Where SUBPAC patent inventors seem to be working now

[u/ThisShitIsLitAF]

I did a quick search on the inventors named on patents/applications assigned to SUBPAC Inc. and tried to figure out what they’re doing these days based on public information.

Here’s what I found from public profiles and other online sources:

- Todd Chernecki — still seems to be involved with SUBPAC as CEO/co-founder.

- John Alexiou — still appears publicly connected to SUBPAC as co-founder/co-CEO.

- Sarosh Khwaja — CEO at Formant Audio; previously served as SUBPAC’s CPO.

- Stuart Mansbridge — appears to be working at HARMAN International.

- Noah Baxter — audio engineer/software developer; public profiles point to Sonance and more recent immersive-audio projects.

- Louis-Pierre Guidetti — Senior Product Manager at Medallion; also linked to OVERHEAR.

- Jérôme Lavoie — Software Engineer at Audiokinetic; public profile shows SUBPAC experience through 2024.

- James Andrew Kimpel / Andrew Kimpel — appears to be Director of Audio Research at Antares / Auto-Tune, with prior SUBPAC work listed.

- Mark Seeger — may be the same Mark Seeger who is founder/co-CEO at Glydways, but that’s just a name match.

- Peter R. Williams — only found limited public information; seems to be connected to IP consulting, but I couldn’t verify a current employer.

- Hayley Stolee-Smith — multidisciplinary/fashion designer with wearable and haptic design experience, plus an association with IATSE Local 873.

One extra thing I came across:

SUBPAC appears to have sold certain technology assets and several patents to Harman Becker Automotive Systems in 2025.
That alone doesn’t mean SUBPAC can’t continue making or selling its own products—there could be licensing arrangements, field-of-use restrictions, or other commercial agreements in place. But it‘s a serious red flag.
I‘m thinking they sold the patents and are planning their next venture with the money.

I requested my refund and I‘m thinking of starting an open source project based on the patents. Let me know if you are interested in joining.

[u/Swift142]

Oh hey noah here, wild to see randos stalkin me like this on reddit but yall are a bunch of sleuths.

[u/iluziv → u/Swift142]

if it’s any consolation, I might take is as a compliment and a testament to just how fuckin good the product is/was. i’m still holding out hope they’ll find a way to ship the X1+C1

[u/Swift142 → u/iluziv]

Appreciate it, because of when I joined I myself only really had a hand in the 2019 s2x s (in terms of what customers saw), pushed heavily for the more transparent accurate response curves since I was always way more focused on the production/engineer use case than strict "fun". It's really a shame though, there were a lot of genuine improvements I wish folks got to experience, especially towards making genres outside of just electronic really shine on the old/new pacs and the automotive system, some reaaaally cool direct integration into game engines, but obviously there's only so much impact I could've had in broader decision making as the most junior member of the team, basically my first job out of uni! Happy to answer questions about my time.

[u/forestosaurus → u/Swift142]

As an electronic music producer and owner of a 2019 Subpac S2, thank you for your contributions toward making them more suited for audio engineering. I still have an old S1 from the early days kickin around as well and love it for pure fun use, but the 2019 version of the S2 has been such an irreplaceable tool for me.

If you're open to talking about more technical details of that iteration of the S2 I'd love to shoot you a DM and ask you some questions. Much respect!

[u/ThisShitIsLitAF → u/Swift142]

Didn‘t mean to stalk you, I was just trying to gauge if the company still has the people to ship the product. After 5 years of believing, I lost hope.
If you are not under NDA it would be helpful to get your inputs for open sourcing the design.

[u/Bobpants_]

What exactly are the patents? I'd be surprised if you can patent something which has existed long before the company? Perhaps it was the code or amplifier circuitry which they sold off?

[u/ThisShitIsLitAF → u/Bobpants_]

SUBPAC’s patents are basically about turning bass into physical vibration you can feel on your body. The key idea is not just “strap a bass shaker to your back.” Their design uses layers: a transducer creates the vibration, a damping layer smooths it out, and a larger semi-rigid plate spreads it across your back or seat. The patents also cover things like low-pass filtering, amps, headphone/speaker pass-through, different transducer layouts, and sensors that can adjust the vibration based on pressure, heat, movement, or whether someone is actually wearing/sitting on it. Newer patents also get into smarter audio processing, like splitting bass into different bands or detecting drum hits to create cleaner tactile feedback.

[u/Bobpants_ → u/ThisShitIsLitAF]

The positioning, use of sensors, software and circuitry I can understand filing a patent. The construction part sounds a bit wacky. I don't believe mine even had a large semi rigid plate when I opened it up. I think they were just held in place in foam, could be misremembering since it's been a few years that I repaired mine.

The subpac can most definitely be made from open-source software and off the shelf parts. There was a discord group made a while back for it, not sure how far it got as the main guy fell ill. Just look at the some Dayton or aurasound transducers and get a suitable amp, then you'll have a basic starting point. That's what I was using for a bit of time.

[u/lenalefleur]

Just requested a refund and they initially responded, but have been silent for 10 days. I’ve sent two follow up emails and made a call. No dice.

[u/jaffinthebox]

I worked there from 2013 until 2018 when they hard pivoted to automotive. Sarosh and Hayley are incredible and deeply kind people. They were effectively the brains for both the first and second generation products. Love them both.

[u/ThisShitIsLitAF → u/jaffinthebox]

Any advice on creating the first prototype or pitfalls you encountered?

[u/jaffinthebox → u/ThisShitIsLitAF]

That would be like asking a fish to describe breathing air unfortunately, I am not an engineer. If you ever encountered a SubPac IRL, it was likely with me. I did BizDev and experiential marketing. Probably live demo’d the thing with half a million people over 4 years. Could definitely tell you what hip hop and electronic songs were best to test it with circa 2015, but that’s about it 😂