Parasound’s New Owner Delivers on Promise to Expand Engineering, Hires Darren Myers

Parasound announced this week that it has hired well-regarded audio engineer Darren Myers to its team. An expansion of the company’s engineering group, it struck me immediately that with this announcement new owner David Sheriff was already delivering on his promise to expand the company’s product design and engineering team.

See more on Darren Myers now at Parasound

It was just a couple of weeks ago when Parasound’s new owner David Sheriff announced the appointment of industry veteran Larry Bennett as the company’s new VP of Sales and Marketing. Sheriff had acquired Parasound from its retiring founder and CEO, Richard Schram in December, and he had promised from the beginning that big things were ahead for the brand in terms of fielding new products and entering new product segments. The appointment of Bennett was clearly just the beginning of this transformation.

As part of the Bennett announcement, Sheriff was quoted as saying, “We will focus heavily on our traditional audiophile community with new products, plus some strategic additions to our legendary product design and engineering team.” It was the kind of promise industry executives frequently make – but don’t always follow through on.

Parasound’s New CEO Wasn’t Kidding

Now, just about two week later, we see that Sheriff wasn’t kidding…it’s happening. In this announcement, the company says that as Parasound’s new owner, Sheriff had “made a commitment to the company’s legendary designer, John Curl, to bring more of his new ideas to the fore.” To that end, Myers has been appointed as Parasound’s Vice President of Research and Development.

Prior to joining Parasound, Myers was at PS Audio, most recently as its Senior Analog Design Engineer. Myers had worked at PS Audio for just under seven years. Before that, he had worked as a designer for Classé Audio and Bowers & Wilkins Loudspeakers.

A Music Enthusiast and a High-End Audio Enthusiast

The company says that Myers is a passionate music enthusiast who is said to be “obsessed over just about every aspect of its reproduction” since he was a teenager. In parallel with that, he has also been a high-end audio enthusiast since he was 15 years old. These obsessions inexorably led him to study electrical engineering at the University of North Carolina with a specialization in microelectronics.

As Parasound VP of R&D, Myers will work closely with John Curl as well as the company’s in-house design team led by Bob MacDonald, Director of Product Development. The goal going forward is to “broaden the scope of Parasound’s high-end family of products and also to bring Parasound quality and performance to new products in the custom installation and integration realm.”

‘Optimistic’ for ‘Exciting New Products for Audio Enthusiasts’

When I first met John Curl late last year, he had more great ideas for new products and product upgrades than he had time to fulfill them. Now, Darren has lots of new ideas of his own, and he is looking forward to working with John in a variety of areas. I am very optimistic the synergy of these two will grow the company and provide exciting new products for audio enthusiasts.

David Sheriff, Parasound CEO

In a telephone interview with former PS Audio Director of Marketing and Communications Bill Leebens, he had nothing but high praise to offer about his former colleague at PS Audio.

Darren has vast historical knowledge about what’s been done, and what works…and of what’s been done, and what doesn’t work. He goes beyond that and innovates stuff with new circuit designs that perform above and beyond what’s there presently. Not only that but he’s personable, he’s humble, and he’s eloquent.

Bill Leebens, CEO of Leebens Marketing & Management, LLC

In fact, Myers has several award winning designs under his belt, including Stereophile’s Analog Product of the Year for 2020 and The Absolute Sound’s Amplifier of the Year for 2021.

The Geek’s Geek

Leebens also told me that Myers has a ton of gear and even has a full lab in his home. “He’s the geek’s geek,” Leebens told me.

Words cannot convey my excitement around joining forces with David Sheriff, John Curl, and the rest of the outstanding team at Parasound. I share the Parasound philosophy that values subjective listening as well as objective performance, and I believe that both perspectives are equally essential to making the world’s highest-performing products. My mission with our design team will be to take an outstanding brand that is known for value and integrity to one that is also known for its innovation.

Darren Myers, New Parasound Vice President of Research and Development

It’s clear that new owner Sheriff is serious about taking Parasound to the next level. This move, adding the highly regarded Myers to their engineering team, is causing quite the buzz in the specialty electronics community. With good reason…

Learn more about Parasound by visiting parasound.com.