Sound Advice / Tweeter Stores Shut Down in a Dumbed Down Marketplace
Sound Advice
Based in Dania Beach, Sound Advice was founded as a
single store in 1974 and was allegedly partly bankrolled by $100,000 in
laundered cash from a marijuana smuggler with ties to the gulf beaches of Pinellas County. The company later went public
until being acquired by Tweeter for around $150-million in 2001. After two filings for bankruptcy in less than
one year, all 94 Tweeter / Sound Advice stores have officially closed down as
of today. This marks the end of an era for a company I once respected and even
admired as an example of how a true audiophile store should operate, at least until Tweeter took them over and ran them into the ground. Of course the recent economic downturn only added wood to this already hotly burning fire of badly managed corporate takeover.
Ever since I heard my oldest brother's Hi-Fi system as a child, I was an Audioholic. The movement of the woofers, the smell of their paper cones when you first entered the room was intoxicating to me. I knew as I grew up, I'd have to have my very own system just like that, well…. maybe a little better. Of course his took a sound quality hit when I pushed in all the dust caps but that's another story.
So as the years went by, I window shopped at the local department stores and on occasion I'd happen into a real high end Hi-Fi shop. Most Hi-Fi shops didn't want kids hanging around their store, especially a smart-aleck like me that usually knew more about the products on sale than the salesmen that worked there. Many of them were by appointment only as if you were shopping for a new Benz. Sound Advice was one of those few shops considered to be "approachable Hi-Fi". They had good brand diversity without the elitist attitude, and catered towards a bigger audience. They brought high end to the mainstream much like Sam Adams did with their micro brewed beer. I enjoyed the fact that Sound Advice managed to keep knowledgeable sales staff on hand with whom you could have an intelligent conversation about the products. They also stuck around, so you would also be greeted by the same people on your next visit.
In fact,
during my college years, I befriended one of their top salesman in Clearwater Florida who managed to convince me to get a
Yamaha flagship integrated amp that was a bit beyond my budget. He took the time in their demo room to allow
me to properly A/B it next to a lesser model. I was so hooked that my next step
was upgrading my 10 year old JBL LX series speakers. This sales guy actually came to
my house to hear my system in my room before recommending various speaker
options. I knew he really had a passion
like me when it came to the "fundamental rightness" a well matched
system should have when playing back your favorite music. We were both amateur
musicians and had an anal retentive gift for picking apart flaws in audio
equipment. Little did I know, years later that passion would encourage me to
pursue a career in audio by launching Audioholics.com.
Regional electronics dealer Tweeter, scheduled to close its doors December 7, on Tuesday suddenly closed down all its stores. Six hundred employees at 70 stores were fired immediately. Many employees are still owed back pay, and some customers are still owed merchandise that has already been paid for, according to The Boston Globe, which cites five unnamed store managers and executives.
As the years went on, I noticed a change in how Sound Advice was doing business, particularly when Tweeter bought them. It seems the corporate machine watered them down similarly to how Klipsch did so with brands Aragon, Acurus (both of whom are now out of business) and API (aka Mirage, Energy, Jamo etc).
They lost that "personal" feel that inspired me to frequent the shop and pluck down my hard earned cash. They also had a much faster employee turnover as I rarely ever saw the same salesman retain a position at the company between my semi annual visits. My friend moved on to greener pastures and upon his exit he also told me that the industry was changing. The diehard audio salesmen were being replaced by trunk slammers that had little to no experience, didn't attend professional educational training, and their sole motivation was a paycheck.
When I heard Sound Advice filed for bankruptcy, I didn't think much of it other than a restructuring of the company and a way to get out of bad lease deals. Sadly I was wrong. Today marked a day that will live in audio infamy. All of the Sound Advice / Tweeter stores have officially been shut down. To my disbelief, I even tried called a few of the local Sound Advice stores and either got disconnected phones or endless ringing with no voicemail. As of this afternoon their website was unavailable as well.
As the reality of this news sank in, I had few reactions:
- The place where I began my path of audio upgraditis is now a distant memory
- This marks a significant shift towards the Internet sales model so many manufacturers historically have shied away from but lately have become lukewarm to
- The A/V world has just gotten dumbed down a bit more
Combine
this Dumbing
Down of Audio and the continuing closure of Hi-Fi shops and you're left
with chain department stores where you can buy cubed speakers and overpriced
Monster cables from a pimply-faced teenager while simultaneously shopping for a
new dishwasher.
Well maybe it's not as bad as I am portraying. There are still many small Hi-Fi shops out there that I am sure are flourishing. But it does seem that this will further move the masses towards mediocrity. Hopefully many of them will embrace the online community and learn to research, buy online, and set up their own systems. Regardless of the long term impacts, today marks a sad day in the audio world for me as one of my favorite Hi-Fi shops is now officially out of business. I feel bad for Hi-Fi consumers that aren't Internet savvy and who now have one less outlet from which to get their local audio fix. I guess it's time for them to move on, or start wondering when their local department stores will add food items and detergent to their product selection so it can be their one stop shop for everything. The death of these stores in my opinion elevates the trend of the Dumbing Down of Audio.
See also:
Recent Forum Posts:
I BOUGHT WARRENTY OF COURSE. NOW MY PIONEER NAVI DECK IS ACTING UP AND I DONT KNOW WHERE TO TAKE IT OR CALL SINCE SA IS NO LONGER. CAN ANY ONE HELP.. A NUMBER OR EMAIL/WEB SITE SOMETHING.
SpeedDemon;491380
A sad day indeed on what was once a GREAT audio retailer. It took Tweeter 7 years to dismantle what took over 25 to build...they should all be shot! Who knows... maybe there's life for Sound Advice after this mess and some how it resurects back to become something meaningfull again. Let's hope so because as each day passes, there are less and less places to actually hear, see, feel and purchase quality products. Speed.
But don't lose sight of the fact that the stores aren't delivering value to buyers or manufacturers. Buyers aren't getting much service, even when they spend five figures. And most manufacturers aren't getting well represented by their exclusive dealers.
I'd never seen Tweeter or Sound Advice. But I get the idea.
Things have clearly changed in electronics and in retail. I remember the rise of the 'warehouse' type store in the 80s. Then the rise of cheap, easily replcable electronics that really kicked in during my time as the traveling TV repair man back in the early 90s.
I went to people's houses who owned the same TV set for the better part of 20 years. When they bought that floor model Quazar they were really making an investment in their livingroom's future. It was cost effective to have some clown like me come over and swap out modules to keep it running.
Do you need any small TV tubes?
jopela;491720
I don't think it is fair to put all of the blame on Tweeter. Yes sound advice sold great audio products for 25 years, but look at the market place 25 years ago. There were the cheap scratchy sounding paper cone speakers and then the high end market. Things can be made so cheaply now that to an untrained ear a $200 HTIB speaker set can sound close to a $4000 speaker set or at least good enough for someone to buy. I was one of those people 5 years ago. The middle market has really stepped up it's game that only true audiophiles see the need to buy anything beyond what is at the big box stores. Then you have BOSE brainwashing another large segment of the market place. And not to start a BOSE war again, but their speakers do not sound that bad in a smaller room at moderate volume, and at their high pricepoint they have become the upper-middle market leader since consumers to not take the time to research other options and want instant gradification.
I had a friend over the other night and he commented on why I purchased such big clunky 'old-style' (floorstanding) speakers.
The market consumer has changed and there is less and less need for the high end market. Stores need to play to the market to stay alive.
I was talking with one of the tech people at JL Audio this morning and he worked for Sound Advice about 25 years ago, as the head of their sales training department. He left to work for Boston Acoustics and not long after, they shut down all of the training, preferring to do it the way Best Buy did it. They were bought by Tweeter relatively close to this time, IIRC and the problem as he saw it is that the main thing that made SA different/better than the competition was the fact that the sales people had really good product knowledge and knew where the market was headed, in addition to knowing how to sell effectively. Well-informed consumers have generally had the edge on most sales people in mass-merchandise stores but when the majority of customers know more than a specialty retailer, it's only a matter of time before they're history. IMO, Best Buy and Circuit City have never been all that knowledgeable in car and home audio, although I would occasionally find someone who was. With assets about equal to debt, I'm pretty sure Circuit City isn't coming back unless someone wants to start from scratch with that name. Best Buy has had their share of troubles, too and while I prefer small local specialty dealers, mass merchandisers have their place.
This is a sign for every dealer that if they don't pay attention to their crystal ball, they'll be looking for a job, too.
