Jobs Lost As Sound Control Forced Into Administration

Dord

Slightly OT here, but it's relevant for this forum. Just saw this news story posted over on H-C.

Gigwise.com wrote:

Over 150 staff at Sound Control Holdings were told that they had lost their jobs yesterday after the musical instrument retailer was forced into administration.

The company, which operates twenty-six stores in the UK, has an annual turnover of £50million and employees a total of 338 staff.

Administrators Deloitte said that the retailer had fallen victim to competition on the internet and that attempts to sell the company had failed.

Staff at the company’s stores in Scotland yesterday said they had no idea that the company was in trouble.

Speaking to the Daily Record, one employee said that receivers had told him to “’Go to the Job Centre’.”

Sound Control, which is based in Dumfermline, also operates stores under the name Media Tools, Turnkey and Soho Sound House.

So it's possible there will be no more turnkey, media tools, Soho Soundhouse! (great store ), or sound control in the UK.

Also, totally unrelated but Regent Guitars (also in the UK) is now closed too. (http://www.guitars.co.uk)

Don1

I always dreamed of getting over to Soho Soundhouse for one of their crazy sales and bagging a vintage LP for a few quid. Now, sadly, it will never be..............

Dord

I was there before a few years ago. They have really cool soundproof rooms for playing in. :cool:

Makes Waltons ones look like a wardrobe with glass door. (which it is though) <_<

Don1

Sound proof practice rooms ftw!

Nothing is as bad as trying out something and they won't let you even turn it up to pocket radio volume!! Or worse, competing with some n00b fcukwit playing Smoke on the Water on some schnidty Squire at ear splitting volume having gain and treble maxed and everything else on zero. Grrrr @ music shop rats!

Doctor J

Were they the ones who had a store in the basement of the Virgin on Oxford Street?

Thought the prices were a bit steep, they had a few interesting Schecters and Laklands but no chance would you buy one at the money they were looking for them.

It does highlight an interesting issue, is there a future for high street instrument stores when they just can't (won't?) compete with internet retailers. Much like you'd expect the likes of HMV and the other rip-offs disappear from the streets soon enough, can Musicmaker or any of the other shops here continue in the capacity they do when so much business is passing them by?

Don1

If they keep selling entry level stuff they'll be fine. High end, big buck stuff is generally bought by older/wiser people, so they would be more likely to know about the "internet"(!!!) perhaps?

Johnny Storm

Doctor J wrote: »

Were they the ones who had a store in the basement of the Virgin on Oxford Street?

No, they are/were on Charing Cross Road. Turnkey (sound system stuff) was on the ground floor and the guitars (Soundhouse) were upstairs. I thought they had the widest range of new guitars in that area. AFAICR they were the UK/Ireland Parker distributor too.

It actually amazes me that more small music shops haven't closed down given the competition from Thomann etc. Although these guys weren't small!

Dord

Doctor J wrote: »

Were they the ones who had a store in the basement of the Virgin on Oxford Street?

Thought the prices were a bit steep, they had a few interesting Schecters and Laklands but no chance would you buy one at the money they were looking for them.

It does highlight an interesting issue, is there a future for high street instrument stores when they just can't (won't?) compete with internet retailers. Much like you'd expect the likes of HMV and the other rip-offs disappear from the streets soon enough, can Musicmaker or any of the other shops here continue in the capacity they do when so much business is passing them by?

Turnkey & Soho Soundhouse had their own building. Two floors I think?

Soho had good pricing, I remember always seeing their pull out ad in Guitarist. I think it used to be about 8 pages.

Over here it might be a different story but I can see the smaller stores disappearing soon enough, such as Goodwins, Perfect pitch, Instrumental even... As for Music Maker, if they improve their online presence it will be much better, and prices too. They need a good webstore.

Voodu Child

Joe Robot wrote: »

Over here it might be a different story but I can see the smaller stores disappearing soon enough, such as Goodwins, Perfect pitch, Instrumental even... As for Music Maker, if they improve their online presence it will be much better, and prices too. They need a good webstore.

Its like anything these days, if you want to stay successful, you need to be flexible and dynamic. Those shops plain cant compete with the likes of thomann on price, so they need to start asking themselves what they can do. Excellent service, perfect setups, trade-ins, demo rooms....all that kind of malarky that thomann et al can't offer. That's what they should be doing in any case, and in fairness some of them are half-alright. But still, if I was one of those guys, i'd be making some serious effort to try and stay relevant.

Dord

voodoo_child wrote: »

Its like anything these days, if you want to stay successful, you need to be flexible and dynamic. Those shops plain cant compete with the likes of thomann on price, so they need to start asking themselves what they can do. Excellent service, perfect setups, trade-ins, demo rooms....all that kind of malarky that thomann et al can't offer. That's what they should be doing in any case, and in fairness some of them are half-alright. But still, if I was one of those guys, i'd be making some serious effort to try and stay relevant.

I agree, but most of these shops won't/can't even do simple setups, let alone full ones. They need to adapt to the changes but I doubt they all will, some may. Those have a better chance of surviving.

Gary ITR

Shame, was in Soho Soundhouse myself a few years ago, loved the soundproof booths. If I remember right they had an amazing selection of Ibanez guitars

smellslikeshoes

Don't really think any music store can compete with the like of thomman, after discovering thomman a few years back the biggest thing Ive bought from a music store is probably a few leads. I think most of us here are guilty of going to a local music shop to try out a guitar with the intention of buying online, shops definitely need to look at situations like that and see how they could benefit from it.

Apart from being able to see the instrument and play it beforehand, the only other advantage for Irish shops that I can see is being able get in guitars from local luthiers. Doesn't seem like much but when they are in tough times because of not being able to sell Gibsons, fenders, ibanez etc they could provide something not available on thomman.

Johnny Storm

Apparently they're closing 10 out of their 26 shops in the UK (so far :cool:) SohoSoundhouse may escape.

http://www.sonicstate.com/news/shownews.cfm?newsid=6544

darrenw5094

Turnkey were too expensive. Why didn't they drop their prices to compete with other websites???????? Obvious.

www.gak.co.uk and www.dolphinmusic.co.uk seem to be cheaper for most gear these days......all could change when the sterling gets a bit stronger.

Eoin Madsen

Most of the websites are (low rent) warehouses. Some of the shops are a bit dim in their management obviously, but I imagine at least some of them would have tried to lower prices to compete if there was any way they thought they could.

If one shop (with some serious capital) in Dublin cut prices to internet rates for a year, they'd probably undercut every shop around to the point that it might even become viable to maintain those prices. At the minute it seems like there are too many shops with too many overheads and not enough sense or not enough money to take the risks they need to be taking to compete with the Internet.

I'd be curious to know what kind of shift in the Irish music tech/instrument retail market would take place if someone opened a Thomann outlet out in Liffey Valley or somewhere like that. Hundreds of euros on an amp or guitar is something people are always going to be perfectly happy to travel a little way for. It is simply bizarre that all the music shops are in the city centre.

Seziertisch

Yeah, I always wondered why all the shops are city centre. I suppose it is the case that (a.) that is where they always have been, and
(b.) a large part of their custom is for beginner's setups. I'd imagine that a hell of a lot more Squire/Epiphone etc. are sold compared to their more expensive brethren.

I can only speak for myself for when I was first starting to play but
(a.) I was fairly uninformed (pre-Internet days so fair enough)
(b.) having the service of a local shop in the case of anything going wrong was nearly more important.

Although, I have since realised that this great service from a local is in many cases a complete panacea, insofar as I wouldn't be particularly confident that in many cases they would be able to solve the problem should something go seriously wrong with a purchase. The sad reality is that working in a guitar shop does not mean that you have to have any specialist knowledge in any way.

Eoin Madsen

Ultimately they're just retail staff. For the most part, they're just not paid or trained well enough to be any kind of specialists.

JimiTime

:( Sound Control to close:(:( Bought all my studio stuff there. My Mac, pro-tools, octopre, mics etc etc. Gave me the best deal. Better than Digital Village etc. A guy named Matt Robinson from the Oxford Street branch was just the most helpful guy I ever came across in a music shop, and knowledgable too. So disappointing.:(

Dord

Seziertisch wrote: »

Yeah, I always wondered why all the shops are city centre. I suppose it is the case that (a.) that is where they always have been, and
(b.) a large part of their custom is for beginner's setups. I'd imagine that a hell of a lot more Squire/Epiphone etc. are sold compared to their more expensive brethren.

I can only speak for myself for when I was first starting to play but
(a.) I was fairly uninformed (pre-Internet days so fair enough)
(b.) having the service of a local shop in the case of anything going wrong was nearly more important.

Although, I have since realised that this great service from a local is in many cases a complete panacea, insofar as I wouldn't be particularly confident that in many cases they would be able to solve the problem should something go seriously wrong with a purchase. The sad reality is that working in a guitar shop does not mean that you have to have any specialist knowledge in any way.

Well, the reason why the shops are mostly city center based is because they've been there many years. Rent was lower, and the price of buildings were cheaper.

In fact, there were more Guitar stores than there is now. Lest us not forget Rock Steady Music, and the other Music Maker store on the Northside. Both of which are closed now. Rock Steady's old shop was most recently the Xbox Center, which I think is also closed now. I believe there may have been one or two more stores, can't remember.

Johnny Storm

Eoin Madsen wrote: »

If one shop (with some serious capital) in Dublin cut prices to internet rates for a year, they'd probably undercut every shop around to the point that it might even become viable to maintain those prices. .

You'd think so, wouldn't you?
FWIW and as I've mentioned on here before, In Tune Music in Dun Laoghaire has (or had last time I was in there) a smallish range of Gibbos and Epiphones where they were pricing less than the Thomann price (and even quoting the the Thomann price on their price label). I have no connection with that shop other than being a very occasional customer. My point being that it didn't seem that they were selling a huge amount.

happydayz182

Thomann arent the cheapest no more..Gak.co.uk are

Seziertisch

Eoin Madsen wrote: »

Ultimately they're just retail staff. For the most part, they're just not paid or trained well enough to be any kind of specialists.

I know that. But when Internet retail first became prominent the argument heard from a lot of people in favour of buying locally was for the service that the Internet companies couldn't offer. This service just doesn't exist in a lot of cases on a local level. I have also had the opposite experience of talking to service personnel at Internet companies and them being really informed and knowledgeable.

That said, I was in Music Ground in Manchester recently and although their prices were higher than most Internet places the level of service was immediately apparent just talking to any of the guys working there.

Ravelleman

Joe Robot wrote: »

In fact, there were more Guitar stores than there is now. Lest us not forget Rock Steady Music, and the other Music Maker store on the Northside. Both of which are closed now. Rock Steady's old shop was most recently the Xbox Center, which I think is also closed now. I believe there may have been one or two more stores, can't remember.

There's a new acoustic store in Dundrum village at the moment. The stock is really quite poor. I hate to say it but it is certainly doomed to failure.

Dord

Ravelleman wrote: »

There's a new acoustic store in Dundrum village at the moment. The stock is really quite poor. I hate to say it but it is certainly doomed to failure.

Yeah I heard about that, someone who works there was on here pimping it recently. That said, I'll never set foot in Dundrum again unless I really have to. I absolutely hate the place.

Eoin Madsen

happydayz182 wrote: »

Thomann arent the cheapest no more..Gak.co.uk are

No one is the cheapest for everything, you get different prices on different products, just as you always have.