Salt Lake City, UT–Home Theater Specialists of America (HTSA) buying group has added a 56th member, Aurant, one of Utah’s oldest and largest provider of customized home automation systems, theaters, and distributed audio.
Aurant began business as Audition Systems in 1989 with its founder and current principal owner Rich Barra. The company has a 6,500-square-foot showroom with six home theater rooms from $10,000 to $500,000. There is also a $350,000 theater as well as a $500,000 one. The company’s forte is complex automation systems that control everything from snow melting driveways to HVAC to window treatments and home theaters. Half of Aurant’s sales are jobs over $500,000 and every job is completely automated.
The company is a dealer for Runco, Crestron, Wilson, and B&W. It has won numerous awards for sales increase that have reportedly averaged above 20 percent for the last three years.
In December 2005, Jeffrey Anderson was named CEO of Aurant. He previously worked in marketing and interactive media firms.
About joining HTSA, Rich Barra stated, “Besides the obvious, to save money at the end of the year, my friends in the organization recommended we join. We have a lot to give in custom arena and a lot to learn on the retail side of things.”
Richard Glikes, executive director of HTSA said, “We have heard of and tried to cultivate this relationship for three years. HTSA does have the finest custom retailers in the industry in one organization. We do not do the most business, just the best business.”
For more information, visit www.aurant.com and www.htsa.com.
