Today we’d like to introduce you to Matthew Beardsworth.
Hi Matthew, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I got into music from my parents, who always had music playing around the house from a very young age. My father had a collection of blues and rock albums on tape he would play on weekends in the garage and my mom would often play CDs on small speakers in our kitchen. I would help my father with car projects or be home with my mom and sort of absorbed is all through osmosis.
I started playing guitar at a young age but in 6th grade, I began to take it more seriously. At the same time, I rediscovered a lot of these blues tapes my father had. That when my playing and passion for music really took off. I was extremely interested in the variety of sounds and guitar tones on early blues records like Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, John Lee Hooker and Robert Johnson. Also at this time, my school friends and I started a band. We all started at more or less the same skill level and grow together as musicians through our time in middle and high school. Band practices became a minimum once-a-week occurrence, and even more so when we had licenses and could drive ourselves. At band practice, we would cover and write our own songs and share new music as we discovered it.
It was in middle school when I built my first tube amplifier. It was a copy of a small Fender Tweed amp from the 1950s. I couldn’t afford a guitar a fender tube amp with my own money, but I could afford an amp kit! I also was interested in what makes electric guitar work and how much variation was possible with the instrument.
My love and passion for music and the electronics related to making music landed me in engineering college where I received my Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from Boston University in 2014. It was actually during college when I began designing Hi-Fi home audio tube amplifiers in my dorm room, drawing on my passion for music and the circuit design knowledge I was gaining in the classroom.
At the time, I wanted a quality Hi-Fi tube amp but wasn’t seeing anything on the market I was comfortable purchasing. I was also surprised to see how many of the longest-running and revered US brands of home audio amplifiers were now built to low-quality standards on the inside, cheap electrical components with no thought on servicing of longevity. They were built like every other piece of modern era throw-away electronics, yet extremely expensive. They were destined to become paperweights after only a few years of service. Coming from the world of guitar amps that get beat up and knocked around, loaded in and out of the back of a van every night, or have a beer spilled all over them regularly; I was expecting to see the same level of quality and serviceability that makes a 1950’s era Fender amplifier still work on stage night after night. So, like the guitar amplifier kits, It was time to build my own quality home audio tube amplifier that would last 50 years or more.
I was also encouraged by an EE faculty member who studied applications related to music technology. He taught an intro to engineering course on electro acoustics to get incoming freshman excited about the applications of engineering. I also built my first pair of speakers in his class as my final project.
Little did I know, the amplifier I was working in my dorm would become the launch pad for Bandwidth Audio. I finished the amplifiers the summer leading into my senior year. That school year, I had them set up in our apartment with a pair of Klipsch speakers. We would host parties and play lots of music on the amps. Everyone would be drawn over to them and ask about them. By the end of my senior year, I sold a few pairs of mono amps (an early version of our 288’s) by word of mouth and Bandwidth Audio was in business!
Today Bandwidth Audio has expanded, offering both vacuum tube preamp and power amplifier products. We handle the analog signal chain, designing and manufacturing all the electronics needed between your turntable and speakers. While our manufacturing remains small, batch manufacturing our products in Austin ourselves, the fundamentals have not changed: provide the best sounding and performing home audio equipment we can, while delivering a product that will last. Our products are not cheap, but compared to many, the value per dollar is high which remains our primary focus. We are happy to call the live music capitol of the world our home.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Audio equipment using vacuum tubes is considered in obsolete technology. When starting the business I was often scoffed at by other fellow electrical engineers. It was considered by many to be a poor choice to try and run a business designing and selling vacuum tube products. I was told by many that it won’t work, it’s a bad idea,
With the explosion of vinyl record sales in recent years, more people are becoming aware of Hi-Fi tube amplifiers. We have seen a lot of growth and resurgence in analog audio. It’s amazing how young kids are oblivious to how good the music can sound when played on proper stereo equipment with good speakers, Most haven’t even heard of a proper stereo music system! I always get encouraged when some younger folks hear or see our equipment and get hooked. I don’t run Bandwidth Audio to make me rich, I do it because I love it and would build tube amplifiers anyway. This passion is what has made the business successful.
Obtaining vacuum tubes has been a real struggle in recent months as most tubes produced new today are manufactured in Russia, The conflict with Ukraine has caused real upheaval in vacuum tube supplies, driving costs much much higher in a supply chain that was already strained. Things have seemed to settle a bit. but there is real uncertainty for manufacturers that still use vacuum tubes, including most musical instrument companies.
It seems the large comeback of vacuum tubes, or even sustaining existing tube equipment, was never considered in the US. Most of the manufacturing equipment was sold for scrap as the transistor took hold.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Bandwidth Audio?
At Bandwidth Audio we design, manufacture, and test high-quality Hi-Fi vacuum tube amplifiers and preamplifiers in-house. This is rare in the world of electronics where products may be designed by one company but manufactured by another. In some instances, the products are also designed by a company completely different from the brand label placed on the product.
This makes Bandwidth Audio unique and allows us to deliver some of the best sounding and performing audio amplifiers with very high build quality with less cost passed onto our customers. We have the expertise in-house to execute both the design and manufacturing of our products.
While we boast our equipment, the goal is for the amplifiers and speakers to disappear into the shadows of your room when enjoying your music collection. That’s how we know we did our job right. Great-sounding audio places the performers in your room exactly as they would be arranged on a stage, with the correct nuance, authority, and balance of sound. No distortion or coloration. Our primary goal is for the music to be represented as the artiest intended.
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
I played tuba in high school orchestra.
Pricing:
- 288 Mono Amplifiers (pair) $6899.99
- 22A3 Mono Amplifiers (pair) $7699.99
- Aurora One Line Preamp $4995.99
- Kaskode One Phono Preamp $5195.99
Contact Info:
- Website: www.bandwidthaudio.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/bandwidth_audio
- Facebook: facebook.com/bandwidthaudio1
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL4aCvTJ17bPpkesWlYJRyg
