love is.
Speaker 2:If it was a client, you know exactly, yeah, what to do for them. You'd have a. You'd say quite clearly this is the type of room that you need, but when it's for yourself and you're just like Knowing that, you're going to use it with your family and you know, yeah, you just Again, it's like buying a car.
Speaker 1:I've got, I don't know, 50,000, 30,000, 100,000. Which one do I? So that'll be exciting. So do you have a timeframe? I know we sort of said that I had a timeframe had.
Speaker 2:Well, actually, we talked in the group that I'd looked for so long where we are and one of the biggest cities for us is Edinburgh, but we're based just outside of Edinburgh West Lothian so we can cover most of central Scotland really easily and I don't hide the fact that that's where we are. So I was trying to find someone close to home and I just love the fact of having a workshop where I don't have to travel an hour to go and create. We have to do a lot of customization for a lot of these projects, as you well know, so but having the workshop, the, the demo space and the office for all the boring admin stuff all in the ones on the one spot, whereas previous to that was looking, I could have an office here, I could have a demo space here, and I've got all the management of that and it just and the space came up and it was. It happened in December, which, as you know, for us, everybody wants everyone's Christmas.
Speaker 1:They only asked you mid-November.
Speaker 2:That's exactly speaking to them since January you know when I said that that product takes three weeks to come in. It's now three weeks. We'll see us in January can't change that.
Speaker 2:So I got the keys on the 18th of December and I think it just got lost in there. So it's got an up desk and a broadband connection and all my equipment right now. So I had planned on it being January, being a working office. I always said the cinema was going to be six months away because I wanted to, kind of I didn't want to just throw a room together, I wanted it really to sing and do what I wanted it to do and show the different things, but also have a nice space people could just drop in. And I think I've went back and forth with.
Speaker 2:I talk to a lot of people and they say you want to walk straight into the cinema because that's what they're there for. But for me I'm just like I don't want it to be. I think it's like if you went into a car showroom and went straight into this car, you're like, oh, this is hard sell. I don't want this. I want people to genuinely come in and enjoy the room and if they want to go away and have a listen somewhere else, come back.
Speaker 1:I think we said yesterday at the show there's one thing Roddy said to me and I know he's got it here, he's a melanogif, I've got the sort of shop front was to actually walk into somewhere where you have textiles and fabrics, the things that you could sell them, then walk into the cinema and actually I quite like that. And before I sort of flipped what I wanted to do with the space. Actually I'm still really doing the small room that's going to be a studio to do the podcast from, because it's a controllable space. It's still going to be very much for immersive as well, where you can walk in and you'll be able to touch the fabrics and textures and see the difference between a suede and a not suede. So yeah, I agree, I think that's important and then you have that wow of an open space sort of thing.
Speaker 2:There's that I hadn't really fully appreciated the flow of the room. One of the best things is I chatted to an interior designer that I've worked with and the little things we know how to. We know enough about lighting to know how to make things look cool and kind of the different materials that work well and that kind of thing but the actual flow of the space. One of the things I hadn't appreciated at all was when you come into the office you've got the toilet on the left-hand side. I was like I want it to be open plan. I'm going to rip that down and straight away. She's like you don't want people seeing the toilet. I was like what do you mean? You don't want people seeing the toilet? It's a toilet door. There's like a little bit where you can hang your coats and then there's a toilet. Rule number one you never, ever want to see the toilet, so don't rip down that wall. I was like, oh God, I would never have thought of that. Just all the things that have to flow and just I've.
Speaker 1:That was one reason for me moving, because I had a couple of small units and it was an old converted farm, so you had someone turning up in like a £200,000 Ferrari to see your cinema. Can I use your loo? Yeah, go down there on the left-hand side, use the ladies' ones, it's cleaner. So when I moved across the road it was one of the reasons because I could have my home toilet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's huge. I think we talked in the group and I wanted the barn find. I really liked the idea because we're kind of whether in Scotland, wherever you are, you drive 30 minutes in any direction, you've got gorgeous countryside, and for me, I looked at a couple and when I arrived it was amazing. There was horses running in the fields and it just happened to be a couple of blue sky days it was one of those but everything needed ripped down and started again, even just little things where they were leasing these places as commercial spaces and I would just ask about facilities and it was like so where's the toilets? Oh, so you have to have a toilet. There's one over there and we share it with all these other three companies. I was like I cannot bring people in and show them luxurious rooms and then say, oh yeah, just buy that horse trough, so I would have loved it if I could have made that work.
Speaker 2:But then, like I say, this commercial space came up there's not much like it in the area and I was like I just have to jump on it.
Speaker 1:Cool. So a couple of fun questions to wrap up. So tell me something you love about our industry and tell me something you industry.
Speaker 2:The two things are probably the same Processes and standards. I love the fact that we're all a bunch of passionate people and we all invest in these things and all of our trade bodies and things. They rely on a lot of volunteers and it's amazing. I think as an industry overall, we were quite competitive not long ago and it was all quite cutthroat and that seems to have completely changed. I think a lot of it was with a lot of social media and forums and easy for people to talk.
Speaker 2:But then it also falls into processes and standards not being followed, and I don't want to process and standardise things to death, but things like the RP22 was a massive eye-opener that we needed this for a long time. There's things going on. There's no standardisation in our industry where I can put in a cinema room that will put endless thought into the designing and engineering of it and Joe Bloggs down the road can do the same thing where they've installed a few aerials and they know what a Wi-Fi access point is. I'm not saying that there's no avenues for people to come into the industry, because we desperately need good people to come in from wherever they come from. But, um, but knowing that there's kind of standards that kind of should be adhered to and things like that, and that's where and I think that's it.
Speaker 1:You know, I had a client who was probably the last person to buy something from when we had the showroom, my showroom and they summed it up, which was like it was 70,000 pounder. The cinema was, and he said I wouldn't spend 75,000 pound on a Tesla without test driving it. So what can you show me that you've done If I'm gonna spend 75,000 pound with you? And what was good was we showed them the space. We showed them the pictures of us creating the space. You know the fact that it used to be a milking shed on a farm and now it's like was three millimetre tolerance from corner to corner? And and they're like, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:I get that, but then we, because we had the Top-down drawings, the calculations, we'd run it through our EW and things like that, and they then understood you know, okay, so you've got. You know, you've got the 060 of this yeah, you've got, you've got the. You know you've got the. Is it a sub 10 second car?
Speaker 1:yeah so they completely understood it and I think that actually, yeah, you're right, that's where a lot of our clients if, if they may see the prices and the shiny prices and this one here and this one here, but then if you've got the substance to say that this is going to work, then this is why you should go for this and not go for this. So, yeah, I think the standards like RP22 from Cedia are brilliant, even just little things like you do.
Speaker 2:Like I know Owen and Tom were running kind of the calibration courses and all these kind of things, people investing in that time.
Speaker 1:But I'd for my clients because I'm hoping some of my clients watch this so am I, but I could be halfway back to the south coast by now.
Speaker 2:Well, that's it so rew that stewart kind of uh touched on there, so like that's like room eq wizard and kind of just knowing that whoever you're, whoever you're bringing in, they're not just bringing mic.
Speaker 2:Well, a lot of our products come with fantastic mics, but some of them come with cheap, nasty mics and the first thing that we've all done for years is take them and put them in the bin. And that's when everybody starts the SDS drill next door and people decide to put a wash on and all that kind of thing. So test your room treatments. But but yeah, people that go the extra length and kind of they invest in the equipment to do a proper EQ. Some of the room correction is becoming incredible now and the standards from putting that mic in and doing it. It's a brilliant template to start from, but it's often not good enough, you know, and there, but knowing that your integrator is taken to the level above and not just it's like tuning an engine, you know, not just kind of trusting what came out of the factory.
Speaker 1:you know, and I know, like Owen and Tom have gone down the rabbit hole of this.
Speaker 2:I love it. We need Owens and Toms in this game.
Speaker 1:Owen was at Toms the other day, where he is south from you, very far north from me.
Speaker 2:You're all south from me?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and everything's far north from me. Yous are all south from you. Yeah, and everything's all north from me. And then he was just like, because he's taken the time to think about what he's putting in there, and thinking about the fabric of the room, not the fabric, but the makeup of the room, he said, for what it's achieving, for the price that he spent on it.
Speaker 2:No words out of my mouth. I always say it's an honour to spend your client's budget and it should be kind of treated the same way. You should be trying to take whatever X amount is and getting the most out of it, whether that's because it's an aesthetic thing or if it's a performance thing, channelling that and doing the right thing. And I've not seen Tom's place or heard of it, but apparently for for the budget of the room, it's just incredible and it just shows you what a bit of engineering, placing things in the right place, can do. And acoustic treatment the one for me, just the. You know people are willing to spend ridiculous amounts of speakers and then just put them in the wrong places and not treat them properly and you're just like hard stories but some of the best investment you can make in the room.
Speaker 2:the the bang for buck on room treatment is huge, you know, compared to there's diminishing returns once you get past a certain point in electronics and they throw a little bit of that budget at least into treating the room properly. Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 1:Maybe that's what you should do. Maybe it's a new slogan for your business. Or when you walk in the door of, you know, limitless HQ, it's like it's an honour to spend your money in massive neon. I always sit there listening to people talk or listening to things on TV and go. That'll make a great T-shirt.
Speaker 2:I don't think it's mine.
Speaker 1:I probably stole it from someone, so right last question to wrap it up, and this is probably a hard question Size no object. Money no object brand, no object Money no object Brand, no object. If you were to build yourself, let's keep it cinema, because we are the Home Cinema Alliance. If you had any money today, with what you know, what would you do in building cinema? What products Would you go? Projector or TV Would you go? What sort of projector brand may you go?
Speaker 1:with Obviously we're always going to go with Roddy from Cinema Peel Systems 3, otherwise he'll come and find us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, unless he's dropped out of course I wouldn't want to take him in a fight either Nah.
Speaker 1:If you could get hold of him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sorry, rods, I think that, which I don't blame them for, so yeah, so what sort of brands do you really like?
Speaker 1:I love to stay kind of brand agnostic, just in general it's your money, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So there's one, but I think for me it's the same as kind of and it's all coming off cheesy as anything. But it's true, I like to kind of just start with experience first. So for me I've got young children. Some of my favourite viewing is watching with the kids.
Speaker 1:Bluie.
Speaker 2:Well, there's Bluie, but even just things like we went to commercial cinema the other day and there was all, and I moaned about it and I feel bad about it, but there was everything. Obviously, we've been able to outperform most commercial cinemas for a long time, but there's all the little things that you can't control. You know, and it was just I I like to do, I treat it as as a research and development sometimes, but kind of seeing the things that we can improve here and kind of I still like there's some bits of I like buying the overpriced chew popcorn and all that kind of thing. It's, it's a bit of the element, because when you come back to what we do, you realize just how good it is, you know, but uh, but so, but watching, we watched Minecraft and the kids were I was about to say talking about Popcorn.
Speaker 1:Oh my God.
Speaker 2:What's it? They were, performance-wise, I expected more actually, but I think it was a really bad room, but anyway, but the kids were having the best time ever.
Speaker 2:Oh, they were loving it and it was like so it's important to me to have that space. So whenever I'm designing a room for clients, I always think of the seating first. It's the most important bit. To get right or to the starting point. So for me, just with the family, as is that's who I want to enjoy the space with.
Speaker 2:So it wouldn't be dedicated single seats but for the kids as well, even kind of recliners and things like that just wouldn't work for them. So something that's automated, so that will fully recline into beds and things like that for them. They're going to be off axis, they're not going to be getting the best quality audio, but for a five-year-old that's what they want. I want a space they're comfortable to kind of jump around and then would have like a sofa and for for you with your partner or your kind of um, for me with my wife or your friends if they're coming along. So a space that's interchangeable. That way it's huge, um, and do you know what it would be? Cinema? It absolutely would be, because I just know the performance I can get out of doing that. And I was going to say Cinema Build System, our good friend Roddy's company. I was going to say it's like it's the Lego or the Meccano of cinema.
Speaker 1:The thing is, because he is, was an installer, he knows what we wanted.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's the way he created it, absolutely what we wanted. Yeah, yeah, so that's the way you created it. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So would you go? So obviously projector, it would have to be projector for what I want. I would probably go 69.
Speaker 2:With kind of a lot of the kids content as a movie. I'm not a huge. I'm not a huge sports guy I never have been so or kind of some of the stuff that I've always done martial arts. So I like kind of like watching that kind of. But that's all. 16, nine and it's just. For me, kind of, keeping it simple is hugely important. I don't want any, I want to remove complications.
Speaker 1:So if I'm You're trying to remove those phone calls, even though it's your-.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, the masking's not working, or Well that's the things that like kind of I want to show clients what for their needs. But this is my space, so it would be a 69 screen, it would have to be, it would have to be projector and it would have to be laser. But I'm probably going to cheat an awful lot as well, because I want to do you ever. There's a podcast where it's oh who are they? Ed Gamble? But they basically they talk about their James Acaster, but they talk about their dream meal and they take logic out of it. Neither of us drink anymore, but if you're an alcoholic you could drink, but you wouldn't be addicted and things like that. Or if you're a vegan, you could eat. So there's stuff that I know just wouldn't really work. So, like I say, I'm not a huge snacker when I can watch things, but I love coffee.
Speaker 1:Okay, so a nice espresso machine.
Speaker 2:Well, I want an espresso machine that's silent, yeah, and I want to be able to refill it with good quality coffee and it would just appear there. So, like every hour or so, I would just have a nice fresh espresso without having to interrupt the coffee, without having to interrupt the coffee, without having to interrupt the movie and annoy people. There's certain things like that.
Speaker 1:I mean that doesn't really improve the noise floor if there's a coffee machine.
Speaker 2:How many times do you get asked for the popcorn machine in the room and stuff and you want a buzzing fridge in the corner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, brilliant, Okay yeah.
Speaker 2:Can we not just have it in the foyer? Why does it have to be in the room? But you don't want to crush people's dreams, but yeah so obviously full Dolby Atmos.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it would have to be immersive and I'm a big fan of like kind of spatial audio as well, for it being.
Speaker 2:My passion was always audio first, and then fell in love with movies when I got exposed to kind of cinema and then kind of.
Speaker 2:So yeah, for me it would have to be, uh, the the equipment have to complement um, being a dual purpose space um, and also kind of I would like to have, a'd like to have some guitars in the room. Clients always kind of talk about not doing it because there's a certain reflections that come off guitars and acoustically they resonate and it seems like a great idea in theory, and then there's a certain honk in the room that you can't get rid of and it's because of this acoustic guitar that's going to constantly resonate an F and it's just going to really yeah. So I, yeah, so I'd like to have a guitar that's not going to constantly resonate at an F and it's just going to really yeah. So I'd like to have a guitar that's not going to affect the acoustics in the room and will not resonate when there's a movie on. So I know that's not technically possible, but we're going to do that as well, because it's my dream room.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and speaker brand, do we?
Speaker 2:Again.
Speaker 1:yeah, I'm not, this is your opportunity to get a good discount for your showroom.
Speaker 2:Well, it's cheeky to say another brand when you've got Soane's Faber behind you. Soane's Faber are incredible but, yeah, do you know what there's from so many brands out there? And it would be things that people at PMC are doing. Some Monat Roddy have got some incredible new ranges. They're really fighting back against, but I think it's important.
Speaker 1:I mean I know I know touching. Speak to Paul about Paul again, I know when he moved house recently and obviously he used his speakers in his old house, of these speakers in his use house and even he said he fell into the trap of just putting the new ones in yeah and they were too big for the room, yep.
Speaker 1:so yeah, I mean, actually I think, rather than just saying I'm gonna have I know meridian, don't know Meridian, or I'm going to have a Kef because I can phone up and speak to Ron, actually enjoy the fact of right, what I'm going to do is I'm going to have a few days of travelling around the UK, going to these places and seeing who, what we've got and what we can listen to, because obviously it changes Awesome. So how can people get in touch?
Speaker 2:with you. Also, don't give your phone number out, so website address. So it's limitlessautomationcouk. But I probably get more messages on Instagram than I do directly from our website. But all our contact info is on our website. Website's good because there's a little contact us page and you can upload all your information, all your information. I would say as much information as you can give us from the offset really, really helps. So knowing your kind of likes and dislikes. But we always kind of schedule a free, a free phone conversation and almost certainly will pop out for free anyway, and kind of chat about you and then kind of design a room and do a render for you so you can see the space. Um, but um and obviously you're.
Speaker 1:you're massively visible on the HEAs, exactly because if you look at the whole map, there's this dot up here and all these dots down here.
Speaker 2:So I hope nobody ups their game and comes on there.
Speaker 1:Maybe not for you If you're in Scotland and you want to become a. Hea member please reach out because Stuart's going to go, don't.
Speaker 2:You can either throw us loads of information that always helps us because we can kind of pre-empt and kind of get information ready for you or if you just want to put your trust in us and use our experience, do that too awesome buddy, thanks for your time, awesome, thank you cheers mate. Next time cheers. Thank you you.