Web-posted Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Perdue Acoustics targets home-theater market
jim.mcbride@amarillo.com
Jay Perdue's Amarillo acoustics company is busting at the seams, but he still has a few fresh ideas up his sleeve.
Perdue Acoustics, owned by Perdue and his wife, Vicki, has expanded into Tennessee, a move Perdue says will help grow the company's Amarillo operation.
The company employs between 40 and 50 workers at a factory north of Amarillo where workers manufacture state-of-the art, fabric-wrapped acoustical panels and home-theater products.
Perdue is focusing on a new acoustical panel developed for home-theater systems. Most acoustical panels for home theater are much larger, but Perdue anticipates that his smaller system will revolutionize the home-theater market.
The secret: A thin cardboard panel mount that dramatically improves the panel's acoustics and slashes the company's shipping costs.
"The rule of acoustics is that you want the room to have zero echoes - it's the bad boy of acoustics - and you want a limited amount of reverberation," he said. "It's all in the mount. It's a new type of mount that I've developed."
High-end acoustical panels for a home theater can run between $3,000 and $4,000 and must be shipped on pallets. Perdue said his home-theater panels will run between $700 and $800 and can fit in a box.
"We've manufactured our first 500. I'm going to start immediately to market them," he said. "It will be the first time that you can get a great acoustics package in a small box."
Patrick Lee, a Perdue employee who helped develop the idea, said the new cardboard mount is a breeze for workers to install. The installation process is simple and just takes a couple of screws.
"It's just like unfolding a pizza box," he said.
The company markets its acoustical designs to churches, multi-purpose event centers and gymnasiums. It has landed lucrative contracts for Universal Studies and even the CIA's training center.
Several years ago, Perdue happened on mineral wool, a specialized fiber with acoustical abilities, and incorporated it into acoustical panels made by Perdue Acoustics. Last year, Inc. magazine touted the Amarillo inventor's business acumen in an article on smaller entrepreneurs.
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Growing East Perdue Acoustics has opened a facility to handle marketing east of the Mississippi River and bought a 53,000-square-foot building in Erin, Tenn. Perdue has seven employees working at his Erin plant, though he says he's not going to cut his Amarillo work force. |
The company is seeking a patent for its new acoustical panel mount.
Perdue, who already holds several patents, recently won a $10,000 West Texas A&M University FirstStep Innovation Challenge grant for his Rectangle Finder, a tool that helps contractors and do-it-yourselfers replicate rectangular shapes. Two universities have reviewed the Rectangle Finder concept, Perdue said, and determined it has patent potential.
As he looked over employees fabricating new acoustical panels, Perdue worried out loud about possible business growing pains, but he plans to remain true to his Amarillo roots and the workers who've helped him succeed.
"This new patent is going so good it could explode us into chaos," he said. "I've already told these men we're not going to take their jobs to Erin, Tenn."