Speaker technology strikes successful chord

SLS International Inc.

dba SLS Loudspeakers

Address: 1650 W. Jackson St., Ozark, MO 65721

Top executive: John Gott, CEO

2003 revenues: $995,541

2004 revenues: $2.3 million

2005 revenues: $4.3 million

3-year growth: 332 percent

Employees: 54

Ah, the sweet sounds of success.

One look at the list of jobs SLS International Inc. is working on, and the company’s growth is immediately apparent.

SLS is working on projects at NASCAR tracks in Fontana, Calif., Daytona, Fla., and Phoenix, while locally the company’s speakers are going in at the Campbell 16 Ciné and Missouri State University’s Hammons Student Center.

Commercial business remains SLS’ core, the company also is infiltrating other aspects of the sound market, with a little help from some famous folks.

SLS has received endorsements from legends in the music industry – Sting and Quincy Jones – as well as from Mark Burnett, producer of TV shows including “Survivor” and “The Apprentice.”

It’s Donald Trump’s program where SLS products are getting one of their biggest publicity coups to date.

The new SLS Q-Line Gold series of consumer surround-sound systems will be featured in the final “The Apprentice” episode of the season, to air in May. The program coincides with the system’s release at Best Buy stores nationwide, where Gott said Q-Line systems will sell for $799. SLS’ Q-Line Silver already is available at Wal-Mart stores.

That’s the kind of publicity that has allowed the company to grow 332 percent from 2003 to 2005.

Company CEO John Gott said the company’s growth – from six employees at the time of initial public offering in 2001 to a current staff of 57 and a 150,000-square-foot facility in Ozark – can all be traced back to one thing: the technology.

“I wouldn’t take this company out into the world and compete with companies (like) Harman, JBL, Sony, Pioneer (and) Bose with the same technology that they have,” Gott said. “There’s no way – we don’t have the cash available to do that. The reason we’re doing it is because of the technology – it’s less expensive, and it sounds better. It’s the technology.”

The company makes speakers ranging in size from home surround-sound systems to stadium and amphitheater public-address systems. All use the company’s patented planar ribbon drivers, which Gott said eliminate the need for numerous moving parts that can alter the sound.

Gott has come a long way from his initial business: The Rock Shop, a small music store he and a partner founded in 1972 in the Plaza Shopping Center.

Gott’s business ventures went through several incarnations – supplying public-address systems for touring bands visiting Springfield and other venues in the four-state area, managing bands in the 1980s, and designing and installing speaker cabinets.

It was when he saw the ribbon technology used in speakers at a trade show in the mid-1990s that he knew what direction he wanted to take the company.

“Ribbon (driver speakers) had been around for 25 or 30 years, but only in the hi-fi industry,” he said. “It’s a great way to make sound, but they were very fragile and didn’t make a lot of power. I wanted to evolve that and make these devices usable for the professional market, where they could handle 1,000 watts and 130 decibels.”

At that point he met Russian acoustical physicist Igor Levitsky, who helped him develop the ribbon technology into a product applicable to large-scale use.

But despite SLS’ impressive growth in recent years, Gott said the best is yet to come.

With the company’s increased emphasis on the consumer market, including continued work on new home theater systems and a soon-to-be-released line of ribbon-driver headphones, Gott said the consumer sector of his company has nowhere to go but up.

He expects to hit $200 million in commercial products, and as much as $1 billion in consumer products, in the next five years.

“We’re in that big consumer retail curve now – we’re expecting growth of five to 10 times last year’s growth,” Gott said. “It’s because of the new headphones and the consumer products. The core business – the commercial products, which we manufacture here – we’re sustaining that nice steady growth, and we expect that to continue over the next five to 10 years. But the consumer products are going to grow exponentially.”[[In-content Ad]]