Fans of former SpeakerCraft president Jeremy Burkhardt might want to book their September flights to Denver. As has been reported elsewhere, Burkhardt confirmed that he will be returning to the industry that brought him so much success and as many friends as enemies before his very premature “retirement” in 2012. His new company, called Origins Acoustics, will offer fresh designs on traditional architectural loudspeakers.
Jeremy Burkhardt
Burkhardt sent me an email during my vacation last Thursday discussing the end of his retirement, which he called “enlightening,” and his year-long work on a new brand with Ed Haase and Ken Humphries, who were the founders of SpeakerCraft and inventors of the “original in-wall speakers.” We finally spoke by phone today, and after swapping family updates, he reiterated much of that email, including his goal of “reinventing” the architectural speaker category.
“Everything accepted as the norm [in architectural loudspeakers] has been thought of again in terms of how we make it easier to install and smaller in size and bigger in sound,” Burkhardt explained.
Origin Acoustics has what he called “killer IP” [intellectual property] and several patents pending. Former SpeakerCraft marketing director Dave Donald, who left Artison earlier in the year, has joined Origin Acoustics, as has former Xantech executive Graham Hallett.
The goal of the start-up will be to launch products through “the top 200 dealers” in the industry, at CEDIA EXPO in September, Burkhardt said. Next up is a small dealer summit in June to help fine tune the company’s product mix.
Jeremy J. Glowacki is editorial director of Residential Systems magazine.
