Hi FI House Closed Shop Today!

mantis

Long time Hi FI House was a custom Install, high end 2 channel Home Theater company. They where the place to go and check out whats hot in todays market. Whats cool with 2 channel and where is it going. Many good people lost their jobs again today and I'm completely sad about it.

I have very little words to say as I really wish our country would turn itself around.
It started way back when with Nobody Beats the Wiz. That was one of my favorite places to go. Hal's Electronics went under, cool place as well. Tweeter and Circuit City fell apart , RIP and now Hi FI house.

We use to be a really good area to check out gear , now not so much.

mantis

http://www.cepro.com/article/veteran_integrator_htsa_icon_hifi_house_abruptly_closes/

Dennis Gardner

Truly a bad sign, when a company that has been around for nearly 60 years and does 15 million annually in sales, can't make the adjustments needed to cover their nut. They most likely lost money every year since the downturn and before that only cleared their costs every 3rd year or so.

They aren't alone in their struggle, this is the new American Story........

schwarcw

A sad sign of the times!

F1nut

schwarcw wrote: »

A sad sign of the times!

Yep and we're stuck with 2 more years of it

mrbiron

*rim tap* :-P

Zeros

Was there still one down in Delaware on 202 or did that one close a while ago?

mantis

Zeros wrote: »

Was there still one down in Delaware on 202 or did that one close a while ago?

They both closed same time yesterday

Msabot1

F1nut wrote: »

Yep and we're stuck with 2 more years of it

Sadly.......

Zeros

mantis wrote: »

They both closed same time yesterday

Wow, that is a shame.

nspindel

Video killed the radio star. Hi-end shops simply can't survive in the internet era. First of all, hi-end audio buyers are becoming more and more niche. Fewer and fewer people care about sound quality as opposed to how many compressed mp3's they can fit on their cell phones. Plus, so many people use high end shops to get demos and do research, then they go online and find better deals on the equipment, often used. Hard for a shop like this to survive.

jephdood

Exactly. For those calling for "only 2 more years" of this, you're crazy. This has been going on for a LONG time and will continue in the same direction. It really doesn't have anything to do with politics. But, good try. :-)

Mikey081057

Msabot1 wrote: »

Sadly.......

"Stuck" is not even the right "uck"... replace the "St" with an "F" and make it past tense

Mikey081057

nspindel wrote: »

Video killed the radio star. Hi-end shops simply can't survive in the internet era. First of all, hi-end audio buyers are becoming more and more niche. Fewer and fewer people care about sound quality as opposed to how many compressed mp3's they can fit on their cell phones. Plus, so many people use high end shops to get demos and do research, then they go online and find better deals on the equipment, often used. Hard for a shop like this to survive.

It is pretty much all of retail

Msabot1

jephdood wrote: »

Exactly. For those calling for "only 2 more years" of this, you're crazy. This has been going on for a LONG time and will continue in the same direction. It really doesn't have anything to do with politics. But, good try. :-)

Sorry to let you in on a little secret man...it has everything to do with politics....Politics set the economic tone for the whole country...i will grant you one thing though...this has been going on for a very long time...a downward spiral that just one administration is not responsible for....but this is the change you can believe in isn't it??

sucks2beme

It has more to do with the business climate.
Offshoring, rightsizing, etc.
Pay scales are either stagnent, or falling.
layoffs are an everyday thing for most workers.
And add online sales to it all, and stereo shops are dead.
How does it tie to politics? The deep pockets guys in Business
drop big bucks to make sure nobody raises a stink.
We accept this as being the way things are.



They create a ton of jobs, just not HERE.

Mikey081057

sucks2beme wrote: »

It has more to do with the business climate.
Offshoring, rightsizing, etc.
Pay scales are either stagnent, or falling.
layoffs are an everyday thing for most workers.
And add online sales to it all, and stereo shops are dead.
How does it tie to politics? The deep pockets guys in Business
drop big bucks to make sure nobody raises a stink.
We accept this as being the way things are.



They create a ton of jobs, just not HERE.

But we could create those jobs here by giving corps incentives to create jobs by lowering corporate taxes for the mean companies that could would hire more AMERICANS that would INCREASE revenues. Lets face it the more we raise taxes... the less jobs we have. It ain't working.

BlueFox

Mikey081057 wrote: »

But we could create those jobs here by giving corps incentives to create jobs by lowering corporate taxes for the mean companies that could would hire more AMERICANS that would INCREASE revenues. Lets face it the more we raise taxes... the less jobs we have. It ain't working.

Taxes could be ZERO, and it would still be cheaper to pay somebody offshore $1/hour than here. We need to increase taxes on corporations that offshore jobs. For every offshore employee there should be a tax penalty that doubles the cost of what it would be to hire a US employee.

tonyb

BlueFox wrote: »

Taxes could be ZERO, and it would still be cheaper to pay somebody offshore $1/hour than here. We need to increase taxes on corporations that offshore jobs. For every offshore employee there should be a tax penalty that doubles the cost of what it would be to hire a US employee.

In that train of thought, you simply can't compete with slave labor. You have to tax those slave labor products coming back in the door, but they won't out of fear other countries will tax our products going in their door. So it's a race to the bottom in the end.

Maybe, and this is just a thought, instead of trying to control global weather patterns, the U.N. could work towards a global minimum wage of sorts. Good idea...bad ? I dunno, but in this world of trying to create equal outcomes for everyone, it only seems fitting. At best at least these workers in other countries could use the boost.

Anyway....fair trade agreements especially with China....do we even have one ? Who negotiated that turkey ? I think if the U.N. came forth and said any country not subscribing to certain wage standards and human rights standards would have their exports taxed at x amount. That way, no single country can be the bad guy. Will never happen though as China has veto power in the U.N.

Call me crazy, but the absence of concern over trade and the imbalance, amount of jobs heading offshore, by our leaders is frightening to me for our future. Nobody talks about it, instead they are more concerned with taxing the home grown citizen or business more, more concerned with social issues than the financial well being of the country and the people. Should be the other way around....no ?

oldrocker

Not to step on anyone's toes or start a political rant. 17 years ago I worked for an excellent pharmaceutical manufacturer and would still be there today as it was the absolute best job on every level for me.
The owner "great guy" was getting up in years and decided to retire. He put the business up for sale, tyco health care bought the business and then opened a new plant in mexico 18-24 months later.
Lots of good people got displaced.
I get it, on paper, for the new shareholders it made perfect sense to do what they did. For us, the commen folks that worked there, it resulted in some very dark times thats for sure.

tonyb

oldrocker wrote: »

I get it, on paper, for the new shareholders it made perfect sense to do what they did. For us, the commen folks that worked there, it resulted in some very dark times thats for sure.

If the business climate here was better, shareholders wouldn't be looking for drastic change. I'm not saying you have to match slave labor costs, but if the climate was better here, companies would think twice about moving out. Narrow that gap to make the decision harder anyway.