Growing up in Ohio as a pro audio obsessed teen, Timothy Smith, better known as T.J. Smith, was so crazy about Eastern Acoustic Works’ (EAW) audio equipment that he had a car bumper sticker dedicated to his favourite brand. Many years later, in early 2016, when the call came through asking him to take over as EAW’s president and general manager, he could hardly turn it down.
At the time Smith was employed by Harman Professional in Salt Lake City, Utah. The call came from Mark Graham, now owner of Symmetrix. At the time, Graham was CEO of LOUD Technologies, which then owned EAW. “He reached out and asked me to lead EAW. And he said something amazing that I didn’t understand – ’I think you can help us sell it’. I’d never seen myself as a seller of companies, but I was such a huge fan of EAW, I said ‘absolutely, yes’.”
Smith, a Midwesterner at heart, had never imagined living on the East Coast. But his wife Michele, as always, was up for the adventure. The initial offer was for two years, then the family could return to the Midwest. But when the new owners, Italy’s RCF Group, took over in 2018, they wanted him to stay and rebuild the company. “I couldn’t argue with that. So here we are on the East Coast nine years later,” he says.
EAW has flourished under RCF after a period of fits and starts, he says. Previous owners focused on extracting profits at the expense of investing in the future. “It was understandable, but it doesn’t build brands. Now we have ownership that naturally wants to make money, but also pours funds into the future of the brand,” Smith points out. “A great example is our amazing, fully owned Mexican factory, which opened a year ago and is running prototypes of new products in conjunction with production at EAW’s HQ in Franklin, Massachusetts.”
Smith’s destiny was determined at the age of 13 when he began operating pro audio equipment at his church in Ohio. He mixed the sound for a local group and “caught the bug”, going on to study engineering at Oral Roberts University, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, from 1995 to 2000, as a means of getting into pro audio. Sure enough, his first job was as an amplifier design engineer at Crown Audio. A short time later, Crown was acquired by Harman, where Smith stayed for 15 years, moving from engineering to business management roles. Recognising his leadership qualities, Harman paid for his MBA at Indiana University South Bend from 2004 to 2007.
CAREER DEVELOPMENT
Smith has only worked for two companies – Harman and EAW – but he has been prepared to zigzag around to develop his career. The most intrepid move came in 2009 when he was asked to become senior director of Harman’s China Business Unit, in Shenzhen. With three children in tow, the family uprooted to the other side of the world in a spirit of adventure.
“Everyone’s path in pro audio could be different, but I’m always surprised by the number of people who reject opportunities due to uncertainty. Many people are not prepared to move out of their comfort zone – they shrink back and say ‘I’m happy where I am’ – but I think I have what is called a ‘pioneering personality’, so I am willing to take calculated risks,” he adds.
Having said that, Smith says he would not have taken those risks without his wife Michele who has always made sacrifices to support him. “With every opportunity, the answer could be yes, because I had someone at home that said, ‘all right, let’s go’,” he explains. “She was ready for the adventure of raising her three children in Shenzhen in China, and then just moving all over the place.”
The family stayed more than four years in China before returning to the US in 2013. This time they landed in Salt Lake City, where Smith took over as senior director of Harman’s global signal processing business unit, which included the dbx, BSS, Lexicon and DigiTech brands. The role lasted until 2016 when the surprise call came from EAW.
During his nine years with EAW, pro audio has changed priorities, and Smith now believes the days of articulated, passive line arrays are numbered. “One of the pinch points in the industry is everyone wanting great sound, but not wanting to see it, or give much room to it. They want less space on the truck devoted to audio. The systems have to get smaller and be easily concealed. So, I think the articulated line array, which came up in the early 2000s, is in its sunset period,” he says.
Smith believes that EAW’s ADAPTive systems provide an optimal solution to new industry priorities. These integrated systems, he explains, create a single acoustic source by utilising small and closely spaced sources. In this way, according to Smith, ADAPTive systems conform to the rules of line arrays better than any popular line array on the market today.
“As a result of the discipline employed in the acoustics of ADAPTive systems they sound better, take up less space and can do things no other pro audio loudspeaker system can. ADAPTive is beyond beam forming,” says Smith, adding: “We have this great acoustics platform, and we are continuing to mature that into the software and the network audio distribution infrastructure that supports modern deployments. If we can continue to do that, we will reap the benefits of being a first mover in that space.”
IMMERSIVE AUDIO
A striking example of an ADAPTive installation, Smith says, was in the Faith Community Church, a contemporary-style worship congregation based in Tucson, Arizona. With the help of Michael Garrison Associates, EAW provided a 360-degree immersive audio set-up using 19 ADAPTive AC6 column loudspeakers to create a 360-degree immersive design.
Smith comments: “It’s so rewarding to see the tech solving problems. The church had a low ceiling. It was shallow and wide, so the geometry suggested it needed a point source system, but it falls off for every doubling of the distance. So people on the edges and corners wouldn’t hear the speaker at the opposite side at the same level. But the ADAPTive tech allowed us to create the same acoustic experience underneath that speaker as the person on the other side of the room 20 metres away. The church says everybody feels like they’re in a room with other people, not as though they’re being performed at.”
For those not ready to make the technological leap to ADAPTive installations, EAW continues to design more traditional loudspeaker products. Recently, it released the NT206L loudspeaker, a dual 6.5in line array with an adjustable horn flare. It is the first in the new NT series.
“As a wooden self-powered system, it is lighter and louder than its passive (externally amplified) competition,” says Smith. “So you have this small, self-contained system that is compatible with the fact we’re getting less space in the truck and less space on the stage. Excitingly, it was previewed from our new Mexican facility.”
As the leader of EAW, Smith has built many of the aspects of the new standalone company, including implementing an SAP Business One planning system and establishing HR processes. His leadership style is governed by two rules. The first is that “victory goes to him that doesn’t lose his shit!”. Smith expands: “It’s the idea that things are going to go wrong. And as a leader, your job is to be calm. Nobody’s going to follow you if you’re as freaked out as they are. They need to see somebody who is working on the problem, even if it’s dire. Don’t pretend the problem doesn’t exist. But definitely be a steady hand.”
Smith’s second rule, which actually has two parts, came from a former mentor at Harman, Blake Augsburger. He advised Smith to ‘take care of your people and execute’. “So, make sure people feel respected and would be missed if they weren’t here. But at the same time, you have to show them a way to success,” Smith says.
‘MIDWESTERN GUY’’
In his nine years living on the East Coast, Smith has come to accept that he will always be a “Midwestern guy” at heart and never feel completely at home. Nevertheless, there are many positive aspects. “It isn’t a bad place at all. There’s great history here and there are plenty of outdoors camping and hiking, which we did a lot of when the three boys were younger. The biggest negative is ageing parents being far away,” he says.
Smith has been married to Michele for 25 years. They tied the knot as soon as they graduated. The three boys, so young when the family uprooted to China, have grown up a lot. They are 17, 20 and 22. And the 17-year-old now drives a car: “On some level, he may as well not live at home! So Michele and I are turning a page as a family to being alone again.”
Recently, Smith picked up a hobby of using 1950s film cameras to make family videos. The old-fashioned technology offers a pleasing contrast to the high-tech world of EAW. “Basically I love anything without a battery,” he explains. “I picked it up in a flea market. It had a wind-up action and I thought that was cool. When I hit the shutter button, it made a whirring, clicking sound and I was hooked. The price tag was $15. It makes jittery, flashy black and white films that are so much fun to watch.”
Another passion is live music. But in this context, it is Smith’s love of pro audio that shines through. “I like being in that environment where a band is playing, and there’s a room full of people and creatives are doing their thing,” he enthuses. “But the technology – hooking it all up, watching everything work together to create a functioning system, so there’s this canvas that the creatives are playing on – that is truly fulfilling for me. I love it.”
