There is a moment at almost every major event when everyone notices a bad sound. The microphone suddenly becomes difficult to understand. The music feels painfully loud but somehow unclear. Someone at the back of the room cups a hand around an ear. A pastor pauses during a sermon. A conference speaker asks the familiar question: “Can you hear me?”
For the audience, it may be an inconvenience. For the audio professional behind the console, it is a problem that can take years of experience to solve.
That problem, and the science, technology and expertise required to solve it, took centre stage in Lagos as Irukka Online, the authorised regional distributor of Wharfedale Pro, hosted the Wharfedale Pro Professional Audio Seminar 2026 at the Golden Tulip Terrace Hall, Irukka Tower.
The seminar brought together audio engineers, sound directors, live production specialists, church technical teams and other professionals for an intensive exchange with three international specialists from Wharfedale Pro: Daniel Clarke, Marko Jovanović and Remo Orsoni.
Broadcast live by Voice of the People TV (VOP TV), the event was not simply about loudspeakers, amplifiers or technical specifications.
It was about something much more fundamental: How do we make people hear better? And perhaps more importantly, how do we equip the people responsible for that experience with the knowledge to do it consistently?
Daniel Clarke: “Stop fighting bad acoustics with more volume”
If there was one misconception Daniel Clarke wanted participants to leave behind, it was the belief that louder automatically means better.
Daniel Clarke, Wharfedale Pro’s Business Development Manager, brought more than 25 years of experience across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa to the discussion.
His message was direct. Sometimes, the problem is not that a sound system is too small. Sometimes, the problem is that the sound system is being asked to compensate for a bad room. In large auditoriums, churches, event centres and halls, hard concrete surfaces, high ceilings and reflective walls can send sound bouncing across the space. The result is familiar: speech loses clarity, music becomes muddy and the audience struggles to distinguish one sound from another.
The natural response, Clarke explained, is often to turn the system up. But increasing the volume does not remove the reflections.
It amplifies them. “A lot of people think that if a room sounds bad, you just need bigger speakers or more power. In reality, if you amplify bad acoustics, all you get is louder bad sound.”
It is a simple observation, but one with serious implications for live production. Daniel Clarke encouraged professionals to think beyond raw power and instead consider how sound is being distributed throughout a room.
The objective is not to fill every corner with maximum acoustic energy. It is to put the right amount of controlled sound where people are sitting. That requires proper system design, speaker positioning, dispersion control and the intelligent use of digital signal processing.
For the person sitting at the back of a church, the benefit may simply be being able to understand every word of a sermon. For a concertgoer, it may mean hearing the singer without being overwhelmed by the instruments. For an event organiser, it may mean fewer complaints about the sound.
But behind all of those experiences is the same principle Daniel Clarke brought to Lagos: good sound begins with understanding the environment in which the sound is being produced.
Marko Jovanović: Making thousands of people hear the same performance
If Daniel Clarke focused attention on the relationship between sound and the room, Marko Jovanović took participants deeper into the challenge of controlling that sound across complex spaces.
Jovanović, Senior Audio Engineer, Application & Solutions Engineer and WPI Spatial Audio Projects Manager, has worked extensively as a front-of-house and stage monitor engineer on major productions and festivals across Eastern Europe and Asia.
His experience includes large-scale immersive audio projects, giving him a perspective on a question that becomes increasingly difficult as venues and audiences grow:
How do you make an entire audience feel like they are listening to the same performance?
At a small venue, the answer may appear relatively simple. At a large concert, worship centre, theatre or entertainment venue, it becomes a sophisticated engineering challenge. Someone standing directly in front of the stage is naturally closer to the main sound source than someone sitting dozens of metres away. Without proper system design and alignment, the audience can experience significant differences in timing, volume and tonal balance. Jovanović’s session explored the technologies and techniques engineers use to address those challenges.
Among them are delay compensation, phase alignment, crossover management and carefully designed loudspeaker arrays. But perhaps the most fascinating part of his presentation was the discussion around spatial audio.
The modern listener is increasingly accustomed to immersive experiences, not only in cinemas and headphones, but also in live environments.
Spatial audio allows sound to be positioned and controlled within a three-dimensional listening environment, creating a more engaging experience while maintaining the clarity required for speech and music.
For engineers, however, immersion cannot come at the expense of intelligibility. A spectacular sound system is of little value if someone sitting on the edge of the venue cannot understand the performer.
Jovanović’s approach therefore centred on balance: technology should enhance the audience experience, not distract from it.
And that is where engineering becomes almost invisible. When the system is properly designed, the audience does not think about delay times, phase relationships or speaker arrays. They simply enjoy the show.
Remo Orsoni: Sound begins inside the speaker
While the audience hears the finished product, Remo Orsoni spends his professional life thinking about what happens before the sound ever reaches the room.
As Wharfedale Pro’s R&D Manager and Senior Acoustic Engineer, Orsoni works at the point where acoustic science, engineering and product development meet.
His session offered participants a glimpse into the thinking behind professional loudspeaker design.
Why does one cabinet behave differently from another? How do transducers affect sound? What happens when a loudspeaker is pushed to high sound pressure levels for extended periods? And how can engineers maintain performance while protecting the components inside the system?
These are not merely technical questions. They have real consequences during live productions. A speaker may perform beautifully during a short demonstration, but professional environments can be far more demanding. Concerts can run for several hours. Outdoor productions expose equipment to difficult environmental conditions. Churches may operate sound systems multiple times a week. Large events can place sustained demands on amplifiers, drivers and other components.
Orsoni explored the engineering principles used to maintain reliability and performance under those conditions. His discussion covered areas including transducer and enclosure design, thermal management, component protection and digital signal processing. One of the key areas was DSP, technology that gives engineers much greater control over how a system behaves.
Through careful tuning, engineers can shape frequency response, manage problematic frequencies and use tools such as parametric EQ and FIR filters to achieve greater consistency.
For the average listener, none of this is visible. There is no applause for a well-designed crossover. Nobody in the audience sees a properly tuned FIR filter. But they hear the result. They hear the clarity. They hear the details. They hear the difference.
More than a seminar
What made the Lagos masterclass significant was not simply the presence of three international experts. It was the conversation that happened between international expertise and local experience.
Nigeria has a vibrant and rapidly developing live production ecosystem. From churches and concerts to conferences, television, corporate events and outdoor entertainment, the demand for professional audio continues to grow. But sophisticated equipment alone cannot transform an industry. The people operating that equipment matter just as much.
A world-class loudspeaker in the hands of someone who does not understand system design will not automatically produce world-class sound. Likewise, an experienced engineer equipped with the right knowledge can often achieve remarkable results by understanding the room, the audience and the tools available. This is why technical education matters.
And it is why Irukka Online’s decision to bring Wharfedale Pro’s specialists directly to Lagos represents more than a product showcase.
It creates an opportunity for Nigerian professionals to ask questions, challenge assumptions, share experiences and learn directly from engineers involved in some of the most demanding audio applications in the world.
Building the people behind the sound
There is an interesting irony about professional audio. The better the engineer does the job, the less the audience notices the engineer.
People do not leave a concert saying, “The phase alignment was excellent.” They say, “That sounded amazing.” They do not leave a church service praising the DSP configuration. They say, “I could hear everything clearly.”
That invisible success is precisely what professional audio engineering is about. And the Wharfedale Pro Professional Audio Seminar in Lagos was ultimately about strengthening the people responsible for creating that experience.
Daniel Clarke challenged professionals to stop treating volume as the answer to every acoustic problem.
Marko Jovanović demonstrated how sophisticated system engineering and spatial audio can transform large-scale listening experiences.
Remo Orsoni opened the door to the science and engineering that make reliable, high-performance loudspeakers possible.
Three experts. Three different perspectives. One common objective: Better sound for the people who ultimately matter most — the audience.
For Irukka Online, the seminar represents another step towards building a stronger professional audio ecosystem in Nigeria and across West Africa. Because the future of sound will not be determined by technology alone.
It will be determined by the people who understand that technology, know when to use it, and have the skill to turn it into something an audience can actually feel. And when that happens, the best compliment may be the simplest one of all: “We could hear everything.”
