A UAP ... Unidentified Acoustic Phenomenon ...  has landed at Carlton Audio Visual ... their true form and intent will be revealed ... soon ...

Despite the reluctance of a large part of the hi-fi community to embrace the CD initially, we are constantly being told by our customers that it still either constitutes their main or at least a significant portion of their musical diet.

While the advent of MP3s and the resurgence of vinyl seamed to sound the death knell for the Compact Disc as a commercial product, it not only made it to it’s 40^th birthday last year but we may see it make it to 50. However, the numbers involved are tiny compared to the market share now enjoyed by internet downloads and music streaming services.

There are some underlying uncertainties when you as an end user consumer purchase a consumer electronic product:

Is it about to be replaced by a newer and better model ?
If I wait will it be cheaper?
If I buy this new now how long will it last?
What if the tech that this device has built into it becomes obsolete?
If I buy this will it work with what I already have?
If it breaks down will it be able to be repaired?
What if I can buy this cheaper from somewhere else?
Will it still sound as good in my own home?
Will my wife find out how much this cost me?

We all have that seminal piece of music that strikes us at a certain age and stays with us forever as part of the epiphany of adulthood. Sure I went through playing Black Sabbath at max volume when I was 14 … but that music never really stuck, it was a glandular experience rather than an education.
For me that piece of music had to wait until 19 years of age in my second year at university … along with a number of other significant life experiences …

For Carlton Audio Visual this has been a year of enforced change. The post pandemic landscape was quite different for us. Its our understanding that dealers in our marketplace with a strong online sales bias did very well during the two year lockdown period.. In this volatile post pandemic year we have worked at "being the Hi Fi business we always wanted to be" in terms of the brands we carry and the people we deal with. To this aim we have made a significant number of new acquisitions in the manner of a NATO member upgrading its armed forces to meet the threat from the east ...