Music is Our Sanctuary |
The Heaven 11 Story
A Quest for Musical Truth | Old School meets New School
Our journey began with a simple mission: unite the warm, articulate character of vintage analog sound with the precision and power of modern engineering. We sought to achieve this through the careful pairing of a first-rate tube preamp with an audiophile-grade Class D amplifier—a combination that proved far more challenging than we ever anticipated.
After countless iterations, failures, and breakthroughs, the Billie Amp was born. This singular ‘Old School meets New School’ approach creates a wide, dynamic soundstage, silky-smooth highs, and fast, punchy bass response that brings recordings to life with breathtaking immediacy.
The Spark of Inspiration
Heaven 11 was founded by Itai Azerad, an award-winning industrial designer. It all started with a conversation in 2015:
“I was proudly demonstrating a recently acquired amplifier to my brother. After listening to a few songs, he simply quipped: ‘Yeah, sounds good, but I would never put THAT in my living room.’
It was my a-ha moment. Clearly, sound quality alone wasn’t enough to lure people to better audio systems. This complicated, ugly gear was a far cry from the elegant equipment of the ‘HiFi Golden Age’ of my younger days.
I began asking myself some uncomfortable questions:
- How did we go from the 70s and 80s, when our parents proudly displayed their sound systems, to now hiding clunky metal boxes behind console doors? And how has that shift from ‘displayed’ to ‘hidden’ changed our listening habits?
- How did we transition from ‘you can use the TV, but don’t touch the stereo’ to ‘my Bluetooth speaker sounds pretty good for its size. No, really’?
- Why have so many friends downgraded from proper stereos to inferior Bluetooth speakers?
- How is it that most young people have no idea what an ‘amp’ or ‘HiFi’ even is? Go ahead, ask around.
I couldn’t explain why I felt compelled to take on this challenge, but what I did know was that meaningful musical engagement was plummeting, and the world certainly didn’t need another mediocre product.”
Reimagining the Modern Amplifier
“I started analyzing current stereo amplifier offerings with fresh eyes: Why so many menus and superfluous ‘features’? Why that exaggerated V-shaped sound signature? Why the complete lack of aesthetics? Today’s amplifiers look like cable TV boxes!
Does a sports car need to look like a sports car? Assuming it fulfills its primary functions well—then yes, absolutely it does. There’s a romance associated with those curves, a craft, a legacy. Beyond the merely utilitarian, today’s audio equipment should be a testament to HiFi’s heritage, a current-day reimagining and continuation of it.
My desire was to simplify and enhance the user experience, to make listening to any format—analog, digital, or streamed—seamless and effortless. Simplification meant making deliberate choices, clarifying functions, and eliminating unnecessary options. Once I had the concept, the basic form and features, I needed the ‘engine’…”
Engineering | let the music do the talking
“The challenge I presented to my engineers, Sylvain Savard and Denis Rozon, was to design a musically-engaging, easy-to-use amplifier in a cost-effective package. More than impressive specs on a page, musical pleasure had to prevail.
Instead of cutting corners on the physical product, we eliminated useless features and vanity specifications. We optimized the primary use case—stereo music presented as intended, with no artificially boosted bass or sizzling highs, just as the artists meant for the listener to experience.
We explored all technologies with an open mind. While tubes had more distortion than modern electronics, they also added that ineffable quality of ‘musical engagement.’ Class D amplification could sometimes sound cold and glassy, but when well-engineered, it could provide outstanding performance in a small package. Our goal became fusing these two seemingly anachronistic technologies into an ultramodern hybrid. Needless to say, we went through numerous failures and iterations—but we knew we were onto something special.”
…and so, the story began