Hearing--and Responding--to the Demands of Consumers in the Digital Age

Jerry Harvey, CTO and founder of Ultimate Ears (Irvine, CA), has been living and breathing music for decades. A former sound engineer and audio technician for Van Halen, he combined his passions for music and technology to develop a custom-fitted earpiece for on-stage performers. The Ultimate Ears personal monitor grants musicians access to clear, high-quality sound while simultaneously providing comfort and style. But it wasn't until Harvey was introduced to Apple's iPod digital music player in 2001 that he realized the universal appeal of his invention and moved to modify the completely customized manufacturing process to meet the wider-and more lucrative-demands of the consumer marketplace.

Rock and Roll Beginnings

While working as a sound engineer for multi-platinum rock powerhouse Van Halen in the 1990s, Harvey got his fill of live music and stage performances on a nightly basis. But, after one show, Harvey overheard drummer Alex Van Halen complain that the earpiece he was using to hear himself and the rest of the band onstage provided poor audio quality, doing little to block out the noise of the high-powered audio equipment the group used to perform-to say nothing of the roar of the crowd.

Determined to find a solution to Van Halen's problem, Harvey set to work developing an earpiece that would block out external noise by fitting snugly in the wearer's ear. His goal was to preserve both the clarity of the sound produced by the earpiece as well as the hearing of the individual wearers, as volume levels could remain low if external noise was neutralized.

Molding a Success Story

To ensure that his earpieces would produce the highest quality sound possible, Harvey incorporated dual speakers in each monitor, linking them with a crossover mechanism to generate both low and high sound frequencies. The end result was crystal clear sound quality that allowed musicians to easily distinguish between each individual guitar riff and snap of the snare drum.

But external noise still posed a problem. To address this issue, Harvey elected to mimic the process audiologists and hearing aid manufacturers use when creating in-the-ear (ITE) hearing aids. He referred his clients to professional audiologists, who would create a silicone rubber impression of the ear canal and outer ear. The impression would then be digitized with a 3D laser scanner, converted to an STL file, and sent to Ulimate Ears' manufacturing partner, InTech Manufacturing (Seymour, IN), who would fabricate the model using stereolithography. Next, the earpiece would be returned to Ultimate Ears to be outfitted with microspeakers, circuit boards, and cross-overs, and finely tuned using an active ear simulator that enabled technicians to graphically see different sound frequencies. Ultimately, the earpiece would be sealed and hand-crafted to resemble jewelry, further adding to the value of each custom-fitted Ultimate Ears personal monitor.

Off to (Mass) Market

The company initially focused its marketing and sales efforts on professional musicians. The industry response was overwhelming-Ultimate Ears quickly captured the majority market share for onstage custom-fitted earpieces. But Mindy and Jerry Harvey soon recognized the business potential that existed for Ultimate Ears in the new consumer market that had emerged as a result of the popularity of iPod technology. iPod users were far more receptive to purchasing earpieces that could offer a superior fit and better sound quality than music enthusiasts in the past, presenting Ultimate Ears with a perfect opportunity for expansion.

Jerry and Mindy were confident that many consumers would be willing and able to purchase a set of high-quality earpieces created specifically for them, but they also understood that the fitting and manufacturing processes posed a barrier to full-market penetration. In order to maximize the market potential of its product, Ultimate Ears decided to use the insight it had gained through years of customized manufacturing in order to expand the company's product line.

After 10 years of producing custom-manufactured earpieces, Ultimate Ears had amassed a wealth of information on the different shapes and contours of the human inner ear. Using this information, Ultimate Ears constructed a "universal" earpiece that would fit most wearers, albeit not as perfectly as the original custom-fitted personal monitors. Sound quality produced by the universal Ultimate Ears earpiece, branded the Ultimate Ears Super.fi, would be far superior to that of traditional audio earpieces, and Ultimate Ears would be able to reduce the price of the unit to reflect the simplified process.

The elimination of the custom-fitting process allowed consumers to have immediate access to the universal Super.fi earpiece models, and retail prices were reduced accordingly-sometimes by as much as 50 percent. In addition, Ultimate Ears began to package each Super.fi earpiece model with a five-piece customization kit, allowing consumers to select on their own the silicon tip that best fit their ear shape.

By adapting its rapid manufacturing process in response to the demands of the consumer marketplace, Ultimate Ears had quickly become one of the most well-known providers of consumer audio accessories. The company offered consumers the option of choosing a fully customized, rapidly-manufactured earpiece, delivered in about a week, or of walking into a retail outlet to select a pair of Super.fi universal earpieces directly off the shelf. Through its innovative adaptation of rapid development technologies-and by effectively anticipating the demands of the consumer marketplace-Ultimate Ears has transitioned from a niche market supplier of on-stage personal monitors to a major manufacturer of high-end audio accessories.

Mindy Harvey is the CEO of Ultimate Ears (Irvine, CA). For more information, visit www.ultimateears.com.