Jeremy Burkhardt is back and he’s out to establish the definitive Origin of architectural loudspeakers.

Polarising. Unconventional. Wildcard. Loud. There have been many words used to describe former SpeakerCraft chief Jeremy Burkhardt.

But, whether you like him or not, you have to admit he knows how to build a brand, find a niche and generate an unparalleled level of hype. He is as good a marketing machine as you can get.

So when he stood down as chief executive of SpeakerCraft in May 2012, things in the industry got a whole lot quieter and, dare I say it, duller.

But now he’s back and he’s decided it’s time for people to stop resting on their laurels and to provide better solutions for the clients.

Enter Origin Acoustics.

“The first eight months after I left SpeakerCraft were amazing. I did everything I could think of. But I got bored; I missed the industry, I missed my friends and I missed doing what I loved doing.

“More importantly, I kept having ideas…”

He wasn’t the only one. SpeakerCraft co-founders Ed Haase and Ken Humphreys were also champing at the bit to get back to what they did best – engineering architectural loudspeakers for a dealer audience.

“The three of us sat down one day and started talking about what could be achieved in the design of architectural speakers with a blank slate. We started with the baffle then we discussed the woofer, the tweeter and the pivoting structure – all the things we had taken for granted in the past,” Jeremy says.

“We asked ourselves how we could redesign these things and more. Without any ties to an existing company, we didn’t have to be backwards compatible with anybody.

“It got to the point where we had some really cool ideas, so we decided to start developing them. That was about 13 months ago and we’ve been busy ever since developing and patenting new technologies.

“In September, at the CEDIA US Expo in Denver, we will be introducing upwards of 60 products that will all be shipping at launch. This means that overnight we will be larger than any other architectural speaker company, in terms of product numbers, except for Sonance.”

The announcement comes in a time when the industry is littered with loudspeakers. But, Jeremy says he is different. He is being fuelled by a desire to do what he loves and what he has proved time and time again to be good at.

In addition, he says, he is being fuelled by a desire to build a brand that will supersede his former company, SpeakerCraft – a brand he feels is losing its edge.

US publication CE Pro recently published a copy of an email Jeremy sent to the leadership of Core Brands, the parent company of SpeakerCraft.

It says: “You assured me upon my decision to retire that you would be a brand steward and manage the success of SpeakerCraft going forward. You have failed doing so in the highest fashion.

“I have decided to launch a new brand and will deliver the service and product SpeakerCraft once stood for.”

Of course, launching a new speaker brand in today’s market is a difficult task as well as a huge risk.

But, Burkhardt believes the launch of Origin will see a fundamental shift in the way people install, consume and talk about architectural speakers.

“Industries stagnate, products become commodities and innovation dies, and I think that has been happening in this industry,” he says.

“I’m hoping that when we enter the market we can set a new benchmark in quality and get everyone else to work harder and think about making better product.”

One of the biggest hurdles for Origin will be that, quite simply, nobody was asking for another loudspeaker brand, especially given the number of ‘me-too’ companies selling the same product, simply rebadged, sometimes at a premium.

But, Jeremy says, Origin will be different.

“Origin Acoustics will mark a fundamental break from how architectural speakers have been installed in the past. We will also breakaway from the traditional form factor and we have some audio patents that are really cool from the mechanical side.

“Think about this: tweeters that fire down from orbital in-ceiling speakers have been designed the same way forever, but if you think about how an in-ceiling speaker is listened to, it’s off-axis, so if you were to design a new tweeter just for an architectural speaker, why wouldn’t you design that tweeter to have a far greater range of dispersion?

“The reason nobody’s done that is that it’s always been done another way. We got to approach things from a totally different angle – we designed these speakers to be perfect in architectural environments.”

In addition to product development, Origin is relying heavily on Jeremy’s personal brand to generate excitement among dealers and fear among competitors – so much so that the company’s website features a silhouette profile of the outspoken industry heavyweight.

“We are going to change this market through sheer force and a punk rock attitude,” he says.

“We have a bunch of solutions, now we need to let everybody know what the problems are.

“If we couldn’t come out with something completely different we wouldn’t be doing this. We’ve been engineering our butts off and we have a good team – it’s great to be back.”

Origin Acoustics will begin shipping in September. Australia will be the first international market to stock the new range.

Origin Acoustics
www.originacoustics.com