Strategy in TECH...
In a press conference at CEDIA Expo Virtual last week, James Loudspeaker showed the gathered press a dramatic new expansion of their all terrain line of outdoor speaker products – new outdoor towers that just might move the earth beneath your feet. The company says that these new All Terrain Outdoor Towers “are designed to deliver concert-level performance outdoors.”
Mike Park, a key partner and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of James Loudspeaker, retired this month due to health issues, the company has announced. It would be hard to overstate Park’s influence in the growth and success of James Loudspeaker. As a key role player in the company for the last 15 years, Park has made many contributions to the company’s technology direction and product development, driving an era of rapid growth that ultimately led to James’ acquisition by Sonance in 2019.
I received a tip from a tech supplier here in the U.S. that the Coronavirus epidemic impacting China is a big problem getting bigger every day…and that our industry needs to think about – and prepare for – the impact on our supply chain. This week, Strata-gee surveyed several brands to learn their status on product supply…and what their perspective was on the near-term future impact of this epidemic taking place in China.
As we hurtle headlong into the a new decade – the 2020s – it’s a good time to pause and take stock of some of the major events of our industry’s recent history by ranking the Top 10 Strata-gee stories of 2019 based on total page views. This ranking shows just what stories drew the most attention of Strata-gee’s eminently intelligent and inquisitive readers.
Early last week, a holiday week, sources reached out to relay the news that multiple manufacturer sales representatives were being terminated by James Loudspeaker. Happy Thanksgiving…you’re fired. In chats, I heard of the pain that some those reps felt – for while getting terminated is never a happy circumstance, getting terminated during holidays seems particularly poignant.
Sonance announced today that they have entered into an agreement to acquire Minden, NV-based James Loudspeaker. This is the first major acquisition by Sonance since the purchase of Sound Advance in 2005, and is truly a marriage of two companies with a strong resonance in their approach to the custom integration industry.
It was like my Uber car was actually a time machine. After landing in Reno, Nevada, my Uber driver – an eccentric older fellow who is both a ride-share driver and a real estate agent – demonstrated an uncommon grasp of the local geography and history. Heading south on I-580 out of Reno there was a dramatic ridge of mountains to my right and a nonstop running monologue from my old-West style stagecoach driver: “Those are the Sierra-Nevada Mountains,” he helpfully offered. And on the left…the high desert.
James Loudspeaker, an innovative manufacturer of architectural speaker products for the residential and commercial custom integration industry, announced this week that they have redesigned their speaker grilles to a new Microperf-style for their small aperture product line. The new Microperf design is sure to be popular with architects, designers, integrators and end-users as it helps to more perfectly visually blend the speakers into the surrounding environment.
Innovative architectural loudspeaker designer/manufacturer James Loudspeaker announced this week that it will split off its Mavericks theater products into their own division, the Mavericks Architectural Cinema (MAC) division. This new division will offer the company’s dramatic Mavericks theater speakers for both the high-end residential and commercial cinema installation markets.
James Loudspeaker announced this week that it has selected Parker Custom Solutions as its independent sales rep of the year for 2018. Based in Arizona, Parker has dramatically increased the sales of James’ products throughout the territory the company said.
