Crooks, thieves and con artists.

[emaidel]

The audio industry seems to have had far more than its fair share of these aformentioned "folk," and I've never quite figured out why. Most of the time the deceptive cheats took advantage of manufacturers, by offering terrific deals to their consumers, but not paying their bills, and then declaring "Chapter 11" bankruptcy (which had been planned all along). Then, either they went out of business entirely and paid the manufacturers nothing, or survived chapter 11 and paid back manufacturers pennies on the dollar for what they had owed. Owners also made small fortunes doing this, to no one's surprise.

Practically all of the once famous audio chains (Tech Hi Fi in New England, Pacific Stereo in the west, Stereo Village in the southeast, and the all-time favorite, Crazy Eddie in the NY metro area) are now only distant memories, with their owners living comfortably (or, in jail, as Eddie Antar of Crazy Eddie is) on the money they cheated their manufacturers out of. Stereo Village had one particularly egregious practice: they purchased phono cartridges for $5, printed phony "list" prices on them of 199.95, and then sold them "on sale" at 50% off. So. they sold these crap cartridges for $100, after paying only $5, and somehow managed to sleep at night.

The worst I can remember is a former retailer in the NY metro area called, "TWGH." I have no idea what the letters ever stood for, but this one's a real standout in terms of how dishonest retailers were, not only to their suppliers, but to their customers too. TWGH started to advertise special "rebates" to their cusomers, which, once paid, resulted in unbelievable deals on practically anything they sold.

I found this suspicious, as I was one of TWGH's suppliers at the time, and the net prices to the consumer, after the rebate, were practically below cost, and no manufacturer was offering TWGH any rebates of any sort whatsoever. In an effort to set up a "sting" operation, I purchased one of my own company's products, and sent off the rebate form. My company's lawyers were setting up plans to go after TWGH when one day, without notice, the doors were locked, chained and bolted, and the owners (Israeli Nationals) had fled the country, and went back to Israel, without paying any of their vendors, and without providing a single consumer one cent in rebates. the address for the forms was the brother in law of the owner!

Ususally, when a crook purposely put his operation out of business, most of his customers did OK, being able to buy stuff at really low prices. In the case with TWGH, both the manufacturer and the consumer were taken, and the owners were never caught.

Just some history stuff I thought AR'ers would enjoy reading about...

[Woochifer]

Ah, the "good 'ole days"!

Amazing how the electronics retail biz has evolved from those individual entrepreneurs who would wheel and deal by the seat of their pants (with some who would also try their hand at outright stealing from the customer) into what we see today with the majority of consumer electronics moving through price-controlled corporate big box chains.

In L.A., I grew up with Pacific Stereo, Adray's, Cal Stereo, University Stereo, Federated Group, Leo's Stereo, and Rogersound Labs, along with a huge assortment of independent stores. Almost all of the places where I got my start in the audio hobby are long gone. Some of those places were very clearly operating just one step ahead of the authorities.

I remember Leo's Stereo would post these huge newspaper ads with outrageous prices on TVs, receivers, etc. Of course, for the lowest advertised prices, they did not mention who manufactured the units. If you went there, you'd find that it was typically b-stock, refurbs, blems, and basically junk. I recall that a lot of stuff they sold was defective out of the box, and they would just refer customers to the manufacturers' repair centers because they often did not accept returns.

For the name brand items, they would also quote ridiculously low prices. The catch there was that a lot of their name brand stuff consisted of unauthorized or gray market units intended for sale outside of North America. If the customer wound up with a defective unit in that case, they were screwed because Leo's had a very strict return policy and gray market units came with no factory warranty. I think Leo's also got busted for some cellular phone scam, where they advertised free cellular service, after rebate of course. Little did the customer know that Leo's actually owned the cellular company providing the service, and the rebate was only good for store credit at Leo's Stereo!

I also recall that Pacific Stereo went out of business under some very bizarre circumstances. One day, their stores did not open for business and they all had signs posted that they were coming back "soon." Well, it's been almost 20 years and they still haven't reopened!

Once Circuit City expanded nationally and entered the L.A. market, these regional chains fell quickly. Once Northern California-based Good Guys (recently closed up shop, ironically because of new competition from other regional chains such as Magnolia and Tweeter) went public and used that capital to expand into the L.A. market, what remained of those locally owned chains got pushed under. What those players brought to the market were much more orderly (and boring) stores, less bargaining, but much more generous allowances for returns.

I do miss some of the TV ads though. I know that the tri-state area had Crazy Eddie, and in L.A. we had Federated Group's infamous "Fred Rated" TV spots featuring a then-unknown Shadoe Stevens "smashing" high prices by going Gallagher on a room full of TVs and stereo equipment. I also remember the ads for Matthew's TV in the Bay Area ("READ MY LIPS, NO NEW TAXES!" "BUY A TV, GET A BIKE!"). A couple of weeks ago, I was in L.A. and caught an ad for Crazy Gideon's on late night TV. Seemed like a ripoff of the Crazy Eddie ads, but definitely a throwback to the days when electronics were primarily sold thru outlets that made no pretense to corporate conformity.

[anamorphic96]

Woochifer,

Do you know what happend to Rogersound Labs ? I remember spending a good bit of time in a couple of their stores. They seemed to be well respected in So. California. They also had their own line of speakers. They where pretty high quality from what I recall.

[Woochifer]

Woochifer,

Do you know what happend to Rogersound Labs ? I remember spending a good bit of time in a couple of their stores. They seemed to be well respected in So. California. They also had their own line of speakers. They where pretty high quality from what I recall.

They went under like all the others in the late-80s/early-90s, when Circuit City made their national expansion. RSL was one of the sadder losses because they were one of the more reputable retailers in SoCal (and a couple of my friends worked there, and let me audition a lot of items). RSL indeed made their own line of speakers, which were sourced from very high quality components. Supposedly, the company got its start making studio and stage monitors, and branched off into retail when it launched its first consumer speakers. I remembered seeing the RSL studio monitors in a lot of places. I did not like the sound of their floorstanding speakers very much, but their bookshelf monitors were among the best that I heard in their price class at that time.

Meanwhile, their stores carried a lot of higher end items to go with their mass market products, and they also had a very professional noncommissioned sales staff at their stores. One of their stores focused more on high end components, and some of the brands featured included Oracle, Martin Logan, Acoustat, Carver, Nakamichi, Audio Research, Infinity IRS, SAE, Well Tempered, Ortofon, Onkyo, and the Advent Novabeam. A lot of that gear showed up in the other RSL stores, so it was always worth a visit.

In a way, RSL operated very similarly to how the Cambridge Soundworks stores operate now. The CSW stores showcase the CSW speakers and MP3 players from Creative (which owns CSW), but also sell items from other manufacturers like Sony, JVC, and Hitachi big screen TVs, Marantz and Onkyo receivers, DVD players, and mini systems.

[topspeed]

I could be wrong on this, but I think Upscale Audio in Upland branched off from Rogersoundlabs. They are still in business, although the owner is a bit of a goof.

[anamorphic96]

I googled RSL and came up with a computer speaker system that is now out of production. Kinda seemed like someone trying to cash in on the RSL name.

I was also talking to a buddy tonight who mentioned that the owner died and his wife was left with the company and she was responsible for the downfall. Apparently the company was doing well until she got a hold of it. Not sure if this is true or not. Kinda sad if it is. I have alot of fond memories of RSL. I loved the store in Montclair Ca across from the plaza.

http://www.rslspeakers.com/

[Modernaire]

What a great thread guys!

Remember Silo on the corner of La Brea and Sunset? Shadow did their commercials after Federal. They competed with Circuit City at the time if I remember well.

Too bad about Good Guys at the at this time cavernous Beverly Connection. I remember that place being open 24 hours and you could just stroll in there at 3 or 4 in the am and buy your goods. It was a pretty happening place, lots of foot traffic there. Celebs liked the 24 hour thing because they could go incognito at dawn.

The CompUSA there now is so lame. They've mixed very hi-end with geek equip and the pimple kids you know...sigh. Speaking of the Comp, they tried a bait and switch on Razrs I suspect. Wierd lying and way to good to be true deals by the geekies. Beware.

My lady worked at Adrays. Cool place. Best Buy is hell I think. Just don't like that place.

[Modernaire]

What a great thread guys!

Remember Silo on the corner of La Brea and Sunset? Shadow did their commercials after Federal. They competed with Circuit City at the time if I remember well.

Too bad about Good Guys at the at this time cavernous Beverly Connection. I remember that place being open 24 hours and you could just stroll in there at 3 or 4 in the am and buy your goods. It was a pretty happening place, lots of foot traffic there. Celebs liked the 24 hour thing because they could go incognito at dawn.

The CompUSA there now is so lame. They've mixed very hi-end with geek equip and the pimple kids you know...sigh. Speaking of the Comp, they tried a bait and switch on Razrs I suspect. Wierd lying and way to good to be true deals by the geekies. Beware.

My lady worked at Adrays. Cool place. Best Buy is hell I think. Just don't like that place.

[Worf101]

Crazy Eddies, The Wiz, shams and scams. Sigh.... but they aren't the only ones. Same thing with cars and car dealerships. The bait and switch... the special financing that not even Jesus could qualify for. The furtniture stores that have a "blockbuster, once in a lifetime sale" every weekend. The same furniture stores that seel cheap shoddy furniture and offer no interest for 2 years and by the time you get to paying for the furniture iyou're overpaying for goods that have long since been ground to dust. To quote on Civil War critic, "it is the age of shoddy".

Da Worfster

[emaidel]

Many of the audio chains went bust due to the owners putting most of the profits up their noses. Some even died as a result, but not too many. The larger chains (Silo, Newmark & Lewis, etc.) closed up shop due mostly to over expansion and under-capitalization.

I always found it amazing that a chain like Newmark & Lewis could ever have gone bankrupt, knowing the manner in which they routinely robbed their suppliers blind, and made all of their suppliers pay outrageous sums for their annual "Show" (something many other chains did too), as well as routine ad campaigns so that in the end, Newmark & Lewis not only spent all but none of their own money for their self-promotions, but acutally made money in the process!

But, when it came to audio-only retailers, it was drugs that did most of them in, unfortunately. One of my reps in Indianapolis was a former Marine who had three tours of duty in Vietnam. He told me he saw a lot of drugs in Vietnam, but never as many as he did in the audio industry. Too bad..

[Woochifer]

I could be wrong on this, but I think Upscale Audio in Upland branched off from Rogersoundlabs. They are still in business, although the owner is a bit of a goof.

Hmmm, you might be onto something because I always wondered why that store in Upland shared the same name as the old Upscale Audio that Rogersound Labs operated. Would not surprise me if that were the case because Upscale Audio makes their own in-house modded equipment, and the RSL stores always employed a lot of hobbyists who knew their way around the innards of audio equipment (and knew how to manufacture and modify speakers).

I remember the fanfare when RSL first opened the original Upscale Audio store near their headquarters in Canoga Park (that was the high end store I was referring to earlier). Supposedly, they were the first mainstream electronics chain to open their own high end store. It was supposed to revolutionize the business by combining the purchasing power of a reasonably large retail chain and speaker manufacturer, with high end brands.

Obviously, the experiment did not keep Rogersound Labs above water, because I recall that the entire company went under about three years later. It was too bad because after Upscale Audio opened, high end items like Audio Research tube gear, Oracle Delphi and Well Tempered turntables, or Carver Amazing hybrid speakers would show up at the RSL stores where my friends worked.

[Woochifer]

I googled RSL and came up with a computer speaker system that is now out of production. Kinda seemed like someone trying to cash in on the RSL name.

I was also talking to a buddy tonight who mentioned that the owner died and his wife was left with the company and she was responsible for the downfall. Apparently the company was doing well until she got a hold of it. Not sure if this is true or not. Kinda sad if it is. I have alot of fond memories of RSL. I loved the store in Montclair Ca across from the plaza.

It surprised me when the company went under. I went away to grad school in the Bay Area, and while I was up there, I heard that the company had folded and already done their closeout sales. Everything that I knew about the company indicated that it was a very well run operation. Aside from opening Upscale Audio, they always kept a tight reign over adding new stores and new product lines. Their stores did not carry a lot of brands or products, but the ones that they did sell featured either proven quality or special purchases.

I always thought that they were just another victim of new competition coming into the market. If they had other internal issues, then that would explain why they went downhill so quickly.

[Woochifer]

What a great thread guys!

Remember Silo on the corner of La Brea and Sunset? Shadow did their commercials after Federal. They competed with Circuit City at the time if I remember well.

Too bad about Good Guys at the at this time cavernous Beverly Connection. I remember that place being open 24 hours and you could just stroll in there at 3 or 4 in the am and buy your goods. It was a pretty happening place, lots of foot traffic there. Celebs liked the 24 hour thing because they could go incognito at dawn.

The CompUSA there now is so lame. They've mixed very hi-end with geek equip and the pimple kids you know...sigh. Speaking of the Comp, they tried a bait and switch on Razrs I suspect. Wierd lying and way to good to be true deals by the geekies. Beware.

My lady worked at Adrays. Cool place. Best Buy is hell I think. Just don't like that place.

For whatever reason, Silo just never did it for me. They took over the old Federated Group stores, but I never liked Silo's stores much. Compared to the organized mayhem of Federated, Silo seemed a bit too sanitized, and they carried a lot more junk. More like a super-sized version of Circuit City.

I used to go to the Good Guys at Beverly Connection at all sorts of odd hours! A 24-hour audio/video store?! Man, that was great! I bought my turntable there at 3am not long after that location opened. It was crazy how many people shopped there after midnight, but shouldn't be surprising considering how close they were to the music and film studios, which also operate 24/7.

The only celeb I ever saw at an electronics store was Jane Seymour at the West L.A. Adray's. She looks older and a lot shorter in person than she does on TV, but still quite good! She also seemed really friendly chatting with people who recognized her and wanted to say hi.

[topspeed]

The only celeb I ever saw at an electronics store was Jane Seymour at the West L.A. Adray's. She looks older and a lot shorter in person than she does on TV, but still quite good! She also seemed really friendly chatting with people who recognized her and wanted to say hi.

Jane Seymour! :crazy:

Oh man, I would have killed for that. After I saw Somewhere In Time, I was hooked. To this day I consider her the most beautiful actress of all time.

[Geoffcin]

Many of the audio chains went bust due to the owners putting most of the profits up their noses. Some even died as a result, but not too many. The larger chains (Silo, Newmark & Lewis, etc.) closed up shop due mostly to over expansion and under-capitalization.

I always found it amazing that a chain like Newmark & Lewis could ever have gone bankrupt, knowing the manner in which they routinely robbed their suppliers blind, and made all of their suppliers pay outrageous sums for their annual "Show" (something many other chains did too), as well as routine ad campaigns so that in the end, Newmark & Lewis not only spent all but none of their own money for their self-promotions, but acutally made money in the process!


Newmark & Lewis even worse than that; When they went belly up the exec's got millions, and the poor sales guys who had commision checks coming all got stiffed.

[emaidel]

I guess nothing about Newmark & Lewis surprises me. Dick Lewis would routinely take a a one or two week trip to Monaco each year for the expressed purposes of "purchasing a new wardrobe," and, of course, charged all the expenses to his company.

BSR (for whom I worked, and who owned ADC and dbx at the time) had the most generous terms in the business: 10% 30/60/90. what that meant was that you paid your bill in three increments, every thirty days, and took a 10% discount as long as you paid each on time. N&L would routinely still pay the bill late, take the 10% discount, and then take a series of unauthorized deductions for any and every excuse they could imagine. Once, one of their buyers admitted that they were wrong in taking a huge deduction for an ADC invoice (which had nothing whatseover to do with ADC), and informed the accounting people there to pay us back. A week later, he was fired.

Another buyer was involved (along with warehouse personnel) in a merchandise theft scam, which Dick Lewis ultimately admitted, and fired all those involved. Many tens of thousands of dollars were due numerous manufacturers when invoices were wrongly marked "short-shipped," but Dick never paid any of them back. Nice guy...

[HAVIC]

Actually I believe that Crazy eddie is out of jail. I found a website called crazyeddies.com I found it about a year or 2 ago and it looked like his tv commercials. If you go there now it is not a real website any more. I guess people remembered him from back in the day and he failed or it could have been some else trying to use the name.

Unfortunately this stuff happens all the time, we have a bunch of them on long island. I can't remember the name but this company would have adds for brand new Compaq computers for $599 when Compusa could only sell them for $1999. I worked at CompUSA and customers would come in and wanted us to match the ad. We told them that the store was not a authorized reseller of brand X and would not price match. I was amazed at how many people left with the attitude that we only cared about our commision and we could sell them the computer at that price if we wanted too. Funny thing was we made no commision on selling computers, we only made money on the extended warranties.

Speaking of Compusa, they used to sell items that had crazy markups like cables and accessories with a price ending in 69 cents. This obviously because they were screwing you. Customers caught on and they changed it, now I believe it is 97 cents.

[emaidel]

All industries have their share of ruthlessly dishonest business people. It just seems that the audio industry had far more than its fair share, considering the enormous number of once prosperous chains that have all gone belly up. I truly cannot recall any other industry in which this was the case. There are certainly plenty of unscrupulous computer and used-car dealerships, but the audio indsuty's retailers take the prize for deliberate bankruptcies in which the owners got off scott-free and wealthy, and all their employees and suppliers usually wound up holding the bag in the end.

Part of the blame goes to the Japanese manufacturers who would sell any and everyone only to establish market share during the late 70's and early 80's. Few if any American manufacturers would give credit to retailers whose payment histories were as bad as so many were, whereas manufacturers like Pioneer and Kenwood would routinely give those very same dealers as long as six months to pay their bills, allowing them to sell as much merchandise as they possibly could during that six month period, for prices that reputable dealers couldn't afford to match, only to see those dealers abscond with whatever money they took in, delcare bankruptcy and/or flee the country.

The industry was actually once a multi-BILLION dollar industry. It's only a fraction of that today. Some day, this will make for a very interesting course of study for a marketing major.

[KaiWinters]

It is sad to see so few "audio boutiques". There were several in my area SE MA in the late 70's and quite a few in neighboring Providence RI. Several friends and I would make a day of "audio hopping" listening to speakers, etc. I bought all of my early gear from just such places and loved the ability to listen,compare, etc all the different gear.

Then they just seemed to start fading away.

I did not realize what may have been going on in the background. Merely figured they just could not keep enough money flowing in to continue. Not like buying food and very much linked to the economy.

I still prefer to shop and buy at local audio shops but my local shops have very limited selections and tend to have mostly high end gear that is above my means...ah well it is nice to play touchy feely though.

[thepogue]

Today We Gouge Him

or

Those With Gold willHanditover


or

Tommorrow We'll Gain Hispaycheck


:7:

[stickman]

I came across this old thread and want to set a few things straight about the demise of the Rogersound Labs audio/video chain in Southern California in 1992. RSL began with the original owner building monitors and pro speakers in his garage and selling them via word of mouth. Soon afterwards a retail location was opened to increase sales volume of the speakers and when customers kept wanting to buy the driving electronics as well the store began to stock receivers, integrated amps, tuners, tuntables etc. Over the years the chain expanded in the number of stores and the range of products it carried becoming one of the first big screen TV and home theater specialists in SoCal. Besides offering its own excellent line of speakers RSL also stocked brands like Infinity, KEF, Mission, Triad, Yamaha and others. They featured the excellent Yamaha NS-1000M's for example while it was in production.

By the late 1980's, after many years of solid growth, the original owner grew weary of running the enterprise and decided to sell the company and retire young to spend time with his wife and children. In about 1989 the company was sold to an investor group which used a leveraged buy-out that saddled RSL with a heap of bank debt and depleted it of its cash reserves. At this same time the overall economy was slowing and The Good Guys were moving into the LA area market to offer direct competition in both product lines and level of service. In the midst of this financial stress the investor group hired a mid-western Silo regional manager to run RSL. This arrogant pip-squeak of a man (who shall remain nameless) would not listen to any ideas from any of the long time RSL managers, who began to bail out right after the new President was brought in. All the new leader would talk about was "entry level product" and he started bringing in low quality cheap crap products to attract a larger, downscale customer base (like Silo). All of the long time RSL employees knew this jackass would destroy the company quickly and began taking bets on how much longer the company would last. Just a couple of years later bankruptcy was declared in 1992 and RSL was finished. The saddest part was many people had placed deposits on gear and had store credit coming, and all these folks had to file claims with the bankruptcy court and got pennies on the dollar. RSL's former sterling reputation was forever tarnished by the investor group and their poor judgement in selecting an unsuitable and incompetent President who ran the company into the ground.....

Other tidbits: The Upscale Audio store within the main Canoga Park headquarters store was run by Michael Harvey and sold a good quantity of top quality gear. Customers were urged to make appointments so that they would be undisturbed during their listening / evaluation sessions. Although many brands were stocked most customers left with Audio Research electronics and Martin Logan speakers (long before they became a widely known brand). An interesting variety of turntables, cartridges, and CD players were stocked as well based upon their sonic virtue far more than specifications. I believe that former RSL salesperson Kevin Deal continued the name in a store he opened. While Michael Harvey was very serious and looked like an engineer, Kevin was a very outgoing sort in comparsion.

The RSL computer speakers that were sold a couple of years ago on the internet were being sold by RSL's original owner who came out of retirement to get back in the game on a small scale. The original owner had purchased a large lot of good sounding computer speakers for a low price. I'm sure he's been trying to locate a similar deal since the original batch sold out but hasn't been able to offer anything else yet.

The 70's were a great time for home electronics stores here in Southern California. I used to visit Pacific Stereo (owned by CBS), Cal Stereo (based in my hometown of Torrance), University Stereo, The Federated Group, Adray's, LA Tronics, Rogersound Labs (of course), and later Silo (they sucked). In recent times Comp USA purchased The Good Guys then pulled the plug (brilliant), and the Tweeter chain recently declared bankruptcy. The small boutique shops specializing in higher end gear have pretty much all disappeared as well. Best Buy / Magnolia, Costco, Fry's Electronics, and Circuit City have sadly displaced all the cool stores. Progress......

[pixelthis]

The seventies were the golden age for retailers in audio.
Everybody loved music and stereo, and a LOT of records were sold
It was big news when PIONEER came out with a cassette deck for 199$, which was quite cheap at the time (about 600 in todays dollars).
My granddaddy showed me a price list from a supplier. The wholesale was 40 bucks
And a major seller of audio to this day sells mainly B-stock and grey market.
When I call to check on some price they would always say that it was "refurbished"
or B-stock (J&R).
Audio manufacturers have always sold at an inflated "retail" price that was always
"cut" by the sellers. This is carried on to this day by video manufacturers

[stickman]

As a final addendum to my above stated history of Rogersound Labs in Southern California, the founder of RSL wanted me to post the following information to clear up any misconceptions stated earlier in this thread or incorrect information I included in my historical narrative:

"I looked at the thread (ie this topic thread). If you get a chance to post the following facts, it would help to clear up the mis-information:

1. I will insist that I am not dead, until my last breath. My wonderful wife never ran the business.
2. RSL went out of business after the company was sold and the new owners made many changes and then RSL went under.
3. To those who feel there is a connection between our Upscale Audio, and the Upscale Audio in Upland, I say, "Up yours." (oops, guess I blew that one!)
4. RSL originally made home speakers. However, the studios soon started buying a lot of them, so when that happened, we started making studio monitors.
5. The computer speakers, were a fun-type project by the people who originally ran the company and the speakers got a lot of good reviews."

Well, there you have it straight from the horse's mouth metaphorically speaking. As far as this thread relates to Rogersound Labs in particular, I'd have to call that the final word.......
Rick (aka Stickman)

[Fred333]

Wow this is a crazy thread. Glad you go the opportunity to vent.

[Rich-n-Texas]

Better left dead Fred. :biggrin5:

[ColonialML26]

This Thread caught my interest as I was Web surfing today. I was very involved in the industry through the 70's and 80's. I did want to make a comment about RSL. Probably the best Hi-Fi Chain of it's day! RSL met it's demise after it's Founder and CEO ( Howard Rogers ) sold the company to Price-Fister ( thats right....the water faucet and bathroom fixture company) and put the company in the toilet (LOL). Got lots of stories about the "Glory Days" if anyone is ever interested, Anyone out there remember EZ Zinn?