SpeakerCraft Announces A New Electronics Development Group

5-Jul-01

SpeakerCraft, the worldís largest manufacturer of architectural speakers, announced the creation of E-Group, a new research and development division that will focus on designs of all electronic products for whole-house automation systems including amplifiers, preamplifiers, and control devices. ìThe E-Group will allow SpeakerCraft to dominate the custom installation electronics industry along with our award-winning architectural loudspeakers,î says SpeakerCraft Vice President Jeremy Burkhardt. ìThey will design and develop all things electronic, introducing product categories that are new to SpeakerCraft such as infrared repeating devices, control touch pads plus many more multi-room, multi-source products.îHeading up the new division will be Bill Cawlfield, who for the last thirteen years was the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Xantech. A 35-year veteran of the consumer electronics industry, Bill was co-founder of the popular Vector Research brand in the late 1970s and 1980s. In 1996, CEDIA awarded Mr. Cawlfield the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award and Home Automation magazine voted him one of the 50 Most Influential People in the Home Networking and Home Control industry.ìWe are very fortunate to have Bill handling this division,î says Burkhardt. ìWe quite literally formed the E-Group with him in mind to run the day-to-day operations. We have tried repeatedly to find a company we could purchase that would design and build all of our electronics products,î continues Burkhardt. ìEven though it would take more time and effort to fund and ramp up a new division, we decided it would better guarantee our dealers and their customerís the quality that has been the hallmark of all SpeakerCraft products.îCurrently in development are several unique and innovative products that will be introduced during the Custom Electronics Design and Installation Associations (CEDIA) trade show this September in Indianapolis, Indiana. The long-range development program will provide complete turnkey solutions for whole-house automation, controlling audio/video systems as well as lighting and HVAC systems, all under the SpeakerCraft brand name.The E-Group, based out of Northridge, California, is essentially an Engineering Development Think Tank comprised of engineers with expertise in many different analog and digital disciplines. The engineers have a varied background coming from the industrial and commercial machine control industry with an emphasis on touch panel display technology and/or coupled with the home control industry with an emphasis in infrared and serial communications technologies.The E-Group will also coordinate sales, marketing and manufacturing of all electronic products with the Riverside, California facility. The main facility in Riverside will now concentrate all its efforts on further development of exciting and innovative speaker lines. SpeakerCraft will use their existing distribution of independent custom installers and audio video retailers to sell products developed by the E-Group.For more information about SpeakerCraft, visit www.speakercraft.com.

Read More:
http://www.speakercraft.com