History | Massif Audio Design

Escape competition through authenticity....

I'm a better wood worker than I am guitarist

If there's a common thread running through my life, it's probably an unhealthy obsession with three things: bicycles, stereo equipment, and getting punched in the face.

The last one requires some explanation.

As a kid, I played all the usual sports—baseball, hockey, soccer, lacrosse, water polo—but they never really stuck. I'd rather disappear into my room with a stack of records and spend an entire day listening to Genesis, Black Sabbath, Van Halen or Kiss. When I got my first decent stereo at fifteen, that was pretty much it. By my early twenties I owned a sweet Linn system with Mission 753 speakers (I wish I still had it), despite making very little money I was somehow certain that I had my priorities correct. Me and responsible choices generally clash.

For real work, I got good at building pool tables.

It paid well enough, but hauling around slabs of slate all day isn't exactly a long-term career plan when you're built more like a cyclist than a linebacker. Still, it allowed me to buy my first house at twenty-six, complete with a room dedicated entirely to my stereo and a backyard for my husky.

My dog, Rael. (Genesis fans will get it...)

Around that time I also got into dog sled racing because apparently two expensive hobbies wasn't enough.

Then my spine entered the conversation.

For nearly a decade I was nearly fanatical about martial arts and have been lucky enough to train with many of the best MMA fighters and instructors in the world . I'm not going to name drop but most of them wore UFC middle weight and heavy weight champion belts. While training at a Jeet Kune Do school called Real Combat/Straight Blast Gym (the name really should have been my warning), I injured my back. It became a recurring problem, and after one particularly honest conversation over dinner—and perhaps a bottle or three of wine—I decided it was time for a career change.

Naturally, I bought a Dairy Queen.

That turned out to be an excellent way to work impossibly long hours for very little money while having unlimited access to Blizzard calories. Financially, it wasn't exactly Warren Buffett territory. This paragraph doesn't read as angry as it sounds in my head.

After that I opened a pool table store, which actually did pretty well... right up until the 2008 recession steamrolled the industry.

So I packed up, moved to Toronto, with a baby on the way, I figured life would settle down.

Instead, one week later, I was hit in a serious cycling accident during a training ride with my new racing team.

As stolen from the Ottawa Sun. (I wasn't going to say that's me in the front...but it is.)

Multiple spinal injuries, massive nerve damage. Major surgery. Ugly prognosis. Months learning to walk properly again. Enough demerol , morphine and percodans to make daytime television almost enjoyable.

The upside? I eventually recovered.

The downside? Apparently I don't learn particularly fast because I went back to racing bikes anyway. My chiropractor became my training partner, which is either inspiring or terrible business ethics depending on how you look at it.

With a family to support, a reinforced spine, and a credit card that had seen better days, I needed a deus ex machina.

I picked up odd jobs, serviced pool tables, and somehow those skills took me everywhere from Tucson to Iqaluit. Life is weird.

Eventually I started making custom furniture.

A friend asked why I didn't make a stereo stand for my system, something that was thick and oversized like the dinner and coffee tables I made were. I agreed it was a good idea and then showed it online. Almost immediately I started getting messages from people and dealers.

So we built a website, designed a logo, took a few photos, and hoped for the best. With a business plan like mine, it helps to hope.

Ten years later, several hundred racks have found homes all over the world—from Indonesia to Great Britain to Australia to Norway. I've exhibited alongside companies I used to admire from afar, shared rooms with some of the biggest names in high-end audio, and met far more good people than I probably deserved.

Not bad for a guy whose growth proposal was, "I'll just try out Instagram".

Today I live in Waterloo, Ontario with my wife, my son, and two dogs.

I still own and ride way too many bikes.

I don't listen to my stereo as often as I'd like.

I still think 70's Genesis is the best music ever made.

And I still believe the best products come from people who build what they genuinely want to own—not from people trying to chase the latest trend, or boasting about some imagined technology.

Thanks for stopping by.

Trevor