USER STORY

Hardwell

Dutch DJ and music producer

Hardwell has spent over two decades at the forefront of electronic music – twice crowned the world’s number one DJ, headlining major festivals like Tomorrowland and Coachella and filling arenas across multiple continents.

He is also a producer, label founder, and a mentor who has watched the industry evolve through multiple technological shifts and always paid attention to what industry innovators are creating. His relationship with Areal started not with a product, but with the people.

I've known the Areal team for a long time. These are people who've been deep into pro audio for years - the kind of engineers who obsess over precision and are always looking to improve both the artist's process and the listener's experience. When they told me what they were building with SR1, I knew something thorough and genuinely useful would come out of it.

Caesar Edmunds

SR1 arrived in Hardwell’s hands not as an unfamiliar piece of gear, but as the outcome of a process he had watched from a distance. The obsession behind it – years of prototyping, field testing, rejecting shortcuts – matched what he already knew about the team. For an artist whose career has always been defined by not settling for less than what a track deserves, that foundation mattered.

It was sort of bizarre after 25 years of producing in stereo to hear what SR1 is capable of. Immersive sound either translates or it doesn't. SR1 is built by people who've spent years making sure it does - and that care for precision shows in the result. It sounds amazing.

Hardwell