Just heard about this -

http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/page/shop/news_story/a/news_id/e/2112

Quote Ben:

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Just heard about this -

http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/page/shop/news_story/a/news_id/e/2112

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Just seen this to, though the website seems to up as normal, still seems unbelievable, very very sad as I've always had good service from them and the folk were fairly knowledgeable and helpful.

- Joe -
Rockrooms Studio

This should be a headline feature please SOS - the websites are still working - and it will save people much angst if they don't place orders now.

No surprise that the supermarket approach to music retailing did not work for Sound Control - poor product range and staff knowledge etc - and Turnkey have been in turmoil for about 18 months.

Hopefully this will convince people that there is no future in turning music sales in leisure retailing - and focus everyone back on the real music shops.

Over 100+ jobs however have gone - many of whom will be working musicians as well which is very sad and worrying for all involved and their families.

That's coffin chasing in the extreme, Dolphin should be ashamed.

Quote crofter:

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That's coffin chasing in the extreme, Dolphin should be ashamed.

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That's business! And being slightly pedantic, but it is relevant, Sound Control are legally obliged to disclose the fact of the administration, and give the administrators' names and addresses, on their website from the moment of appointment.

OK, it's day one, and it take a little time to make these things happen... but I can also say with 100% confidence that if you place an order today (and if the goods are available) the administrators - not the previous management - will honour it. Or they will give you your money back. There's no way a company like Deloitte wants to be accused of defrauding customers in these situations. They've spent 200 years building up a reputation for honesty and trustworthiness, and they only need to trash it once.

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Dynamite with a laser beam...

Quote Steve Hill:

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Quote crofter:

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That's business! And being slightly pedantic, but it is relevant, Sound Control are legally obliged to disclose the fact of the administration, and give the administrators' names and addresses, on their website from the moment of appointment.

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Their web-site is a different legal entity, that aspect of their business was kept quite separate from Most Modern.

there's a bit of discussion about it here:

http://www.mi-pro.co.uk/news/29485/BREAKING-NEWS-Sound-Control-files-for-a dministration

Well it's the directors' choice if they want to henceforth trade with unlimited personal liability contrary to sections 216 and 217 of the Insolvency Act 1986 by muddying the waters as to which entity anyone is dealing with. I'm sure it will count enormously in their favour when the administrators file their reports on directors' conduct under the Company Directors Disqualification Act.

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Dynamite with a laser beam...

What ever the legal ins-and outs of the separate operations under the same name (do any of us have any real idea how the different operations are linked to each other?) - simple common sense (given how bad their respective customer services are/were) would suggest to me that this is NOT a good time to place an order at any of the sites. They may technically be legally and financially seperate but it is hard to believe that the staff will be focusing on the job in hand.

Hi.

Does anybody know which stores have closed and which are staying open?

Phil

It's not a good situation for the employees.

On the other hand, at a personal level over 15 years I've found everyone I had to deal with at Turnkey to either be rude or clueless.

Pretty opportunistic response from Dolphin... but I've never had a bad experience with Dolphin's direct customer service, maybe they learnt their lessons from their own experiences as customers at Turnkey... although to be fair Dolphins website is pretty useless... i just ring them up.

The people I feel sorry for are those small companies whose products were distributed exclusively through Turnkey in the UK like Dave Smith Instruments. I picked up a Prophet Module from Turnkey recently because I had no other choice as to where to buy it from. I even considered buying it direct from Dave Smith to avoid Turnkey, but they recommended I used Turnkey for various reasons.

Turnkey won't be missed, lets hope the decent products find another home.

Edited by Monobass (30/04/08 07:30 PM)

SC only just opened a big new store in Leeds, where I've spent more time than I should have mucking around on their P08...

Intriguingly, Turnkey were the sole UK importers of DSI and Moog, or so I heard. Wonder who'd take that mantle on now? And what that will do to the prices...

EDIT: whoops, Monobass just mentioned this while i was typing. Still, I agree - although i have to say there was one extremely helpful guy at SC leeds who was never less than brilliant. Sorry to see them go. There's nowhere else convenient for me to try stuff out before I buy it.

Edited by nathanscribe (30/04/08 07:32 PM)

Surprised it didnt happen years ago to be honest. Rarely had good service out of Turnkey, and they had enough time to get their act together.
Roll on the clear out sale!

Paul

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Paul

Quote Steve Hill:

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Well it's the directors' choice if they want to henceforth trade with unlimited personal liability contrary to sections 216 and 217 of the Insolvency Act 1986 by muddying the waters as to which entity anyone is dealing with. I'm sure it will count enormously in their favour when the administrators file their reports on directors' conduct under the Company Directors Disqualification Act.

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It wouldn't be unreasonable for a wholly separate company to make use of a trading style, i.e. a franchisee, and legally the franchisee would not be liable for the debts of the parent company save for those duly noted in their contract. It is also quite acceptable for a franchisee to be partly or wholly connected to the franchise in terms of those involved.

Quote nathanscribe:

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whoops, Monobass just mentioned this while i was typing. Still, I agree - although i have to say there was one extremely helpful guy at SC leeds who was never less than brilliant. Sorry to see them go. There's nowhere else convenient for me to try stuff out before I buy it.

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Yeah I guess I should have pointed out i'm only talking about Turnkey in London.

Regarding Dophin - well, why shouldn't they be opportunistic? It isn't going to do the newly unemployed any good if they say nothing about it for a respectful period. It's a business opportunity, they're a business.

I've bought from them quite a few times and they've always been very good. I hope that they don't try to take too much on and go downhill but that said- good luck to them.

I'm interested to know what the poster above found so poor about their website - I've never had a problem with it, including finding specific gauges of guitar string for a matter of pence, right up to the stuff costing hundreds or thousands. Never had anything coming in as in stock when it wasn't etc etc.

Only visited Turnkey once - a thoroughly miserable and depressing experience.

Just thought I'd get my oar in.

Over and out.

Quote Tomadvent:

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(do any of us have any real idea how the different operations are linked to each other?)

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A tenner spent at Companies House will go some way to making things clearer.

Quote Monobass:

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Quote nathanscribe:

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whoops, Monobass just mentioned this while i was typing. Still, I agree - although i have to say there was one extremely helpful guy at SC leeds who was never less than brilliant. Sorry to see them go. There's nowhere else convenient for me to try stuff out before I buy it.

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Yeah I guess I should have pointed out i'm only talking about Turnkey in London.

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Are we certain the Leeds branches are closing? That will be a shame, if so.

There was one guy at kirkstall who commented on my skill with the roland V-Synth GT tone pad when we were last round there. I blushed.

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Composer;
www.ogonline.org

Quote Seaforth:

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I'm interested to know what the poster above found so poor about their website - I've never had a problem with it, including finding specific gauges of guitar string for a matter of pence, right up to the stuff costing hundreds or thousands. Never had anything coming in as in stock when it wasn't etc etc.

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Certain items just don't turn up in searches even when you enter very specific terms (on products which you can still access via browsing).

Mention it to Dolphin on the phone and they are very frank about the problems they have... I get the impression their system just can't handle the amount of products they carry.

Something resembling an official press release from www.creditman.biz...

Sound Control Group appoints adminstrators

Apr 30 2008
John Reid and Bill Dawson of Deloitte, the business advisory firm, have been appointed Administrators of Sound Control Holdings Limited (“Holdings”) and certain of its subsidiaries (“the Group”) following applications to the courts by the Group’s Directors.

The Group operates from 26 stores across the UK, under the brand names Sound Control, Media Tools, Turnkey and Soho Sound House, and is the largest musical instrument retailer in the UK. It has a turnover of £50m and 338 employees nationwide.

The Group has been impacted by increased competition from the internet and the directors had been pursuing a strategy to sell the business. This did not prove successful and accordingly they sought the appointment of John Reid and Bill Dawson as Administrators.

John Reid said: “Following a review of the Group’s operations the Administrators have today made the difficult decision to close 10 of the Group’s trading locations and bring to an end its telesales and internet sales activities. These changes to the Group’s operations have resulted in 163 redundancies with immediate effect.

“The Administrators welcome interest in the business and assets of the Group and are already in discussions with a number of interested parties to explore a possible sale.

“However, at the same time as they explore sale options, the Administrator will continue to trade the remaining 16 stores, selling high quality musical instruments to the public.”

The Group's head office is based in Dunfermline and has various trading locations throughout the UK."

Note the reference to the administrators' decision to terminate internet operations with immediate effect.

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Dynamite with a laser beam...

Quote Monobass:

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Quote Seaforth:

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... I get the impression their system just can't handle the amount of products they carry.

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Oh, that's a shame. Perhaps I've just been lucky so far then. Sounds like they're already suffering from a touch of "aagghh - it's all going too fast" - itis then. Let's hope they manage to keep their feet on the ground through all this disruption.

My keyboard playing accountant tells me that it wouldn't "necessarily" because with the same basic directors, and uncertainty what security has been offered to fund the huge Bank of Scotland loan - even apparently solvent sub=companies could be taken down.

So in a recent group of local building companies it was companies a and b which went into administration - and subsequently clear that the premises owned by company c had been used as bank security by the shared directors so company c went as well.

As it is according to the Company information it is the Holdings company (ie the group company) which has gone into liquidation.

In terms of purchases unless you are in the shop and get the product then I would be cautious about placing an order on line.

As I have a companies house direct account I just had a look and their latest filed accounts are only up to April 2006 and show a 2M loss for that year and 1.1M the year before.

As of then, the group comprised of:

Sound Control Modern Music Stores Limited
Media Tools Holding Limited
Greenwood Leisure Limited (formerlly Academy of Sound and Carlsbro Sound Centres (Derby/Leicester) Ltd.

As their accounts are overdue there isn't much newer information, one interesting thing is that 3 directors resigned on 09/02/08, Raymond Miller and Alan Gavin who both held 45000 shares. Also Grahame Burgess who was their chartered management accountant and holder of 22143 shares resigned.

Cheers

Phil

A bit sad but I had mixed experiences with them. One time they advertised a piece of software, took money from me and then failed to inform me it was discontinued.

Another time (I reported on this board) they told me the Rode NTK was in stock, my brother went to collect it, when he arrived they told him it was discontinued (incorrectly as it turns out).

Another recent experience - phoned up about the Line 6 Gearbox Silver, they said it was in stock, I asked them to double check (knowing what they're like) and lo and behold it wasn't. Phoned up Digital Village and it was in my hands the next day.

On the other hand some staff have gone out of their way to be really helpful and given some great advice.

The last time I went in there was to get a Rode NT2000 - I noticed the back area where all the synths and monitors were was all ripped out and I thought it was to refurbish the place.

I'd say overall due to their bad service they've probably lost about £500 of my business over the years - not a massively efficient operation in my experience.

Edited by Imran500 (30/04/08 08:21 PM)

It's a shame - every time I went into Sound Control in London the people I dealt with were helpful, intelligent, fairly clued up, and nice chaps.

As for Turnkey, they never lived up to the service they gave when they were Soho Soundhouse in Soho Square (they were excellent back then) and I always found going into Turnkey a rather depressing experience...

But it's bad news for the industry as a whole.

Its a shame I know a few guys who work there. I'm not surprised though, you can only go so long selling nothing but Behringer and Roland before people stop shopping there.

the last time i tried ordering something online it turned out of course that the item wasn't in stock. this was a few months ago.

the guy on the phone apologetically explained that the website couldn't display what was in stock but that they were working on a new one which would.

in the meantime i guess the world simply went off to use websites elsewhere...

Must have a knock-on effect on SoS somewhat, due to the hole created regard advertising revenue? Turnkey were always big (literally) on many-multiple-page-pullouts and stuff. =/

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http://Infekted.org ~ Access Virus news & community

Steve

"There's no way a company like Deloitte wants to be accused of defrauding customers in these situations. They've spent 200 years building up a reputation for honesty and trustworthiness, and they only need to trash it once."

I have two words for you:

"Arthur"

and

"Andersen"

:-)

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Instant gratification is actually pretty good. It's fast as well.

Quote oggyb:

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Are we certain the Leeds branches are closing? That will be a shame, if so.

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I'm over there tomorrow so I can find out. I think the only other place round here is Dolphin's Huddersfield shop, but it's a bit far out. Other than that it's what, Sheffield? I hope they can sort this out, retain a core of usefully spread retail outlets and improve their ordering system.

Seems odd they'd remove the online ordering though, I'd have though that would a cheap way of selling.

Where would they get their stock from? As previously mentioned in this thread, they have no way of displaying on-line stock levels and their system has previously seemed geared up to just taking all orders and either supplyng from stock or getting a supplier to deliver it at some later date.

With no means of getting stock from suppliers (unless they paid cash up front - and if they had the cash they wouldn't be broke), they would be trading illegally if they sold something they didn't have or couldn't get. So the only choice they have is to keep selling what they physicaly have in stock in the shops and their warehouses. They had to shut the website down.

Funny... I emailed their sales people today to get a contact for their education sales people. They replied promptly, with the contact details.

Turnkey AND Sound control. That leaves just about no electonic music instrument stores in London. Rose morris are not clued up on DAW stuff at all and the Digital village shop in Acton is so tiny; they never have the goods I want.
Yes, Turnkey staff is also not clued up and are very disorganized but at least they have a shed load of hardware and software synths. I mean, does any other shop in London even know who Native instruments are

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www.myspace.com/arcanamusic

I guess there will be ramifications for some UK-based music industry manufacturers too. Carillon seem the most obvious example. They produce music computer systems and a range of MIDI controllers, and Sound Control and associates appeared to be their main retail outlet in this country.

I notice that their website appears to be down tonight. A coincidence, I hope.

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Steve Cooke
http://soundcloud.com/stevecooke

I doubt it, they were AFAIK owned by Turnkey....


Bye bye Carillion as well I'd imagine.

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if you don't know who i am, i aint gonna tell you.

That would explain it then.

I wondered why they were so tied into Turnkey and Sound Control.

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Steve Cooke
http://soundcloud.com/stevecooke

Carillon are part of the same group of companies. There are reports around on the MI site that a Norwegian buyer was in place for Sound Control Holdings, but pulled out because of the unprofitability of some of the stores.

There would be nothing to stop them know negotiating with the Administrators for the bits they do want - including Carillon, the profitable stores etc. With the level of debt that SC were carrying and no published accounts since 2006 the whole group would have been a huge risk for any investor - now there is the prospect of something rising from the collapse.

Then they need to sort out the staff knowledge ( sadly often poor), stock control, and customer care which has been of the pace for ages and left them competing with Thomann etc, rather than the better retail stores such as Andertons and Coda.

There were staff around in Sound Control and Turnkey who knew what was happening and what needed doing, but the Directors just kept on growing the company.

There is a moral here for the other growing companies such as Dolphin. Informed service which convinces professional customers is the key - and critically how do you react when things go wrong for a customer - do you make excuses or do you sort it. Studiospares and Andertons etc don't often make mistakes - and when they do they are small enough care and offer personal service to get it sorted.

Well I probably should have guessed when I walked in there around a month ago and found precious little stock on offer and mostly low end stuff at that!

Turnkey, despite their detractors, had some pretty high standards in staff training. I did a secret shopper gig there for mikes and had some great fun popping in with a lavalier and a minidisc hidden about my person testing the level of knowledge of the staffers on some Neumann products. The people on test, whilst they didn't get everything right straight away, checked out well on the whole and had specs up online, discussed ordering information and offered to set up a test session (when you could easily do that for mikes) very quickly.

It's a shame.

Reg

Quote desmond:

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But it's bad news for the industry as a whole.

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Why? Sure it might be a signifier of the recession but I don't think anyone didn't see that coming of late.

They were a lousy company who did nothing to maintain any kind of good relationship with their customers.

To just assume it's specifically bad news for the industry rather than the economy as a whole is the same as the major record labels crying 'told you so' when some old Dinosaur like EMI goes down.

People with enough money aren't going to stop wanting Moogs and Prophets anymore than they are going to stop wanting Radiohead CDs. There'll be a few months of hard times ahead for those directly involved but it's hardly going to bring the industry down. The sub-prime and buy-to-let mortgages will see to that!

I was until this morning an employee of Sound Control in Salford.

I can probably fill in some details for people and will be happy to provide any info that I know.

So far...

This morning 14 (or possibly 12 - its been a long day!) of the 26 Sound Control stores were closed and the permanently locked. The stock from these stores is apparently being moved to the remaining stores for sorting.

ALL of the staff at these stores were made redundant.

Then at the remaining stores (I'll try to get a list for everyone tomorrow) the staff were randomly selected for redundancy or to stay (I was one of the unlucky ones). Everyone at head office has been made redundant. This apparently totalled 166 staff laid off at the last count.

Before there are any more posts bad mouthing the stores / staff please think about the fact that we're not getting paid the money that we are owed, and as was quoted by a colleague of mine "we're just as pissed off as you are!".
This is not the fault of the shop staff, please dont take any of it out on them. They didnt know this was coming.

Anyway, we were informed that the remaining stores will be open for the next 12 weeks. During this time the administrators will try to find a buyer for the company. If this does not happen the remaining stores will cease trading at the end of this period.

For now the remaining stores will continue to trade existing stock as normally as they can. Feel free to go in if you are concerned. As far as I am aware warranties are with the manufacturer not the shop so they will still be valid (though I'm not entirely sure how)

The main remaining stores (that I can remember) are...

Manchester Salford 0161 877 6262
Leeds East 0113 245 6415
London Oxford Rd (0207) 631 4200
Turnkey (see website)
Birmingham (0121) 248 5868
Southampton (02380) 829 189

Please spare a thought for the people that have lost their jobs and for those who still face losing theirs. If staff dont seem receptive please understand why.