Being born in the North of England this L.S.Lowry painting of a factory town under snow sadly exemplifies my own sense of childhood Christmas cheer/grimoire. Living in Australia for the festive season iremains a diversion into paradise, away from the real world of Glumness where one dreams of a white Xmas while inside warmed by coal burning in the open fire with stockings of tangerines. In this lucky country we get Hi-Fi for Christmas and our children have genuine opportunity.

Happy Christmas ... we are open Boxing day and onwards.

From the point of view of a small medium enterprise like Carlton Audio Visual, the sovereign entities of Google and Facebook have evolved by placing themselves in the way of every consumer and every purveyor in every transaction. The question is ... have they added or subtracted value to consumers and purveyors?

On a busy Saturday afternoon I took a phone call from a gentleman asking if we sold Sennheiser TV headphones … I said not and suggested he contact JB Hi Fi who I knew carried that range … only he told me he had already tried ring JB in Doncaster but hadn’t been able to get through and asked me if I could recommend a store. So I suggested he contact the Bourke st branch where I have found the staff helpful and engaging. 

However he then went on to tell me that he had actually purchased the headphones from Amazon for  $100 less than the normal go price and actually was simply looking for help on how to set them up as he was having issues ….

So here is the thing … this perfectly decent consumer was happy to buy the product from a ruthless global entity that launches pointless phallic rockets into the upper atmosphere … and then ring to get setup advice and consultation from bricks and mortar retailers at their peak time and labour cost basis.

Today there’s not so much on the HiFi side of things. It was the first of the open to the public days and things get busy and silly at the show. 

Day Two in Munich started with a couple of coffees and then to some ‘little’ things  ... including today the Sonus faber Suprema loudspeaker system and the Audio Research 330 mono amplifiers ...

It’s so nice to be back in Germany and enjoying all that’s on offer at the Munich Highend show. Many new products are launched at this show so every year there’s something exciting to have a listen to.