Universal Balun Eliminates up to 7 SKUs

As president of Atlantic Technology, Peter Tribeman knows how to make big loudspeakers, but he also knows it's the little things in the field that can make or break an integration business.

So he really listened when longtime friend Jay Trieber, owner of Home Theater Concepts in Boston, mentioned his big problem problem with baluns: Too many times his service guys were unable to fix a system because they had the wrong baluns on the truck. When you have lots analog systems installed in the field to service, that wasted time can drain profit.

“I could have an inventory of $6,000 worth of analog baluns from six or seven SKUs in my inventory and still the technician would either forget to re-stock the truck, bring the wrong one to the job, or we would be out of stock of the precise one we needed,” he says with frustration. “Plus, I always felt like I was overpaying for them, whether they are for Cat 5 to component, Composite, S-Video, stereo analog or IR passthrough. I knew there had to be a better way.”

Sound familiar?

More than once over the years, Trieber voiced that frustration to Tribeman, and last year the duo decided to do something about it. They joined forces with Engne Tang, an engineer from Sherbourn Electronics for many years, to form Transformative Engineering, originally for the sole purpose of designing a product to solve Trieber’s balun problem.

Trieber is president of the new company, Tribeman is vice president of sales and marketing, and Tang is vice president of engineering.

In short order, the trio designed the Omni-Balun, a device that enables a technician to always have the right analog conversion balun in the field.

The unit has a computer-grade multi-layer circuit board, removable pass-through terminal connector, shielded aluminum enclosure and other features. No more carrying multiple SKUs and no chance of a service technician not having the correct balun in the field.

“I might use 50 to 100 of these units alone on a single commercial job,” says Trieber, speaking of Home Theater Concepts. Indeed, his installation company acts as a perfect beta tester and fountain of ideas for new products based on the in-the-field experience.

HDMI Extender, Amp and Other Products
Thus, from that first product that debuted in August 2010, Transformative Engineering now moved into other products, all with the goal of building high-quality devices that offer dealers need in the field, along with solid margins. For example, its Cat 5 extender for HDMI—the HD-1—uses HDBaseT technology and, according to Trieber, is the first extender on the market to comply with HDBaseT’s spec that calls for a 24V power supply at the transmitter side of the extender. The unit uses Valens Semiconductor chipset to transmit up to 1080p signals using HDMI 1.4a.

Both the HD-1 and Omni-Balun are sold through distribution for dealers. Transformative Engineering is now working on an analog stereo balun, a small behind-the-TV amplifier, and an HDMI-over-coax extender with better shielding and power supply. All three products will be in the company’s booth at the CEDIA Expo in September and be shipping shortly thereafter.