Throughout the past year, Dunedin-based company PERREAUX has been awarded for its innovative amplifier design that has never been seen before in the market. We sit down with Paul Sammes, the Marketing Manager at PERREAUX to talk about the design process, being awarded and where the brand going in the future.

Edwin Nieman took over the company in 2018 to bring something new to the industry while also acknowledging the 50 years of tradition and ground-breaking history PERREAUX has created.

But soon Nieman realised how slow the hi-fi industry was moving and all the products were starting to look the same.

“In fact, nothing really has changed in the hi-fi industry probably since the late 70s in terms of some of the design,” says Sammes.

Wanting to bring something new to the market, PERREAUX looked at what it could bring to the industry.

Sammes says that PERREAUX decided to bring colourful personalisation into a market that was predominantly grey and black packaging.

“If you look around the audio industry, you’ll see that most of them are silver and black or white at very best. Very few amplifiers have any colour,” adds Sammes.

“When it’s something a bit more personal like a hi-fi amplifier that you spent a lot of money and a lot of time sitting in front of it, it seems strange to me that the industry really hadn’t had that level of personalisation yet.”

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The idea was something never before seen in the world of hi-fi, but in order to create the product, Sammes says PERREAUX hit “quite a few brick walls”.

“Initially when we were getting the idea off the ground, we did face quite a bit of conservative pushback with people,” he says.

“It’s an industry where attitudes change slowly and revolutions are fairly slow.”

Soon after releasing the multi-coloured range of amplifiers, PERREAUX was met with rave and craze regarding the design innovation they brought to the table.

The PERREAUX 200iX amplifier comes in a range of different colours, with its periwinkle colour being the most popular product.

The product has received a couple of awards and a “stack of effectively five-star reviews” especially with PERREAUX competing against companies like Harman or Samsung.

Awards include SoundStage! Australia’s 2022 Product of the Year for Innovative Design.

An industry that is often male dominated, the personalised amplifier opened the flood gates for a new customer-base in the hi-fi industry.

“Traditionally it’s been quite unwelcoming to younger people and women, and this is where this product has shown that this seems to be where we’re getting quite a lot of interest from,” he says.

“We just like making very beautiful product and like making it customisable”

For PERREAUX, 2023 is looking to be a “very bright year” says Sammes as the business focuses more locally and in Asia while continuing to make innovative designs.

“We’ve been developing other products as well. We’ve actually got some more products on the drawing board, which are in late development at the moment.”