EXCLUSIVE: EAW president TJ Smith on an 'era of resurgence'

EAW (Eastern Acoustic Works) president TJ Smith joins Headliner for a frank and insightful chat about revitalizing the US loudspeaker giant, shifting perceptions of the brand, and what the future holds.

EAW was founded in 1978 by Kenneth Berger and Kenton Forsythe, and the Boston-based company quickly established itself as one of the biggest global players in sound reinforcement, earning a stellar reputation for both its products and services. However, at the turn of the millennium, the company merged with Mackie Designs and later became known as LOUD Technologies (later renamed LOUD Audio following acquisition by Transom Capital Group).

This marked a period of great challenges for EAW, with the company speaking candidly today about the changes to various aspects of the organisation during this time. These largely seemed to be based around cost-cutting measures that compromised service and quality in the eyes of customers. As such, its standing in the pro audio market took a tumble.

However, in 2018, Italian pro audio outfit RCF Group, headed up by industry veteran Arturo Vicari, purchased EAW and quickly set about restoring the values the company was initially built on. Aspects of the organisation that had previously been outsourced in the name of saving money were brought back in-house, while a renewed focus on product quality and integrity was implemented.

Today, the company is building a path back towards its pre-millennium status, seeking to become, as Smith puts it, “the No.1 North American loudspeaker brand.”

But how is EAW going to achieve that bold vision? Headliner sat down with Smith to find out…

Let’s start at the beginning. Talk us through the history of EAW. It’s a company with an eventful past. How has it arrived to where it is today?

EAW is a 45-year-old company. It was founded here in Boston and from then to the 2000s is what we call the Founders Era. The founders started the company out of a passion for live music and loudspeakers, and they developed great technology and products. They grew that up to the point where EAW was everywhere and probably the biggest professional loudspeaker brand in the world. But around 2000 is when the Founders Era comes to an end; that’s when the investment bankers show up and they take over the company.

That brings us to what we call the Investment Banker Era, and they did exactly what you expect investors to do. They weren’t from the industry and they didn’t really understand how it operates - they were just working on a thesis of getting paid back for their investment, and they typically do that through consolidation. So, they take different parts of the company, bring them together, and save money. We saw our services become consolidated, and the same with warehousing and logistics. I should stress, these weren’t bad things, they just aren’t brand building tactics. They weaken the brand and that’s what we saw. I would talk to people, and they felt very disappointed by EAW.

My story intersects EAW in 2016. EAW was founded in 1978, I was founded in 1977, so I literally grew up with the brand as a pre-teen. I was really into sound and always standing behind a mixing console when anybody would let me. I was aware of EAW; I had an EAW sticker on one of my school text books. All my friends made fun of me because they were like, what is EAW? But I knew I was cool even if they didn’t understand! I got myself an engineering degree, I spent some time at Harman as a design engineer and with some business leadership positions.

In 2016, the CEO of LOUD had come from Harman so we knew each other. He called me to say LOUD is done with EAW, they want to sell it, and did I want to come and help sell the company. I laughed and said, “what makes you think I’m the person to sell companies?” But I said I’d love to come and be a part of EAW even for a little while. The thesis was that in two years, the new owners will come in , they’ll have their own team, and then I’ll move on. So, two years later there was a new owner, except it wasn’t the owner we expected, it was another founder.

Then, the RCF Group came in with an offer. They are founded by Arturo Vicari who has spent his life building professional loudspeaker brands. He’s really good and has a passion for sound, much like the founders of EAW. He said he wanted to make EAW the EAW it was in the late ‘90s. And he told me he wanted me to stay on to help him do that. That for me is the dream job, so I was all in. And that ushers in what I call the Era of Independence.

On September 3, 2018, we woke up as an independent company. Part of that was determining what we want EAW to be, and the place we are aiming for is to be the No.1 North American loudspeaker brand. That means we have to be No.1 in customer service, so we’ve brought service back into the building. Not just into our control, but in the building. If you call EAW and say you have a problem we say send it to us or we’ll talk you through how to fix it there and then.

It also means we can implement changes really quickly in production, because service is just down the hall from engineering. We’ve brought our warehouse back into the building as well. It was really frustrating for us not to be the last people to see the product before it left the building. When things were kept in a third-party warehouse, we had no control over how things were handled there.

That’s where we are at now. And we are calling it the Era of Resurgence.

How big is the task of shifting the market’s perception of EAW as a brand?

You have to look at the human emotion aspect of it. Trust was broken and it takes time to re-establish trust. I can say all the nice things, but you have to prove them with actions. We are now able to control the actions, and it just takes time to get that message to the industry. The challenge is that when you’re small you have more control, but as you get bigger, even if everything is in the building, it can become increasingly difficult to control. That’s where we are refining our management processes, and I’m having to learn to shift my style a little bit to develop the leaders around me so that they can carry that mission on.

How big an impact did the acquisition by RCF have on the business?

They brought a completely different mindset. You can look at product, for example: for a long time when we were developing a product it was all about, “how cost-effective can we make it?” That mindset shifted to, “this is a premium product, how should it perform?” It’s really changed how we look at the brand and built it back up, investing in the technology and the people.

What are the predominant areas of business for EAW in 2023?

Where we are in the industry is install. Performing arts centres, arenas, churches, education, stadiums, all those kinds of applications. We do really well there, but as for where we want to go – and to be No.1 - we have to be stronger in the production space. In my mind that is multi-faceted, but it can’t be addressed without investment in product, and that’s an area where we are looking to improve the portfolio. You’ll start to see us talk more about that next year.

Does EAW have a spatial audio strategy?

It’s so hard to answer. We are definitely interested, and we have done numerous demonstrations with immersive technology. From our view you can split it into two pieces. So, for how EAW interacts with spatial audio in the live performance space, you have to look at the electronics. There has to be some kind of mixing engine or interface that allows people to do whatever they want to do. I think there are a lot of brands out there doing that, but I don’t think that’s an EAW thing. I get it, but that’s not our brand. That doesn’t mean we aren’t looking at it. We are part of the RCF Group and if the Group was doing something we would be more than happy to be part of it.

Where we are involved is in the second piece, which is on the distribution side. When you are doing an immersive mix in a live environment, every one of those arrays needs to address everyone in the audience. So, if you have a 90-degree speaker on the left, and that’s doing whatever immersive thing you want it to do, but people way over on the right can’t hear it, they get nothing out of that immersive experience. It’s the same thing with left, centre, right systems before this even became a thing. This is where EAW is really unique, and particularly where our ADAPTive technology shines. ADAPTive arrays hang straight, which gives you the ability to expand vertical coverage by adding more arrays, just like we used to have with point sources.

Another thing is power density. Another pro audio company started talking about that and introduced a product that is very power dense – it’s L-Acoustics with their new L Series and were very glad to see them do that. Finally, someone else is talking about it and the power it gives you. When you get all those sources closer together it gives you the ability to either throw farther or to be more precise with your coverage within a shorter line length. My opinion is that EAW does immersive better as a speaker than our competitors. It’s just about getting people to understand we are talking about the delivery side of it and that idea of coverage and power density.

What are the key territories for EAW today? And where are you looking to grow into?

EAW has been really split between North America and Asia; those are two very strong regions for us. We are also looking to expand and grow in places like India and Latin America. Europe is interesting for us. On the topic of rebuilding trust, I think it’s going to take the longest to do that in Europe for a number of reasons. There were some pretty bad missteps in management there in years past. So, we are always having to make sure we are spreading the message that we are not the same people, and we don’t do business that way anymore. But that all takes time.

What is your message to the pro audio market about EAW today and where it is headed?

If EAW let you down in the early ‘00s – and it probably did – it is now under new ownership, new management, and we are doing everything we can to re-earn your trust. Give us another look, you’ll like what you see. We are taking a lot of steps to be that company we were back in the ‘90s, so give us a chance.

You can listen to an extended version of this interview below.