Thank you Sculpin for digging up all the info on Skullcandy. Browsing through them, Scullcandy sure looks impressive.

I can only reiterate what you've said before:

“I am starting to believe that our recent news is much better than we think!”

Anyways, I think Sonomax has arrived and the future does look promising. Maybe a little flashback helps to emphasize this point.

This article shows where we were four years ago.

Sonomax boss says his aim is to put hearing on the map

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/business/story.html?id=56084353-26ee-4851-8142-73b2fe73362e

If it fits into your ear and protects or enhances your aural sense, Sonomax Hearing Healthcare Inc. probably is working to improve if not invent it.

If it fits into your ear and protects or enhances your aural sense, Sonomax Hearing Healthcare Inc. probably is working to improve if not invent it.

After accessing the industrial workplace with its hearing protection and hearing protector testing technology, then revolutionizing the hearing aid industry with its own affordable custom-fit device, Sonomax now wants to tackle the wireless communications landscape and offer assistance to Third World nations.

"We want to put hearing on the map," said Nick Laperle, company president and chief operating officer.

Laperle said Sonomax, "with some of the top brains in Canada," has become a leader in research and development as well as the manufacture of intra-ear technologies, after starting up in 1998 "with no product or even a recipe for one."

But he and co-founder Adam Schwartz, executive vice-president, spotted a billion-dollar niche that wasn't being adequately served - the more than 70 million workers worldwide at risk of hearing loss on the job, the No. 1 occupational illness.

"There were huge deficiencies on the market that created an opportunity," Laperle recalled in an interview at the firm's Town of Mount Royal headquarters, home to 55 employees.

Sonomax subsequently came up with SonoPass software that Laperle described as the "industry thermometer" for assessing the efficiency of hearing protectors like its own SonoCustom custom-fitted earplug for protecting against hazardous noise.

Both products are among 26 patents and 16 trademarks granted or pending.

An exclusive licensing agreement was announced Sept. 1 with Indiana-based Aearo Technologies, the global market leader in hearing protection, with its house products already sold in more than 70 countries.

Then Sonomax made its first foray into retail in October with the opening of a HearAtLast outlet inside a London, Ont., Wal-Mart.

Sonomax had acquired VitaSound Audio Inc. the previous month to help fast-track its one-hour hearing-aid retail concept to the Canadian marketplace. The Ontario firm manufactures, sells and distributes hearing aid instruments throughout Canada and the U.S.

VitaSound vice-president Frank Skubski described the pairing with Wal-Mart Canada as "extremely successful" and "pretty remarkable."

He said with walk-by traffic in the tens of thousands at the department store giant, Sonomax is already exceeding its expections for HearAtLast.

In addition to another 10 to 12 HearAtLast outlets planned next year for Wal-Marts, Sonomax is also in discussions with Wal-Mart in the U.S. and Specsavers Opticians, a LensCrafters-style operation in Britain that boasts 745 stores and more than 700 joint venture partners across Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

"We're trying to export (the HearAtLast concept) worldwide," Laperle said.

He pointed out Sonomax is in the process of developing "very low-priced hearing aids with total costs of $50 to $70," and inexpensive solar battery charges for the estimated 200 million hard-of-hearing people in developing countries, whom Laperle said "are even more marginalized socially and economically because it's even more difficult for them to learn."

Being able to serve such a population is "incredible on the business side and phenomenal on the human side," he said.

Sonomax is also attacking the problem of often uncomfortable and ill-fitting generic earpieces used with portable music devices like MP3 players and cell phone adaptors.

It is testing the use of Sonomax's acoustic seal with individually made earpieces for a better fit and improved sound quality.

Jeremie Voix, chief scientist and director of research, said: "We foresee the day when we combine all devices (hearing aid, protection, cell phone and music player) into one."

It's innovations like that which make the public company interesting to investors.

"We believe that Sonomax represents an attractive investment at current levels and are initiating coverage with a speculative buy recommendation and a 12-month target price of 45 cents," Massimo Fiore, a research analyst at institutional advisor Loewen Ondaatje McCutcheon Limited, wrote in a special situations report in November.

"The company's ability to continue as a going concern is highly dependent on maintaining a robust level of profitable sales and generation of positive cash flows," Fiore noted.

He said the triggering of the Aearo licensing agreement "had the effect of cancelling out virtually all of Sonomax's (third-quarter) sales."

Results for the quarter ended Sept. 30 included a net loss of $1.6 million on sales of $98,000 vs. a net loss of $1.6 million on sales of $130,000 for the period in 2005, the company said.

"Notwithstanding its money-raising activities in the second half of 2006 and because of the pause in business - as the rest of the world licensees suspended purchases until the improved version of the SonoCustom device is perfected - Sonomax has a thin working capital position," Fiore said.

Laperle said earnings for 2006 were revised to slightly more than $1 million, but Laperle said 2007 appears to remain on track for revenues of up to $7 million.

For more information, visit www.sonomax.com

mking@thegazette.canwest.com