The Hit Factory: How SR117 Built the Machine, and DM6 Took the Victory Lap

From missing my first TEC Award to becoming the face of the ceremony — what happens when you build systems instead of chasing wins

I've been nominated for TEC Awards multiple times in my career. Never won.

When the SR117 got nominated in 2023, I didn't think this would be the one — so I left NAMM early to spend time with my mom in New Hampshire.

The minute I landed, my phone exploded. Text after text: "DUDE YOU WON." "Where are you?" "You're not here to accept it?"

I had hedged — told my mate that on the off chance I won, please accept it for me. I called him immediately.

"Yeah mate... I'd been waiting in the bar line forever and I was finally just about to be up for my turn when they called your name. Sorry."

So I won my first TEC Award for the SR117 — and wasn't there to hold it.

Ten months later, when the DM6 kick drum microphone won, I made damn sure I was on that stage.

The following year, my photo became the face of the TEC Awards. The image of me holding that award is now used in all their marketing materials.

That's what a hit factory looks like.

Building the Machine: The SR117 Launch

By the time we launched the SR117 in April 2023, Earthworks had already refined a launch system across three prior products: the ICON and ICON Pro streaming mics, then the ETHOS broadcast microphone. Each launch taught us something. Each one debugged friction points in the coordination infrastructure.

The SR117 was where it all came together under pressure.

The Impossible Brief

The design parameter was simple: create the best live vocal microphone we could for under $200. Not another $1,000 microphone the world doesn't need — something that would work for churches, solo artists, coffee shop performers, and arena tours alike.

The SR117 had to deliver condenser quality with dynamic safety. It had to sound great with minimal EQ. It had to handle plosives, wind noise, and sibilance better than anything at its price point. And it had to work for staff engineers and first-time volunteers equally well.

We had a compressed timeline to coordinate beta testing, manufacturing, dealer activation, press coverage, and strategic placements before launch.

The Kennedy Bullets

We called them Kennedy bullets — seven prototype units tracked like assassination evidence as they moved through our network.

Serial numbers. UPS tracking codes. Who had them, where they went, return status logged in spreadsheets.

These weren't just beta units. They were favor tokens moving through relationships built over twenty years:

Brian Pomp (Olivia Rodrigo's monitor engineer) got one. Kevin Glendinning tested two different sensitivity versions. Froggy put one through real tour conditions. Paul Scodova, Tim Lessons, Michael Lewis — all engineers whose opinions mattered because they work under pressure every night.

But the units didn't just sit with one person. They moved. Froggy's second unit went to KG.  

5 production units landed at Gateway Church in Dallas — a megachurch where we knew they were running DPA 4018 mics at $1,500 each. Julian Collazos, their Associate Pastor of Worship Production, tested the SR117 in a live recording session on Wednesday, March 22nd. BUT we needed those units back by Thursday so they could arrive at America's Got Talent on Friday for filming on Saturday.

Julian shipped them Thursday morning. AGT had them Friday. By Saturday, the SR117 was being used on broadcast television before official launch. Those same five units — Gateway Church live recording on Wednesday, AGT broadcast filming on Saturday.

That's the Kennedy bullet strategy: limited inventory moving through high-value targets in rapid sequence, creating the appearance of widespread adoption when you're operating with seven total units.

Harvesting Language

While the Kennedy bullets were in motion, we were extracting vocabulary.

The beta survey wasn't just product validation. It was systematic language harvesting:

"How do you feel about the voicing?"
"What EQ settings did you use and why?"
"List any vulnerabilities at the sub-$200 price point."
"Would you attach your name to this microphone?"

We asked engineers to test to failure — replicate worst-case scenarios, push the mic to feedback, use bad mic technique, test in crowded rooms with low ceilings and cheap equipment.

Then we listened for the phrases they used.

Dave Godowsky (Director of the Artist Board at iZotope) said: "I like how flat it is, it feels less committal. That's a problem I have with a lot of other mics — I'm forced into committing to a certain sonic approach. This has best of both worlds."

Matt Lowe at Free Chapel megachurch said: "We swapped from a DPA 4018 which is about $1,500 to this and we want this over the DPA. This thing will literally be in almost every church in America."

Those phrases became the vocabulary that dealers, press, and customers would inherit and repeat.

The Back-of-Box Script

We wrote the packaging copy knowing that every box on every dealer shelf would become a vocabulary delivery vehicle:

"Designed to remove the technical obstacles that get in the way of creativity:

• Voiced with rich, clear lows, smooth vibrant mids and open airy highs
• Tight pattern control across all frequencies for maximum feedback rejection
• Enhanced wind, plosive and sibilance protection
• Minimal handling noise"

That language wasn't marketing. It was the script that YouTubers would read in unboxing videos, that dealers would repeat in sales conversations, that engineers would cite in testimonials.

We harvested the vocabulary from Gareth (Earthworks CEO and designer), compressed it into four bullet points, and seeded it into the market so everyone would parrot the same language.

The Church Market Thesis

The SR117 handheld was $199. The SR3117 wireless capsule was $179 — cheaper than the handheld, making it a no-brainer upgrade for churches already running Shure, Sennheiser, or Lectrosonics wireless systems.

The thesis: Churches have 8-12 singers on stage every Sunday. One engineer tests the handheld. If it works, the entire stage gets upgraded. Wireless capsules at $179 make bulk orders feasible.

We were betting that one sale would turn into ten more.

April 1, 2023: The Coordinated Blitz

Launch day wasn't a single announcement. It was simultaneous activation across every channel:

Dealers received launch emails with the Jason Batuyong testimonial: "The SR3117 will be on every stage, every production, and every church by the end of this year."

Press Blasts went out with  the same messaging with giveaway contests (Tape Op, Technologies for Worship Magazine).

Creators got review units (Casey Cooper had been coordinating launch video content since January).

Rental houses got strategic placement articles (we'd already stocked SIR Studios LA with SR117 units in every rehearsal space).

Churches received targeted outreach through Technologies for Worship Magazine and testimonial videos from Matt Lowe at Free Chapel.

Everyone launched simultaneously. Everyone used the same vocabulary. Every channel reinforced every other channel.

The Numbers That Mattered

The SR117 load-in numbers exceeded our targets. Dealers committed to initial inventory based on the beta validation and pre-launch coordination.

But what mattered more: sell-through velocity was faster than we'd projected.

When dealers reordered, their second orders were larger than their initial load-ins. That's not marketing momentum — that's market pull. The channel was consuming product faster than we'd modeled, which meant the church market thesis wasn't just validated by testimonials; it was validated by cash register receipts.

Dealers don't reorder at higher volume because they believe your marketing. They reorder because they've seen sell-through velocity and they trust the product won't sit on shelves. The reload orders told us what the testimonials couldn't: the market was actually buying it, not just talking about it.

April 5, 2023: The First Testimonial

Four days after launch, we received the first customer testimonial.

Scott Bartholomew — Technical Director at Grand Avenue Baptist Church in Fort Smith, Arkansas — sent an unsolicited email that validated everything:

"I got an email Monday about the SR117, immediately ordered it from Sweetwater (couldn't believe the price!), got it yesterday, and tried it out last night at home.

"So far, I've been blown away by this mic! I don't know how to describe it. It just sounds like… me, haha. Especially monitoring in IEMs. It felt very natural, and I didn't feel myself having to worry about mic technique as much as I do with other mics.

"Since I was just getting a feel for it, I only put a HPF at 80hz and left the EQ flat. I had a small amount of compression going on, but not much at all.

"We've got 9 singers across the stage each week and they (and our volunteer FOH guy) could use all the help they can get, so I'll certainly be considering a capsule change for them!!"

I was at Sweetwater headquarters in Fort Wayne for a post-launch dealer Morning Meeting when this email arrived. I immediately forwarded it to the Sweetwater team with the subject line: "First SR117 Testimonial with a +9 sales opportunity."

One handheld sold on April 4th. Nine wireless capsules committed by April 5th. The church market thesis validated in four days.

I sent the testimonial to Mitch Gallagher (Sweetwater's Editorial Director) and Lynn Fuston (Manager of Written Content) with a note: "It's almost as if this customer was listening to every single thing that all of us were talking about. He comes away with the exact same conclusions."

Scott's feedback mirrored what the Sweetwater team had experienced when they tested the SR117 during our April 4-5 visit. His language validated their experience — which meant they could now confidently recommend it to customers.

Within weeks, Mitch was using the SR117 for his own band. Jimmy Blankenship from Sweetwater Event Productions wanted units for their Saturday productions. The in-house adoption cascade had begun.

The Press Validation

Over the following months, the reviews came:

Sound on Sound (UK pro audio authority)
Recording Magazine (US industry standard)
Tape Op (indie recording bible)
Headliner ("Uncompromising clarity at a sensible price")

And fifteen months later, Forbes: Mark Sparrow published a feature with the headline, "Earthworks Audio's SR117 Is The Mic That Van Morrison Loves."

The same Mark Sparrow playbook we'd used for the ETHOS broadcast mic: identify journalists who cover the space well, deliver a story they can't refuse (award validation + artist adoption + price point), let them write the feature.

The TEC Award I Missed

In January 2024, the SR117 was nominated for a TEC Award.

I'd been nominated multiple times over my career. Never won. I didn't think this would be the one, so I left NAMM early to spend time with my mom.

The minute I got there, my phone exploded. WE WON....

I'd told my mate that on the off chance I won, please accept it for me. But when I called him: "Yeah mate... I'd been waiting in the bar line forever and I was finally just about to be up for my turn when they called your name. Sorry."

So I won my first TEC Award — for a product we'd launched with seven prototype units, coordinated through a ridicoulously compressed timeline and I wasn't there to hold it.

The Victory Lap: DM6 Launch

Ten months later, we launched the DM6 kick drum microphone on February 14, 2024.

Same playbook. Just better results.

DM6 followed the same pattern as SR117 — but more pronounced. Load-in exceeded targets. Sell-through exceeded projections. And reload orders came faster and larger than SR117's second wave. With theDM6 launch, buyers didn't hesitate. They ordered with confidence because they'd seen the system work once and trusted it would work again.

That's what a hit factory looks like: the system doesn't just produce wins, it produces predictable outcomes that compound. Dealers betting bigger on proven launches because each subsequent launch  delivered exactly what the coordination infrastructure promised.

The only difference: by DM6, we weren't debugging the system. We were executing a proven process.

Casey Cooper — the YouTube drummer who'd hosted our Earthworks Drum Off at Sweetwater and coordinated SR117 launch content — had discovered during beta testing that the SR117 actually sounded better on snare drums than our dedicated drum mics. His exact words in March 2023: "WARNING. This new mic sounds better than the DM20s and the 20LS on Snare and Kick."

That insight informed the DM6 development. We weren't just building a kick drum mic. We were building the mic that drummers would discover worked on everything — the same way church engineers discovered the SR117 worked beyond vocals.

The DM6 launch replicated the SR117 coordination sequence: beta testing, vocabulary seeding, strategic placement, coordinated blitz. Dealers activated. Press covered. Engineers adopted.

And in January 2025, the DM6 was nominated for a TEC Award.

This time, I stayed for the ceremony.

This time, I walked on stage and held the award. And that photo of me holding that TEC Award became the face of the ceremony. The image is now used in all TEC Awards marketing materials.

What a Hit Factory Actually Looks Like

Here's what most people miss about product launches: they treat every one like it's the first time.

We treated SR117 like it was the Nth time running a proven system.

ICON and ICON Pro (streaming mics) taught us the template.
ETHOS (broadcast mic) refined the coordination infrastructure.
SR117 (live vocal) executed under pressure and validated the church market thesis.
DM6 (kick drum) proved the system was transferable across product categories.

By DM6, we weren't hoping it would work. We knew it would work because we'd debugged the system across three prior launches.

The Kennedy bullets strategy — limited inventory moving through high-value targets in rapid sequence — worked because we'd mapped the relationships over twenty years. We knew who to call, what to ask for, and how quickly they could move.

The vocabulary harvest worked because we'd learned that markets move on inherited language. Engineers don't invent new phrases to describe products — they repeat what they hear from trusted sources. Our job was to seed the language that would propagate.

The coordination infrastructure worked because we'd built reusable systems: the same beta tester list, the same press contacts, the same dealer relationships, the same strategic placement playbook. We weren't starting from zero each time. We were executing a process.

The church market thesis worked because we'd done the math: one engineer tests the product, loves it, commits to upgrading 8-12 wireless capsules for the entire stage. One sale turns into ten more. That pattern doesn't require luck — it requires a product that actually works for volunteers as well as professionals, priced at a point where bulk orders make sense.

And the TEC Awards validated what the system produced. Not once. Twice.

That's not about individual products. That's about building coordination infrastructure that makes success repeatable.

The Transferable System

Here's what makes this story matter beyond microphones:

The SR117 launch playbook works because it's built on principles that transfer across industries:

Limited inventory forces discipline. When you only have seven units, you can't spray and pray. You have to know exactly who to activate, in what sequence, and why each placement matters.

Vocabulary compounds. The language that engineers use in week one becomes the language that dealers repeat in month three and press quotes in month six. Seed the right phrases early and the market inherits them.

Testimonials beat advertising. Scott Bartholomew's unsolicited email four days post-launch did more for SR117 credibility than any ad campaign could have. One engineer saying "it just sounds like me" in his own words validates the product better than any marketing copy.

Coordination infrastructure is reusable. The same beta tester list worked for SR117 and DM6. The same press contacts. The same dealer relationships. The same strategic placement principles. Build it once, execute it repeatedly.

Systems make success inevitable. By the fourth launch, we weren't improvising. We weren't hoping. We were executing a process that had worked three times before, with each iteration teaching us how to remove friction.

The photo of me holding the TEC Award isn't just about winning an industry honor. It's proof that when you build systems instead of chasing individual wins, success compounds.

SR117 refined the machine. DM6 defended the title. And the system proved it was repeatable.

That's what a hit factory looks like.

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