Peak makes noise taking sound digital

BOULDER — The group of entrepreneurs that would found Peak Audio got their start together in one of the oldest and most hallowed rooms in all of the United States.

The company was formed in 1992 with its first project, inventing a sound system for the chamber of the U.S. Senate.

“They wanted to go to a consultant to design it,´ said John Britton, one of the company’s four founders. “This kind of system didn’t exist. The audio consultant responsible for specifying it had contacts with some of us. That was the project that got the company going.”

Britton, Charles Anderson, Rich Zwiebel and Tom Benjamin are recipients of an Entrepreneur of Distinction Award presented at Esprit Entrepreneur 2001, sponsored by the Boulder Chamber of Commerce. The award salutes the four men for their entrepreneurial spirit.

“Boulder has all the resources you need to be an entrepreneur,” Zwiebel said. “You can find all you need.”

Part of the criteria for nomination was that the business idea be original, and that the business concept involves “vision, risk and a special sense of creativity.”

The last quality is especially true of Peak.

The Boulder-based company has developed technology that eliminates much of the need for large analog sound cables, enabling large-scale venues such as a sports arena or theme park to dramatically reduce labor hours and cost. The sound is delivered via a 100-megabit Ethernet network, which requires much thinner cables, and runs on the Microsoft Windows operating system.

“Whatever equipment you want, you can do it on the computer,” Zwiebel said. “It’s virtual wiring.”

Zwiebel declined to comment on the company’s revenue.

The 18-employee company doesn’t install its own products. Instead, it outsources to installers and licenses its products to other companies for manufacture under different brand names.

“We’re licensed with 17 of the largest professional audio companies,” Zwiebel said. “Our expertise is developing things that people need.”

Peak’s CobraNet technology is licensed to Quilter Sound Company Audio in Costa Mesa, Calif., as “RAVE,” or routing audio via Ethernet. RAVE allows users to transport up to 64 channels of digital audio using CobraNet technology.

“The same technology that has carried data, they’ve been able to use that hardware to transmit audio signals in real time,´ said Barry Andrews, chief executive officer of Quilter.

This can mean huge savings for companies requiring extensive sound systems. Peak says that a typical convention center job would cost $163,185 using analog cabling. Using CobraNet, the company says it would cost $36,660.

Although the savings sound alluring, CobraNet isn’t for everyone, Andrews said.

“For some jobs, it’s not cost-effective,” he said. “On very large jobs where there is a great distance to cover, or a large number of channels, CobraNet offers a real advantage. In smaller jobs where the distances aren’t as large, it’s still not as cost-effective.”

Andrews said he believes this will change.

“It’s common with a lot of technology that the application is narrow until the cost of the technology goes down,” he said. “With time, we hope it will be quite widely used.”

For now, Peak’s customers are large, high profile businesses. Peak has provided sound technology for the Sydney Opera House in Australia, the last three Super Bowls and the world’s largest theme parks.

Peak’s other products include CobraCAD, which replaces the traditional computer-assisted design (CAD) interface that audio designers have used for years. CobraCAD helps audio designers use digital technology without having to train on a physical audio network.

In April, Cirrus Logic Inc., an Austin, Texas-based semiconductor manufacturer, acquired Peak Audio. Peak now operates as a subsidiary of Cirrus (Nasdaq: CRUS). Peak’s intellectual property and knowledge of digital sound appealed to Cirrus, Zwiebel said.

“In order to make our technology the standard, it must be imbedded in semiconductors,” he said. “The relationship is a symbiosis.”

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