TRAVELING THROUGH SOUND
The story of Arvus is not just one of invention, but of continuous adaptation, anticipation, and strategic reconfiguration through major revolutions in the audio and media landscape.
Across four decades, Arvus has acted as both observer and architect, sensing early signals of change, responding; not with cosmetic pivots, but with foundational engineering and business model shifts.
The core of the Arvus ethos is to work with an ever-evolving-team of engineers across multiple disciplines, while being guided by those in the market. This helps us to gain the insights needed to keep on the leading edge of the audio industry.
We are self-funded, debt free with a lean business model, working with established and trusted engineering partners; this liberates us to rapidly adapt to market opportunities.
The world of audio and media is about to irrevocably change.
Nobody is completely prepared for what is coming next...and yet, as the team in Arvus dives into the this new world of AI, our lineage of self-reinvention becomes our greatest asset.
We Choose To Embrace The Challenge Of Change.
Across four decades, Arvus has acted as both observer and architect, sensing early signals of change, responding; not with cosmetic pivots, but with foundational engineering and business model shifts.
The core of the Arvus ethos is to work with an ever-evolving-team of engineers across multiple disciplines, while being guided by those in the market. This helps us to gain the insights needed to keep on the leading edge of the audio industry.
We are self-funded, debt free with a lean business model, working with established and trusted engineering partners; this liberates us to rapidly adapt to market opportunities.
The world of audio and media is about to irrevocably change.
Nobody is completely prepared for what is coming next...and yet, as the team in Arvus dives into the this new world of AI, our lineage of self-reinvention becomes our greatest asset.
We Choose To Embrace The Challenge Of Change.
1983 – 1997
The Age Of Analog, Leveraging Technical Failure
The Age Of Analog, Leveraging Technical Failure
1983: Founder Matthew Simmons began servicing loudspeakers at age 12 in Christchurch, New Zealand. This gave him early exposure to loudspeaker failure modes, tuning techniques, and manufacturing weaknesses across hundreds of speaker models and brands.
1991: He attempted to commercialize a unique PVC pipe loudspeaker design. Though commercially unsuccessful, the exercise provided invaluable lessons in cost-performance trade-offs and go-to-market strategies and how the audio market made decisions on audio equipment at this time.
Mid‑1990s: Encore Audio (the predecessor to Arvus) scaled rapidly, with systems-thinking embedded in every loudspeaker repair. Hundreds of loudspeakers were rebuilt, measured, and upgraded. This early technical R&D pipeline was commercially disguised as a Loudspeaker Repair Business.
1991: He attempted to commercialize a unique PVC pipe loudspeaker design. Though commercially unsuccessful, the exercise provided invaluable lessons in cost-performance trade-offs and go-to-market strategies and how the audio market made decisions on audio equipment at this time.
Mid‑1990s: Encore Audio (the predecessor to Arvus) scaled rapidly, with systems-thinking embedded in every loudspeaker repair. Hundreds of loudspeakers were rebuilt, measured, and upgraded. This early technical R&D pipeline was commercially disguised as a Loudspeaker Repair Business.
Encore Audio 1991 pipe prototype
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Encore Audio logo -
Designed by Brett Larson
Dunedin 1991
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Encore Audio 1991 pipe demo design
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Market Context:
Arvus Response:
- Consumer and Professional audio was dominated by analog systems, passive speakers, and manual calibration.
- High-fidelity was a niche art-form, often disconnected from scalable manufacturing or integrated design thinking.
Arvus Response:
- Begin where failure is measurable and impacts the clients experience of the product.
- Build an understanding how and why other products fail and by solving these core problems focus on designing superior products and system-level solutions.
1997 – 2003
Digital Distribution & the Rise of Global Consumer Audio
1997: The Arvus brand was formed with a clear mission to build high-precision, export-ready speaker systems.
1998–2002: The QS-5 and QS-12, Profile, Duo and dozens of other loudspeaker models were developed and released over this active 5 year period with internally developed magnet systems, cone, coil and innovative cross-over technologies. Thousands of speakers were sold across 20 countries via lean, website supported distribution.
1998–2002: The QS-5 and QS-12, Profile, Duo and dozens of other loudspeaker models were developed and released over this active 5 year period with internally developed magnet systems, cone, coil and innovative cross-over technologies. Thousands of speakers were sold across 20 countries via lean, website supported distribution.
1997 - Arvus QS-5
Two-way with 6.5" passive radiator - (160mm wide x 900mm tall)
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Arvus Logo inspired by the Audi Avus
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1997 Arvus "Sphear" - Three-way
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Market Context:
Arvus Response:
- The boom and rise of digital media challenged traditional Hi-Fi companies to serve new listening formats.
- The rapid adoption of DVD and 5.1 & 7.1 meant the "two large speaker boxes in the lounge" was being challenged by "big sound with small speakers"
- Companies like Bose, B&O and Harman began vertically integrating new designs, signal processing, and enclosure engineering to meet this new aesthetic requirement of the home audio system.
Arvus Response:
- Launched the a range of very unique home theatre speaker systems. 100% internally developed, with the aim of high performance, small footprint, and sold globally via Direct To Consumer systems.
- Arvus then decides to pivot from boutique consumer loudspeaker sales to pro-audio & cinema systems engineering, anticipating the shift toward loudspeakers + digital signal processing + acoustics as an integrated design solution.
2004 – 2008
Cinema Goes Digital, Arvus Does Cinema
2003: Arvus first cinema deployment for Regent Ashburton marked the pivot into large-format cinema environments.
2006: Valhalla Cinema (Marton, New Zealand) the world’s first commercial Hypacoustic™ cinema with ceiling-arrayed speakers for early 3D sound. Arvus promotes it's Hypacoustic brand at global cinema conferences.
2007: Arvus developed and sold their own Glide series amplifiers and Hypascreen™ projection screens.
2006: Valhalla Cinema (Marton, New Zealand) the world’s first commercial Hypacoustic™ cinema with ceiling-arrayed speakers for early 3D sound. Arvus promotes it's Hypacoustic brand at global cinema conferences.
2007: Arvus developed and sold their own Glide series amplifiers and Hypascreen™ projection screens.
2006 - First Spatial Audio Hypacoustic Cinema - Marton, NZ
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2008 - Hypacoustic Saraton Cinema - Grafton, Australia
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Market Context:
Arvus Response:
- Cinema's transition from 35mm film to Digital Cinema projection with fully digital audio chains accelerates.
- Dolby Labs begins early development of object-based audio, later to become Atmos®.
- No vendor yet offers truly integrated, future-ready spatial speaker + amplifier + routing systems.
Arvus Response:
- Designed and installed early multi-axis speaker arrays, ultimately producing hundreds of Hypacoustic Cinema systems over a ten year period across New Zealand, Australia, UK, US, Asia and Europe .
- Arvus deploys early ceiling-mounted immersive cinema speaker systems before Dolby Atmos® was launched.
2008 – 2020
Supporting the Digital Audio Revolution in Film, Gaming and Music
2009: Dolby invited Arvus to support their Atmos development by supplying custom testing speakers, validating the company's speaker design pedigree and unique solutions for DCI cinema.
2010: Developed and deployed their first Digital Audio processor, the AES-2H across dozens of Digital cinemas in Asia, UK, Europe and the US.
2011: Released the HDMI–2A converters to support Sony and Microsoft gaming production, meeting a gap in broadcast and post-production that no legacy vendor had solved natively.
2010: Developed and deployed their first Digital Audio processor, the AES-2H across dozens of Digital cinemas in Asia, UK, Europe and the US.
2011: Released the HDMI–2A converters to support Sony and Microsoft gaming production, meeting a gap in broadcast and post-production that no legacy vendor had solved natively.
The original Hypacoustic AES/EBU to HDMI converter
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Arvus HDMI-2A
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Market Context:
Arvus Response:
- Audio starts to migrate from physical media to IP-based routing, AoIP protocols like Dante/AES67 emerged.
- Spatial Audio matures: Dolby Atmos, DTS-X, Auro-3D, Ambisonics gained traction across film, broadcast, and gaming.
- System integrators struggled to elegantly bridge legacy analog & digital equipment with networked digital workflows.
Arvus Response:
- Produced the 8-channel HDMI and AES digital audio converters supporting broadcast studios, music and media productions facilities in format and system integration. For over a decade these two products become the backbone of Arvus sales and 1000's of units are installed globally across music, film, gaming and media post-production studios.
- Became a trusted OEM-level R&D partner for select studios and manufacturers who needed precision engineering in bespoke-small-production-run high-performance applications.
- Invested in expanding their engineering network and partnerships laying groundwork for modular product development and accelerated product releases.
2021 – 2024
Leading Spatial Audio Production Workflow
2021: Arvus is rebranded and relaunched with a new focus on spatial audio solutions
2021: Launched with the H2‑4D™, a 16-channel Atmos/DTS:X audio processor positioning Arvus as a go-to-platform for scalable spatial deployment. Very quickly the H2-4D became globally adopted in hundreds of leading post-production film, media and music facilities.
2024: Released H1‑D™, a compact, on-site upgradeable spatial audio bridge supporting five spatial platforms, AES67, Dante, and custom DSP layers.
2021: Launched with the H2‑4D™, a 16-channel Atmos/DTS:X audio processor positioning Arvus as a go-to-platform for scalable spatial deployment. Very quickly the H2-4D became globally adopted in hundreds of leading post-production film, media and music facilities.
2024: Released H1‑D™, a compact, on-site upgradeable spatial audio bridge supporting five spatial platforms, AES67, Dante, and custom DSP layers.
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2025 – And Beyond
Investing In The AI Opportunity and New Directions
2025: Announces the AES-16H™, a 16 Channel AES/EBU to HDMI/Dante device to support DCI / Atmos & DTS-X cinemas.
2025: The Arvus core team rapidly expands and the company undergoes its most dramatic internal shift by committing to significant investment into developing advanced AI audio solutions building upon Arvus' now 42 years of IP and experience in audio.
2025: The Arvus core team rapidly expands and the company undergoes its most dramatic internal shift by committing to significant investment into developing advanced AI audio solutions building upon Arvus' now 42 years of IP and experience in audio.
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