Sound Off

Shhh ... do you hear that? No? Good, because that means soundproofing companies, and the employees wielding the technology, are doing their job — and doing it well.

The region happens to have an abundance of such companies. One, Tampa-based Acoustiblok, has about 50 employees and dates back to the late 1990s, while one of the newer ones on the scene is Commercial Acoustics. Walker Peek, a former structural engineer at Kennedy Space Center, founded Commercial Acoustics in 2016.

At first, Commercial Acoustics mainly sold sound-muffling curtains for apartment and condo dwellers. It still does, but it has since added an e-commerce division — Soundproof Direct — that sells to project managers and engineers who need large quantities of soundproofing materials for construction projects.

“Walker patented the curtain,” says Fernando Eguez, 23, one of the firm's acoustical specialists. “We pretty much started out with that. But then we noticed that people were coming to us with sound problems that the curtains can't really solve.”

Solid timing

Peek, 30, says it's a good time for companies like Commercial Acoustics to enter the market because of changes to how residential buildings, particularly multifamily developments, are designed and constructed. Also, there are some independent insulation companies in the area, such as Lakeland-based Combee, that offer soundproofing materials, but in general, competition is sparse.

“People have been building buildings the same way for 50 years when it comes to sound attenuation,” he says. “There have been a lot of advances in mold, mildew, rain ... a lot of comfort and aesthetic improvements. But with sound, it's gone the opposite way, because we're trying to build with cheaper, thinner materials to save the environment.”

Peek says that for sound purposes, the worst thing possible is to stack two layers of drywall on top of each other, which happens regularly in construction. Commercial Acoustics recently introduced a product that replaces the need for those layers.

That product is a soundproofing membrane made from a polymer, produced in North Carolina, that Peek has tested and developed over the past five years. It can be deployed in walls, floors, ceilings and any other area of a building that needs to have sound blocked or absorbed.

And it differs from mass-loaded vinyl (MLV), a material that's been popular for soundproofing for decades. MLV is “a PVC-based product,” Peek says. “That's really important to our construction firms, because PVC becomes brittle after a few years.”

PVC-based products also contain volatile organic compounds, Peek says — another reason Commercial Acoustics has taken a different approach with its raw materials. “It's a material that you don't want people to breathe in over a 10-, 20-year period. It's like radon. It's not going to kill you in a day, a week, a year. But 10 years, maybe 15 or 20 years ...”

The 'right direction'

In addition to installing soundproofing panels, Peek says, the company's acoustics experts can design and implement white-noise systems for offices that need to have an annoying sound muffled without resorting to absolute silence.

Also, Commercial Acoustics' residential soundproofing business is still going strong. The company's sound-muffling curtains, which start around $200 apiece and go up from there, depending on size, are often shipped to apartment and condo dwellers in noisy and high-density urban centers. Most of the company's large sales of commercial soundproofing products, says Peek, have been to clients in Texas, Ohio and Colorado.

The company has grown to employ 13 full-time staff members, Peek says, plus a seven-member installation team that handles local jobs. The list of local jobs the company has worked on includes the Hyatt Aqualea Resort Condominium Hotel in Clearwater Beach and the Florida Studio Theatre in Sarasota. For out-of-town jobs, Peek will send a staff member to act as an on-site construction administrator.

Commercial Acoustics has provided soundproofing and acoustical engineering services to dozens of businesses and other organizations, such as museums and universities, in 15 states. In addition to Tampa, it maintains corporate offices in Chicago and Boston.

“Our next big key hire is going to be somebody in the New York area or Texas to have more of a footprint there,” says Peek, who adds that Commercial Acoustics is on track to exceed $2 million in revenue this year.

Peek says Commercial Acoustics was initially self-financed, with help from his parents and godparents, before attracting the attention of investors. It recently closed on a venture capital investment with Tampa-based Baldwin Beach Capital, run by brothers Keenan and Hannibal Baldwin. Peek, who says Commercial Acoustics has been “capital-positive since day one,” remains the majority shareholder in the company.

“We're all happy because of the growth, because of the cash flow, everything's moving in the right direction,” he says. “We're definitely a slimmer margin company than basically any of the other soundproofing companies. Which is why we're going, price wise, at one-fifth or even one-seventh of what other people are going in.”

Another player

If Commercial Acoustics wants to play with bigger stereos, it might come up against another Tampa company, Acoustiblok. Entrepreneur Lahnie Johnson, known to friends and colleagues as L.J., founded and now runs the company.

Like Peek, Johnson, 59, has a background in the aerospace industry. He later spent about 20 years with a company that specialized in home-theater environments, “creating sensuous sound systems,” as he describes it.

But then, Johnson says, “I saw the writing on the wall ... I saw whole generations of people no longer listening to million-dollar audio systems in their home theaters, or what have you; they were listening to ear buds, iPods, iPads ... and I said, 'This industry is over. Done.' I did it before anybody else in the industry.”

Johnson's current venture takes its name from his signature invention, Acoustiblok. It's a soft, but heavy, material that transforms sound energy into trace amounts of heat. The material moves, microscopically, as sound waves hit it, but the heat that's generated dissipates almost immediately. Says Johnson: “It's the first law of thermodynamics: You can't create or destroy energy; it just changes.”

Johnson sometimes demonstrates the power of Acoustiblok for visitors. He places a cylinder of the material over a speaker blaring the sound of a crying baby. Un-muffled, the sound is intolerable. But as soon as the cylinder enveloped the speaker ... sweet silence.

Acoustiblok expanded its Tampa facility in 2014, where its 50 employees now produce a range of other soundproofing and insulation products, such as AcoustiFence and ThermaBlok, respectively.

Johnson declined to provide revenue information, only to say the company has grown every year “without fail.”

Peek says he has spoken with Johnson about the soundproofing business and doesn't intend to compete for clients.

“They get a lot of the airport contracts. The big municipal contracts... they're looking for a lot more of the big factory operations,” Peek says. “And we are very multifamily and commercial focused. So we're looking to soundproof apartment complexes, condos (and) homes.”