Why "twenty3five"?

We are a family company based in Jacksonville, Florida building high quality audio and guitar effects.

I’ve been building and repairing instruments (mixed in with a variety of other interests) for a couple decades now with an emphasis on acoustic instruments from around the world. As the years have gone by, I’ve found myself getting more and more interested in the electronic side of music. From the beginning of first picking up a guitar in '96, I always seemed to be drawn to the “why” behind everything from music theory, audio techniques and equipment, guitar design and construction. Reading books like Musical Instrument Design by Bart Hopkin and Circuit Bending by Reed Ghazala numerous times really piqued my interest in the possibilities of what could be done with music and design.

Why the name “twenty3five”?
I can’t even remember when this happened now at this point, but probably 20+ years ago,  I was reading a passage from the Bible about King David whom I have always admired as a musician, warrior, and leader. Of course, he’s most famous for his slaying of the giant Goliath and being a shepherd as a boy, but I came across a scripture passage that talked about the 4,000 musicians playing instruments that David had made! This caught my attention, and I wondered why I had never heard anything about this accomplishment from him. The passage can be found in I Chronicles 23:5 “...and four thousand praised the Lord with musical instruments, ‘which I made,’ said David, ‘for giving praise.’”

I was so amazed at the thought of this famous character spending all the time it would have taken to build that many instruments! In my pondering of that, I had the God-given idea that if I ever created instruments on a scale like that I could name the company “23:5” after the Scripture reference. Fast forward about 20 years ahead and my oldest son really starts getting interested in playing music and starts playing the guitar. Of course, when you start playing electric guitar, you immediately realize your need to recreate the sounds that you hear in music. Which means...you NEED pedals!! We started looking at all the pedals on the market, and I immediately start digging into the “why” behind how pedals are designed, how they work, who is making them, etc. The wealth of information on the internet that answers all these questions and more allowed me to spend countless hours on forums and watching videos. That rabbit hole reignited a spark to begin to create again.

Since 2018, I have spent time researching and studying anything and everything I could get my hands on, building pedal kits, modding pedals, and anything to further my understanding of the “why” behind electronic circuit design and audio effects. As I began to understand more and more about circuit design and effects, I started thinking about creating some of these designs for myself, my kids, and others.

It was around this time I was reminded of the thought I had some 20ish years earlier about King David and his 4,000 instruments that he had made and “23:5”. I immediately knew this would be the name I would use for this new adventure. Since then I have been designing, breadboarding, and creating whenever I can. If you’ve read this far, I certainly hope that you are inspired to pursue whatever it is that makes you want to create and build. And, of course, I hope you like what we're creating here at twenty3five...