Oliver Barkovic extends his arms out while he wiggles his fingers to demonstrate how the cilia in the inner ear vibrate to capture sound. “As we age, our cilia become stiff,” Oliver says. “I treat the room to direct sound energy so there is less echo,” he explains as he holds up a fabric covered acoustic panel in the manufacturing space of Forward Acoustics, a company focused on making people’s spaces sound better.
Oliver’s background as an electrical engineer and his having taken a master’s in engineering have given him a keen understanding of acoustics. But it was his earlier career in the music industry as a DJ with his own studio called Forward Music and as the founder of Steel City Records, that tuned Oliver’s ear to the nuances of noise.
After working for various companies until the dot-com bubble burst, Oliver stumbled into acoustic panel manufacturing in 2004. “There is a lot of math in acoustics and more in methodology,” Oliver states as he explains the science of sound and how acoustic panels transform sound energy into a better hearing experience by absorbing, deflecting, controlling and re-directing reverb, feedback and echoes.
