Sidebar 1: What Is LSA?
Living Sounds Audio started out in the early 2000s. Founded by Larry Staples, a former Thiel Audio director of sales, the company designed speakers that were built in China. In 2005, the company bought out Daniel Khesin's DK Designs, which designed and sold amplifiers made in China and "upgraded" in Everett, Washington (footnote 1). Walter Liederman's Underwood HiFi was an LSA dealer.
According to Liederman, LSA ran into financial trouble following the 2008 economic turbulence. Underwood eventually became the company's sole dealer and bought out its inventory and brand in 2018.
At the same time, Underwood was "one of the biggest PS Audio dealers in the country," according to Liederman. When PS Audio decided in 2019 to sell direct and abandon its dealer network, "it took 45% of my business away," Liederman says.
At that point, Liederman decided "to turn LSA into a real company with a full range of products." His plans were delayed by pandemic and supply-chain issues, but a flurry of new LSA products began appearing last year, with many more on tap.
Viet Nguyen, the designer of the LSA Warp 1, says he has already designed four speaker models for the company, the Signature 50 and Signature 80, which are already shipping, and two new models due out soon. Nguyen has designed a hybrid preamp/headphone amp (now for sale) and phono preamp (due out soon) for LSA.
Liederman and Nguyen credit Mark Schifter for making the products happen. "He's the glue that holds it all together," Liederman told me. Schifter has decades of experience with Chinese parts suppliers and contract manufacturers, knowing how to set up supply chains and find reliable circuit board, metal work, and power supply companies, then setting them in motion working together.
LSA products are shipped from China to Underwood's warehouse in Georgia, then sold direct to customers. The same business model is used for Liederman's other companies, Emerald Physics (builders of open-baffle speakers and a recently introduced, Nguyen-designed hybrid tube/class-D power amplifier) and Core Power Technologies (power conditioners, cables). Liederman runs the company's retail business and acts as "the bank" by fronting the money for inventory, out of his Hawaii office.
Regarding pricing, Liederman says "we have a low overhead, and we're not pigs." He said the LSA Warp 1 amp "would probably be $2500, at least, through a dealer" because of markup by the dealer and, usually, a distributor. "We're about high value and high quality."—Tom Fine
Footnote 1: See Robert J. Reina's review of the DK Designs VS.1 Reference Mk.III integrated amplifier.
Footnote 1: See Robert J. Reina's review of the DK Designs VS.1 Reference Mk.III integrated amplifier.
