Company has Moved Its Headquarters to Las Vegas
Recently, Parasound conducted another online Town Hall meeting for dealers interested in learning more about the brand’s progress under the leadership of new owner, CEO David Sheriff. Held via Microsoft Teams on a recent Saturday to facilitate participation, it lasted an impressive 1¾ hours long with the majority of all participant questions answered.
See what CEO David Sheriff shared with Town Hall participants
Originally, I was under the impression that the Town Hall was for dealers only but found out that the company had promoted the meeting on social media as well. During the Question & Answer session, it quickly became clear that some (many?) of the participants were end users. Given that much of the content seemed geared toward the professional dealer community, I’m not sure of the wisdom of allowing users to participate to hear of the many detailed process changes taking place for the sales and support of Parasound.
But that is their business and generally, I support the concept of transparency. I have to admit Sheriff seemed remarkably open in allowing just about any question from just about any source. He answered almost all of them and he answered them directly and honestly, even when he must have known his answer would not be what the questioner wanted to hear.
This is How It’s Going to Be
Sheriff has a firm, “this is how it’s going to be” mannerism that has rubbed some dealers the wrong way. Yet other dealers appreciate the directness, even if they don’t always like the answer.
Sheriff’s presentations are scripted, fast paced, and detailed – with slide screens full of everything from a long list of questions…to graphical flow charts showing decision trees of redesigned processes. He tends to speak in absolutes and often embellishes decisions with a sometimes long discussion introducing details – or reverting to a description of the way things were done before and why they can’t continue. Sometimes, an opportunity to deliver an incredibly strong point gets buried under too much extraneous detail.
However, even with that being the case, there is a feeling from the listener that he put a lot of preparation into the presentation, and whether you agree or disagree with his decision, you feel as though you are getting the full story and his honest opinion. Many dealers feel manufacturers hand down decisions like tablets from the mountain – you get the decision, but no explanation for how they arrived at it.
Maybe Over-Sharing, But Dealers Gain Context and Thinking Behind Decisions
Sheriff may be guilty of oversharing at times, but for some, that is far preferable to being sent program directives with no context or understanding of where that policy is coming from.
At the beginning of the presentation, there were just under 90 attendees. I’d say that’s not bad for a Saturday afternoon. Attendees had the opportunity to provide their questions in advance and they submitted about 85 questions, which were grouped into separate categories, including company direction, dealers/purchasing (U.S.), dealers (outside of the U.S.), general items, product – functionality and questions, product – future, service – repair, service/support (general), service & warranty (U.S.), and service & warranty (outside of U.S.).
Sheriff made sure to incorporate the answers to those questions into his presentation. He also held a live Question & Answer period at the end of the presentation.
Parasound’s Foundation had Become Shaky
The new CEO started by sharing with the group the story of how Parasound saw its foundation get a little shaky when Richard Schramm (who entered retirement for personal reasons) and a key service tech named Tony both retired. The company was apparently in a tough spot at that time. However, Sheriff and his team have spent the last year shoring up the foundation and they say the company is now headed towards a brighter future.
The past year we’ve focused tremendously on our foundation, on shoring up what was weak, on automating what we need to, getting processes down and documented, getting away from the sandy foundation of always being a one-off, always being in negotiation, always being different every single time. We’re very lean. We have exactly the right amount of U.S. employees for where we’re at and where we’re going. While most of our competitors now are cutting costs and suffering larger losses, we’re doubling down and we’re growing our already massive investment in future product.
David Sheriff, Parasound CEO
Bringing R&D ‘Back Into North America’
Sheriff went on to say that the company is bringing “innovation research and development back into North America,” a reference to the fact that the company previously had been relying on its Taiwanese supplier for these capabilities. He promised attendees that the company – within a year or two – will be offering world-class quality that will rival not only the others in the audio industry but “the entire electronics industry overall.” This is due to the fact that the company has hired an ex-Apple employee to work on these issues.
He then added: “We have identified concerns on services and support. We understand there’s some unhappiness out there with how we’re doing things – and we have heard you. We do expect substantial improvement over the next several months, and I’ll explain more on how we’re going to take care of you in that area of questions.”
Parasound Headquarters has Moved to Las Vegas
The company will announce this week that it has completed the move of its headquarters from Northern California to Las Vegas, NV. This will surprise many, as it has barely skipped a beat during this move.
We currently have inventory of every single stocking model that we have – and we ship in the same day, as long as the order is received by 3pm Pacific time. The best dealers and partners in America have watched what we’re doing. We’ve talked to many of them and now they’re coming to us. Those [continuing current dealers] are recommitting to the brand and others want in. We’re excited about the future.
Sheriff
At its peak, Parasound had about 650 dealers on its list. Many of those dealers, were not real dealers, the CEO said. Now, the company is down to about 50 dealers who have pledged to support the brand. Says Sheriff, “We got to an elite group.”
Shifting Responsibility for Customer Service Back to Dealers
One major issue that Parasound is really committed to, is returning the responsibility for effective customer support back to the dealers. The company is doing its best to provide customer support, but as Sheriff plainly noted, “it’s just not scalable.” For this reason, customers need to be able to turn to their dealers to get local support for their product and the system it’s in. Parasound will help train and give dealers the tools they need to be able to do this.
“By us only working with elite direct dealers, they can fulfill this role to a much greater level than we ever could,” Sheriff told attendees. “Our dealers are critical to us. We realize it’s been a bumpy road for some of you as we’ve changed our focus to our dealers, but keeping them strong, as I said, is important.”
As he spoke about in the previous Town Hall, the dealer will become instrumental in a new warranty service procedure as well. Sheriff said that around 35% of items they receive for service are “no problem found.” This is a huge waste of time and money for them to deal with. Therefore, in the future, items to be returned for service under warranty must be processed through authorized dealers.
Interestingly, Parasound is developing a troubleshooting app that will provide important troubleshooting steps for end users to take that it believes may resolve many issues and reduce the number of “problem not found” returns.
Parasound’s One Authorized Service Center is Based in Los Angeles
The company announced that as of today, it has only one authorized service center – Adams Electronics in Los Angeles. They are working on several more, but for the time being, all in-warranty and out-of-warranty repairs must be sent there. So far Adams, Sheriff said, is the only repair center that meets Parasound’s very high standards for repair centers.
Interestingly, he says the company’s products are so reliable, that the company does not get enough returns to justify having even one full-time repair tech at the company. With that being the case, all repairs will go to Adams – and eventually other service centers authorized in the future.
A great amount of time was spent reviewing the warranty return process, which can be different based on a couple of variables. The company is working with dealers one-on-one to coordinate on all the steps from verifying the defect, obtaining the RMA, checking the repaired unit, and returning the item to the customer. Sheriff went through the multiple steps for each of the scenarios.
He reviewed the warranty service situation for other parts of the world, as well.
R&D is 50% of the Company’s Budget
New innovation is on the horizon, Sheriff said in the Town Hall.
Most companies are cutting back on their R&D budget…it’s a maybe a single digit percentage…or maybe, 10%-to-15% of their budget, from someone who is aggressive. [In our case, it’s] 50% of our budget. One of the reasons you haven’t heard from us is we’re busy developing…we’re getting our new product out. We’re fixing what we have in for repair, but half of our budget goes back into R&D. That’s a lot. We’re in this. We want phenomenal product for you.
Sheriff
I’ve never heard of a company devoting 50% of its budget to research and development. Frankly, it’s a little hard to believe. However, Parasound’s CEO went on to explain the product plan and if we take everything at face value, it would require a substantial investment…perhaps rising to the level of 50% of budget.
Product – Looking Forward to What’s Coming
After much detailed talk of warranties, service, dealers, distribution, processes, policies, and more, Sheriff finally turned to everybody’s favorite topic…new products. Clearly trying to inject some enthusiasm on the line, he spoke effusively of the company’s VP of Research and Development Darren Myers. Myers was formerly an engineer with Denver-based PS Audio and prior to that, with Classé Audio – and he’s now said to have been given free rein to create a new line for Parasound.
Said Sheriff: “For those of you who know Darren, you know that he is amazing at what he does. He is not only a tremendous designer of circuits and how things get put together, but he’s also an extremely discerning listener who reaches out to the best in the business…and he’s a constant learner. He is the future of audio and electronics. He is finally operating in an unfettered environment, and he’s in a design Renaissance.”
Pushing the Limits of What’s Possible in High-End Audio
The accolades continued and we learn that Myers is “excited,” and has a “tremendous team of specialists” working with him. We are told that for Myers, this is the first line “…that’s his from the ground up.” For Parasound, it’s the brand’s sixth product line.
Sheriff’s already staccato presentation pace began accelerating as Parasound’s CEO is clearly enthusiastic to be sharing this news publicly. About this new line Myers is working on, he added, “It’s focused on innovation. He’s got some amazing ideas that he’s bringing to the table. And it’s also focused on the future of what audio will be. It’s going to push the limits of performance, personalization, aesthetics, reliability, your interaction with it, and your overall user experience.”
‘Best-in-Class’ in Every Category
And, Sheriff promised dealers, it will be a complete line. “We are not going to release this piecemeal,” he vowed.
What will this line consist of? What do dealers have to look forward to? Says the company’s top executive, a “best-in-class DAC streamer, a best-in-class phono stage, a best-in-class preamp, a best-in-class mono amp, and a best-in-class stereo amp.”
That’s a tall order.
We Have the ‘What’…But We Don’t Have the ‘When’
You might like to know when we’re going to see all of this best-in-class stuff. We are told that the company intends to take its time and do it right. “It’s going to come out when the time is right. And it’s going to be amazing,” Sheriff promised.
But not this year…
Learn more about Parasound by visiting parasound.com.
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