ma-header-logo

PMC launch Prophecy series

P1110678

Moorgate History concludes

In which we conclude and draw plans for the future.

Thanks for staying with me this far. This chapter is short but sweet.

Covid did us good in a number of ways. I think it helped us expand our community of regular customers and focused me on communicating our intentions better. The Facebook group was extremely important in this as it was more immediate and far more “two way”. I could offer advice and information and explain our plans and actions and people could share their thoughts. This is extremely valuable to the business. We listen. I learned this from Farad Azima, the MD of Mission back in the day.

I think Covid also reminded some of us how important music was and is in our lives and particularly when things get tough. I know we’re not the only business to have benefited from this “reboot” but it seemed to be quite invigorating. I think it also made me want to fight harder for the business against all the negativity, the collapse of the High Street and the attempt to derail retail as we once knew it. The attack from all sides can only be resisted by a healthy business and that comes from repeat customers and customer loyalty. For which we are always extremely grateful.

I’ll pause for a rant and it is something that is close to my heart so I hope you’ll indulge me. Big business is destroying retail. It happens because “customers want it” or so we’re told. Big business offers low low prices and no service and that is something that customers want. Or so we’re told by the press and by market analysts.

Big business is also heavily influential and uses its power and promise to get rate reductions and to sway the way councils and government change the playing field. An example of this is the promise to tax web companies operating on brownfield sites (or even outside the UK) to act as a levy to aid retailers who invest in premises and local staff. Various governments have promised this but it never happens. So the larger retailers have massively reduced overheads. And they often pay little or no actual tax in the countries in which they operate. They often pay minimum wage or worse and use the gig economy to opt out of liability to their employees.

This isn’t me whining about competition. We’ve faced competition for over forty years and we have nothing to fear unless the game is rigged. Which it increasingly is and all the players that do the rigging are immense and often of a size that governments like ours simply will not tackle. As such they are able to destroy the high street without fear of repercussion and then claim that the customers are simply voting with their feet. Strangely the press peddle the same message.

Because of this we’ve accepted that we’ll get no help from this government or any that has gone before it. Claims to foster a competitive market usually involve big shlock web businesses who sell stuff a bit cheaper and pay little or no tax. This is extremely curious but I’ll leave it at that.

We believe you need to see and hear the products you’re interested in and we believe firmly that you need to talk to like minded people and enthusiasts in order to make the most informed decision. Retail should be fun and the experience of buying something should be pleasant. We’re not selling tins of beans. That’s why we invest in good premises, have relaxing listening rooms and fill our store with great products.

Our Woodseats store ticked all the boxes. Better in fact that Fitzwilliam Street before it. It also had car parking and this is vital for us and our customers. Business stayed good after the various re-openings and you can bet we opened up as soon as we could and served customers properly.

A website redesign took a lot longer than expected because the previous hosts went out of business and we could not access the site's location. At the eleventh hour we launched our new website as .com and then eventually accessed the co.uk address as well. This has slowly increased in terms of day to day sales, particularly with regard to ex demo, special offers and used equipment. We also sell on eBay, although quite frankly I don’t expect that to last for too much longer as the eBay market seems to be collapsing. It also remains an expensive route to market.

Sadly earlier this year we lost Doug McCarthey and this was a real loss for us. He was a valuable and valued member of the team and was well liked by our customers and our business partners (suppliers). However, nobody is irreplaceable and shortly after, Kev joined us and quickly became at home within the business.

The Future



It’s hard to believe but next year we’ll have been on Woodseats for ten years. We’ve extended our lease and expect to be here for at least another five years. We will extend this further if we can. By can I mean provided the local conditions haven’t changed around us. We’re already hearing rumours that major changes will be made to Woodseats, with regard to traffic. I have been thinking for a long time that “traffic reduction” measures would force us to move again. I hope that isn’t the case but suspect and am planning in case it is. It may simply be that the council doesn’t want cars anywhere in the city center or secondary retail areas like Woodseats and Hillsborough. It will start out as a ULEZ style system of fines and extend to traffic-free zones.

If that were to be the case we will have to move and it will be the last move of my working life and I am not going to move to anywhere that could suffer the same fate. So that means either in the countryside or somewhere on an industrial unit off an A road.

This would force us to change the dynamic of our business but we would fully intend to remain open for traditional retail as well as continuing to develop our online presence.

I’ll hold my hands up and say I don’t like change. Generally we have it forced on us and are told it is for our own good. An example of this is the banks telling us nobody wants to go in branches any more so it is only sensible for them to close them. We all know this is simply lies to enable them to offer us less service, drop the personal touch and give them the upper hand in dealing with us. And of course when we change banks we get the same old same old. It is the same with our utilities, many of the products and services we buy online and it’s getting similar when you try to get a doctor's appointment. 

So Moorgate will remain the antithesis of and an antidote to that for as long as I am able/willing to work. When the outside interference gets too much or too crushing, then it might be time to throw the towel in or to try to find someone with their own vision for the future. My vision is planted heavily in the past and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

Whatever happens we’ll keep you informed and we’ll continue to share our journey with those who wish to read it.

I’ll sign off by thanking you for reading this and for staying with me to the end. These things are written to be read and it's mostly been an enjoyable trip into the vaults at the base of my head. I’ll also thank you for your support and for your custom. Businesses like ours only exist when customer support exceeds costs. At its simplest, running a business IS customer service and relations.

Finally; the conversation goes on. Talk to me and my staff in whichever manner you prefer and we’d be glad to answer any questions regarding any of our history and of course our plans for the future.


Bye for now


Paul Hobson






Majik-LP12-Krane-Tonearm-23-Blue_Pantone-645-C-900x600

LINN winter LP12 Promotion

Running till the end of January.

Linn has announced a Winter trade-in promotion that guarantees a £750 trade-in amount against a new Majik LP12 complete turntable (MC or MM) when you trade-in your existing record player, saving c.20%.

All non-Linn turntables are eligible for the saving, in any condition, as are Linn Axis and Basik decks.

If your current turntable is worth more, we’ll top up the trade-in; if it’s worth nothing, you still get the £750 off.

A complete Majik LP12 comprises:

Standard plinth – black ash, rosenut, walnut, oak or cherry (fluted, high gloss and colour-matched plinths also available)

LP12 comprises

LP12 mechanics and Karousel bearing

Standard subchassis and armboard

Majik psu power supply

Krane tonearm

Fitted with Koil cartridge (MC version) or Adikt cartridge (MM version)

We also build LP12's

To your spec and to your budget. We build from new and used parts to create something unique. Starting from £1499. We normally have a lot of decks and a lot of parts in stock. We also have a wide selection of plinths for you to choose/

Get in touch!

50192610_10215093499068109_7407821869719486464_n

Moorgate History 6

Challenges continue to come thick and fast

As soon as Woodseats was open and operating as a functional store I once again had to leave Coops and Doug alone for two thirds of the week in order to sort out the old store. This was made more odious when I learned that we had to rip out the structures we’d built. And this needed to be done quite quickly because we were continuing to pay rent and needed to hand the premises back to the two landlords whose property our old store straddled.

The following month was probably the hardest of my life. Myself and a couple of labourers shifted 9 skips full of breeze, rubble and old “stuff” that had been accumulated over 26 years. We ripped up carpets, broke down old display furniture, swept, hoovered and cleaned and then bricked up the gap between the two sections. Rockwool was swallowed.

On the last day my dad joined me and we finally said goodbye to 184 Fitzwilliam Street, locking the doors for the last time and posting them through our landlord's door. I shed more than a few tears I’m not ashamed to admit. It was some consolation that my dad was with me, because he’d been with me when we opened the store. 

Closing any shop that you’ve poured years of your life into is extremely traumatic. Even if it is tinged with the success of a new venture it still feels like failure. I left feeling ten years older and looking like five miles of bad road.

Woodeats becomes established

I really needn’t have worried. Just as customers helped us move, they helped us by remaining loyal and visiting us for all their hi-fi needs. And even old customers who we hadn’t seen for a while seemed to be back visiting us in Woodseats.

Earlier in this history I covered my experiences with the hi-fi press. Their popularity had declined dramatically in the ensuing years. Eventually sales were so poor that the top sellers lost their position in the top 100 magazines and as a result lost their place in many stores and supermarkets and this pushed circulation off a cliff.

Ten years before (give or take) we took the decision to stop advertising in the hi-fi press. This was informed by three factors. 

One was their continued endless recommendation of Richer Sounds. I have no beef with Richer but an “independent” magazine continuing to give 5 star reviews to their own brands (Cambridge and others) was disingenuous and did independent shops no good at all. It was “bought” and paid for by large advertising spend. I repeat I don’t blame Richer but I do blame the magazines.

Two was the aforementioned poor circulation and the diversification to include phones and other tech that we felt was less relevant to us.

Three; the fact that the adverts were expensive and gave us little benefit. My reasoning was that if customers were interested in hi-fi they would google search hifi shops and ours would come up. They would make their way to our website and hopefully by one means or another to us. So we’d invested in our website and all our forward facing social media instead.

Almost immediately we found that this was working. In simple terms it drove in customers and sales. So we upped the posts, the discussions, the pictures and the information. We got involved in Facebook in 2010 and felt fairly at home there. Personally I felt confident using it and grew confident in posting. I’ve never felt the same way about Twitter and Insta and I won’t use Tik Tok or any of that nonsense because I don’t understand it and I don’t particularly know what we’d be expected to say. I don’t feel as if I have confidence in my voice there.


I got into the habit of posting regularly and used Facebook to keep people informed about what we were up to, events, new products, special offers and traded in equipment. And we decided to up the events after taking a break from them towards the end of Fitzwilliam Street.

We’d taken a break because we felt the events weren’t working that well. We’d also got pretty demoralised by the situation with the substance abuse clinic and the increase in antisocial behaviour. I think we took a break because we all wanted one.

On Woodseats myself and the staff had a shorter commute, our own parking and we weren’t facing the endless bollocks of scumbags thieving and beating each other bloody. Moods improved dramatically and so did positivity. With positivity comes progress and we thought it would be a good idea if we started the manufacturer open days again.

We were mostly seeing the same faces and it is true to say those customers were already fairly regular visitors. However it did enable us to catch up and it did allow people to meet and chat with other like minded people and that’s something we felt should not be overlooked. Each event would also call forth a few new customers or get some old customers back in to re-engage. The events drive a spike in business that follows them. We rarely try to sell on the day but the boost in business sometimes takes a while but then lasts a while.

You may be interested in knowing that we’ve long wanted to arrange our own hi-fi show. The only reason this has not taken place is because of our failure to find a suitable venue. And when we have they’ve not been interested in working with us. Most seem content with wedding and craft fayres. We will keep looking.

In many ways the move to Woodseats saved the company. I don’t think we’d have lasted on Fitzwilliam Street for many more years and it would have been the death of a thousand cuts. It also saved my sanity and put me in a place where I had a better grip and understanding of what the business needed to move forward. And of course I can’t underestimate the importance of good staff and the loyalty of our customers.

Our Facebook group

Dad had always realised that we appealed to a small percentage of the population. With this in mind the idea of community was always in our minds. We noted that customers liked to meet when they visited us and they enjoyed chatting about their systems. We’d seen the rise of independent hi-fi shows and Bake-offs where people would meet and enjoy listening and comparing their equipment. We were also seeing people talking in response to our posts on Facebook.

Personally I was involved in some Facebook groups and these were music related. I’d seen the massive potential for people to interact in these groups, sometimes even forming friendships and meeting up in person. This gave me the idea to start a Moorgate group.

I did this in 2019 (I think) and quickly gathered a few regular customers as members. I had been spending a lot of time on other music and hi-fi related groups and to me they were mostly (but not all) absolutely terrible places full of idiotic comment, zealotry, one-upmanship and often bullying. Invariably I’d join and hover for a while, usually biting my tongue and blinking a lot in disbelief. Then I’d possibly comment and then I’d await a reaction which could be scorn, disbelief and disapproval or even anger. Then I’d think “fuck this for a game of soldiers and leave”. People would frequently add me to groups thinking I’d be interested. I almost immediately left.

My time in BADA and Mountain Snow (an initially successful but later ill fated buying group) had made me realise I don’t like groups or clubs. The reason I don’t like them is because the members all say one thing and do another. I have likened this to herding cats. Cats like doing what they want and people tend to be the same. I have no problem with this at all except I was starting a group and I wanted to ensure we didn’t just repeat the same problems I’d found elsewhere.

I never wanted to impose my own ideas on the group. Covid taught me that I am a libertarian and I believe in minimum interference by outside bodies into my life and business. So the last thing I wanted to do was to tell people what to do. I can advise people what to do but I’m not going to tell them what to do. There lies the difference.

Anyway when the group was small we set out some rules. These were extremely simple and based on not being rude, being friendly, recognising that your opinion is just that and no more and for is all to try and keep everything about music first.

Things went well and people were invited to join and slowly the group grew and expanded and now has over 1400 members. This surprises me but in a good way and I am delighted with it. I am even more delighted with the inherent decency and good-naturedness of almost all our members. And anyone who falls outside this is ejected after one warning. 

A few like minded souls were approached to work as admins on the group. Their efforts and work means I can be away from my computer and return to find things orderly and polite. Which really is a joy to me. I’ve always been surprised that my staff don’t get more involved in the group but there’s no mileage in me forcing anyone to do anything they don’t want, especially out of hours. 

The group is a joy to me because it has become a community and a community of people who have a fairly obscure hobby. Here they can seek second opinions, share and get good advice. Most people I speak to admit that they do not know many people who share the same enthusiasm for music or good sound. So finding a group of 1400 similarly minded souls is a joy to them.

If you’re reading this and you’re not a member but think that you might like to discover more then do consider joining us. It is a very welcoming place.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/Moorgate

We’ve kept the group about music first. Hi-Fi being a means to better appreciate it. This is our ethos in everything we do. It is a great testament to the members that the group is and remains (and will remain) a friendly place.

Wax@Moorgate

Moorgate is on three levels at Woodseats and the basement was selected to be our stockroom. However a combination of damp and the wettest year in my memory meant that we took the decision to move the stock up to the top floor. The final straw was the discovery of an emaciated frog down there. We moved him to a nearby cemetery and left him to good fortune with at least a fighting chance of a meal.

This left us with some space that wasn’t really usable. After discussions with our landlord we decided to call in some experts to see what could be done to make the basement usable as it was costing us to rent. We got quotes for tanking after taking advice that it was the only solution. Eventually we settled on a local firm who were the only ones offering common sense. Since the water was somehow getting into the premises to the left of the building; they sensibly suggested tanking that half of the basement. This should and did solve the problem and at 50% of the cost. This is why you can see a step where the counter is located.


The only downside is that good firms are busy and so they worked in between other jobs and this took a little longer than we’d hoped. It did however solve our problem and left us with a usable and dry area. One of my ambitions had always been to open a record store and the timing and the space and the fact that we were already paying rent for it gave us a perfect opportunity. We were also firmly convinced that the vinyl revolution would continue and that a record store would go hand in hand with Moorgate Acoustics.

I’ll admit to knowing nothing about record stores. I knew what I liked and I had an idea what sort of music we’d like to sell. A good friend of mine did a lot of research and came up with the design and look of the store as well as many other excellent ideas. She joined me in being a driving force in the final opening of Wax 5 years ago and works as manager to this day.

We opened with a selection of new and used LP’s and a selection of used CD’s. And we hit a steep learning curve which meant a lot of hard work, a lot of stepping outside comfort zones and a massive learning curve. Running a business is a constant learning curve to be honest as I am sure many of you know.

In the fairly short period of time before covid arrived on the landscape, we could see that Wax would be an asset to us. Initially it drew from our existing customers but soon it attracted its own and in time, some of them began to find their way upstairs. We also felt that we had something of a unique proposition and that it would draw people to perhaps travel a little further to visit us and indulge their passion for music and hi-fi.


Take a tour of the original Wax here;

https://www.facebook.com/reel/861265120914689

And it seemed to be working.

Which leads me to Covid

I could see from the frantic reporting in the early days of Covid that it was going to have a great impact on all our lives. I think we still don’t appreciate how big that impact would be, how much we lost and how heavy the cost would be.

Let me say right now that I don’t trust governments and I don’t trust massive organisations who tell the governments (they call it advising) what to do. They’re all clubs and clubs are full of self-serving people who want to fill their beaks. I mean this non politically and I’m not waving any flag other than that of Moorgate Acoustics. 

When I heard the word Lockdowns mentioned I felt sure that at some point they’d come. They were being mentioned all the time and it was clear we were being prepared for them. They terrified me for many different reasons. Some were personal but most of them related to the way they might impact and possibly even destroy dads company. 

When lockdowns arrived I knew this was a defining moment for us in some way. I knew that we had to remain open in whatever way that we could so that we could continue to engage with our customers. I could not imagine sitting at home and doing this. I can’t work from home. I don’t know how other people can. Far too many distractions. In any event you can’t retail remotely.

We found that we could “covid secure” the premises by hanging some signs up. Not sure who would ever see them because we were not allowed to let customers in. However we could see them and we cleaned when we should and kept to separate sides of the shop. Doug at one end and me at the other. Coops we furloughed because his dad was vulnerable and we were concerned about shielding.

During this time we opened 3-4 days a week and we answered the phone, answered our emails and engaged with our customers on the Moorgate Acoustics Facebook page and more importantly the Facebook Group.

We learned that customers were allowed to collect items from us provided we took precautions. We had to put items in the customers boot, or deliver items onto customers drives. We had to wear masks and gloves and observe social distancing. Scotch eggs were not involved.

We quickly found that the phone never stopped ringing and we received more emails than we were used to. People were also engaging us online and they wanted to buy things. They were off work, they were being paid and they were bored.
I think it is also fair to say that there was a strange dystopian feel to life during this period. There was a lot of worry and there was a lot of fear but married to this was a sort of absurdity with regards to the rules. Rules relating to outside exercise and things like this were also at best strange and at worst comical. All this meant that for people like you and I, music became even more important than ever before. It was the thing that kept us sane.

Business during this period was off the scale good and I think in part this was because a lot of stores closed. Not all but many of them did. We’d get a lot of phone calls that started with “hey!!!! You’re open! I need some equipment”.

A few notable instances arose out of such calls. One customer ordered £30,000 worth of equipment over the phone on the condition that we’d deliver it within a couple of days. He’d been meaning to do it for years but finally had the time. Not all our suppliers were open so we would often have to use our demo stock. Customers didn’t care just so long as they got music at home.

We received fortuitous calls from Rega and PMC. They offered us stock that was sitting in their store rooms and directed customers to us. Within one 5 week period we shifted 159 Rega turntables. They arrived in two drops and filled our entire showroom. PMC was similar but not in such numbers.

The relief was immense when I realised that we might actually survive this virus as a business.

During the 1st lockdown my parents were both diagnosed with Alzheimers. It had been evident for a while that both of them were having memory problems but getting further along with regard to a verdict was taking a long time. In the end I got the diagnosis only because I had more time to chase the NHS to finally provide one based on the tests they’d been doing prior. I had to spend a lot of time with them in order to offer reassurance. Neither mum or dad understood what was going on in the wider world and they’d forget what they were told. This added a lot to my stress levels but none of this was quite so bad when I realised that the business would be ok.

Eventually Paul Cooper returned to work and Doug took a break. We were not sure that we could justify all three of us working in fairly close quarters and I think Doug was ready for a rest. Coops was going stir crazy and was relieved to get out of the house and do something that could provide a distraction.

It remained an exceptionally busy time, as did all the lockdowns and again I thank our loyal customers for this. I also think we came to the attention of a lot of new customers. And the Facebook group went from strength to strength and enabled us to share more and more with our members. The group grew at this time as well.

I feel some guilt to report how we did during covid because it was a terrible time for a lot of people and the country still has not fully recovered from it. It might be years before we do.

By the time the lockdowns ended it had become clear that nobody really knew what they were doing. The advice was conflicting and the powers that be clearly weren’t taking a great deal of notice of the rules. However by the time we were allowed to open our doors again and receive customers we were thrilled to bits to be able to do so.

Initially customers were wary. The mask thing had an effect on some more than others. Some were glad to take them off and some were frightened to do so. We took our lead from the customer and wore masks when it became evident that the customers were more comfortable. When the mask mandate was removed I was the happiest I’d been in a long time.

When we did re-open the store was half empty due to the fact that we’d sold off half our stock. It took us a while to replace it as well because there were massive parts shortages that affected a lot of our brands.


Another covid plus was having a little time allowed me to start building LP12’s out of the parts we’d accumulated over the thirty eight or so years we’d been working on them. My fourth working day was spent building them. As I built them they’d sell and so I’d build more. We also did a lot of upgrade work on Sondeks over the lockdowns and upgrades mean more trade in parts and more Sondeks.

All of these “stories” and activities provided Facebook posts to interested customers and plenty of discussion on the group. During covid the group seemed like one of my better ideas and it had a momentum which continues to this day. A lot of work but a lot of reward.

Thank you for reading. The final chapter will bring us up to date and also look at what the future might look like for Moorgate Acoustics.






465811997_960228439467231_2754111586892737948_n

Rega add P3 RS to their range

Based on the huge success of the anniversary Planar 3 Rega have created a new premium edition of the legendary Rega Planar 3 package at an extremely competitive price. It is in addition to the range and does NOT replace the P3.


For the first time, the Planar 3 has been manufactured using a special High Pressure Laminate (usually reserved for Planar 6, Planar 8 and Planar 10) to improve rigidity. This new premium finish has a stunning real brushed aluminium satin finish.

The Planar 3 RS Edition (Rega Special) will be supplied with a hand tuned Neo PSU MK2 power supply and factory fitted with the brand-new award winning Nd5 moving magnet cartridge to create the ultimate Planar 3 at an incredible price.
At £995 the package represents a £156 saving on the individually bought products. This makes it great value for money. The change of plinth material also brings this closer to P6 in terms of performance.

This premium new plinth is edged with high gloss black to set off the metal finish and is supplied with a smoked dustcover to guarantee this product will sit with other hi-fi equipment in any environment.

On demo soon






c1_uniti_102_34_face

Naim Audio launch affordable Uniti 102

The Uniti 102 is Naim's attempt to make a more affordable version of the Atom. It is also designed to be at home with a wise range of loudspeakers and can even be expanded to add more speakers and more rooms. RRP is £1299.

It combines a streamer with a DAC and a powerful amplifier, all running from the Naim app.

Streamer functions;
Wired and wireless (TIDAL, TIDAL Connect, Qobuz, Spotify Connect, UPnP™,
Internet Radio, AirPlay 2 & ChromeCast



Amplification
150 watt into 8 Ohms.

Digital and analogue inputs are provided including HDMI Arc for connecting a TV.

A second Zone audio signal can also be taken out of this unit to drive addition zones.

Simple, powerful and elegant audio system - just add speakers

We've been listening to this unit for a couple of days with a variety of speakers and it has no problem driving any of the speakers in our shop. At its price we feel it will likely be used with speakers costing £400 - £1000 and it is more than capable of doing so with ease.

Because it is discreet and doesn't actually have to be on display, we think some users might want to have this with either in-wall or in-ceiling speakers for a truly discreet audio system.

More info here;

https://media.focal-naim.com/dam/ci-uniti-102/fp_uniti_102_en.pdf

& here;

https://moorgateacoustics.com/product/naim-audio-ci-uniti-102-new/








466678303_10229421066968352_2310104801248958229_n

Moorgate history continued

Part 5

I’d like to start by thanking you if you’re still reading this. It’s much appreciated, especially as the story has taken a little longer to tell than I thought.


You could say the last few years of Moorgate’s time on Fitzwilliam Street was blighted and looking back on it now the blight was purely the substance abuse clinic. The move (forced on us) by the impending demolition of the store was really an extremely good kick up the backside and to be honest it was needed.

An exception to this was the addition of Doug McCarthey to our staff. Doug was a customer but when David Gillot left to pursue pastures new, Doug came to the interview and never really left. Well not until donkeys years later anyway.

Self doubt

Almost all of us fear change and change that is unknown is the worst kind. There were a million things that flashed through my mind when I contemplated moving our store (and “home” for 34 years of my working life) and most of them filled me with sadness and horror. I felt as if an era was coming to an end and I had no idea if we’d survive it. I did not know if the company would survive it. Looking back I realise that my concerns were foundless but these are the things that run through your mind in the early hours when you wake up and can’t go back to sleep.

None of us are immune to doubt, nor envisaging things going wrong. We’ve often found when times are hard then something else happens which makes them harder. Businesses either adapt to these changes or they die. But the adapting has to be in the right direction and a wrong move can be terminal. I don’t mean to bleat but people usually say to me that running a business must be marvellous and that I am lucky. I tell them that the harder I work the luckier I get and often that is lost on them.

Everything I have done (and continue to do) has been for this business. For my dad and for the staff and for the customers who have rewarded us with their loyalty. I’m not entirely selfless because I am doing something that (at its core) I love and it pays my mortgage. But loving something can make the hardest work seem joyous. And I really do love 90% of the job.

All the things I loved about the job I do still love. But there is a minefield of red tape, restrictions, complications, legislation, paperwork, attestation and other general mind-fuckery that makes any business venture at least part nightmare. This “other stuff” gives me hours and hours of nightmares and I can assure you that this side of things is increasing as our governments believe that they should interfere more and more in our businesses and our lives. And it gets in the way of all the things you want to do with your time and stops you interfacing with your customers.

But I digress…

We had to move and we were given a year to do so. This was very generous of our landlord. He also offered us some “key money” to smooth the transfer to a new store. We knew we wanted to be out of town because of our fears of the introduction of traffic limitation (ULEZ). So it made sense to look out of town and that’s where we started.

I looked at units on industrial estates in areas served well by roads. Most of these were ideal but when I went to view them (and speak to the local businesses) I found that the police response time was poor. In fact we heard from people who said the police may not respond at all. This convinced me that it could be expensive in more ways than one.

Eventually my dad suggested that he’d seen a vacant store on Woodseats. Woodseats is an area of Sheffield with its own vibrant shopping area. It is also situated on one of the busiests roads in and out of the city and not too far from Chesterfield and the M1. I arranged to have a viewing and was extremely taken by almost all aspects of the store and its location. I got a second and a third opinion and apart from a few changes that we would need to make internally, there were no negatives and a shedload of positives. And first amongst those was our own car parking.

Initially we looked at renting half of the property. This idea was dropped as soon as we met the individual who would possibly be renting the upstairs. He was very concerned about us playing music. So we negotiated with the landlord to take the entire building and it turns out that this was a good decision for many reasons, as well as not battling with someone who didn’t particularly like music.

For three months we worked on Chesterfield Road whilst our Fitzwilliam Street store kept things ticking over and kept looking after customers. This was mostly myself because I couldn’t spare anyone else. I did get some builders to move some walls around and then a company to improve the security and install shutters along the outside of the building. I also decorated it myself in an attempt to keep costs down. Dad helped and a few good friends tipped a hand when my need was great (as good friends do).

The store had been a photography studio previously and we actually built our main demo room in the area where the pictures were taken. So a studio became a listening room. This is NOT an acoustic room or a specially treated room. In fact it has mechano walls filled with rockwool and not a solid wall out of four. So when it was decorated and carpeted we had to hang curtains and a drape to tempt good sound out of it. But we’d grown used to doing this in lots of demo rooms down the years and also at customers' houses too.

We don’t hold with tricks and room treatments. Not because we don’t think they can work but because we feel our demo rooms need to be good enough for you to hear the difference between equipment and no better. Any more than that and we’ll get a better sound than you might at home and that can lead to disappointment. In our history we’ve found very few rooms in which we’ve not easily been able to make good sound. When that has occurred it has mostly been down to extreme minimalism (all glass and tiles/hardwood floor) or ceiling beams which can divide the room acoustically. Both these issues can be fixed fairly simply.

So the two demo rooms at Woodseats were one large and one small and both of them enabled us to demonstrate two pieces of equipment or two pairs of speakers and for the difference to be fairly clear. That is all we require of them other than being places where you can relax and enjoy listening.

As the Woodseats shop took shape I relaxed a little because this was the first time where I’d had a clear vision of what I wanted the store to look like. I wanted it to be light and airy and I wanted it to be a cross between an art gallery and an open plan loft. It was a male dominated space because we know our customer. We have some great female customers of course but they’re sadly in the minority. In short, I wanted a store for somebody like me.

We’ve spent too much time and energy wondering why everyone isn’t interested in music and hearing it reproduced well at home. Nothing ever worked. New customers are wonderful but old customers are the ones that tell new customers to come and see us. So we look after our customers as best we can and let everything else flow from this. These days we spend almost zero money on advertising and we’re not suffering as a result. Hi-Fi magazines sell so few copies that they’re more or less pointless as an advertising tool. Spending money in other ways has never worked. It took a lot of time and effort to learn this hard fact.

We’ve done promotions with car dealers and it has been worse than a waste of money. In fact it is a thinly veiled attempt to access our customer database and that’s not something we will ever share. In fact we don’t have a customer database as such. We used to and it became so complex and time consuming that we threw the towel in. Linn encouraged us to work with Jaguar in one of their showrooms. I can tell you a story about that but it lasted a week before we took it all out. Utter waste of time.

At Woodseats we had the opportunity to make the shop exactly how we wanted it and fill it with the brands we wanted to stock. We knew it would take time but I think I realised that the new store would be make or break time for us. The past few years had been so demoralising that this felt like the last fight to do something better and something new and get away from all the deadbeats on Fitzwilliam Street.

Eventually the store was complete. Or it was complete as I was realistically going to get it. We bought some furniture from Ikea and a load of new display racks that were (I thought) better than the heavy duty ones that my dad had designed for the old store. Those were heavy, hard to move and not suited to the new space where all the racking would be located on all the side walls. A charity offer to collect them and pay us. They collected them but never paid us.

We gave our customers notice and moved everything out of Fitzwilliam Street over three days and with the help of some very good friends and customers. They know who they are and I’ll be forever grateful to them. At that time I would have said it was the most exhausting time of my life but as ever life was about to teach me another lesson and I’ll come to that soon.

If you build it they will come!

We opened in February 2016 and we were delighted (and unbelievably) relieved that customers immediately came to see us. And what was even better is that they liked the store. Forty two years of experience doesn’t tell you that customers will come. It doesn’t calm the nerves and the sleepless nights that are born out of the insecurities we all have. Some of them hide them better than others I guess. I am pretty good at toughing it out but these things don’t come particularly easily. I’ve done training on speaking and presentation and all manner of skills which are mostly expensive common sense. Let me assure you that they might help but they don’t ease the anxiety. At best you get all your butterflies flying in the same direction.


We opened and they came and we were all happy and relieved as I can possibly tell you. Me in particular. Dad had retired at this stage but his hand was still guiding mine and he helped when he could but felt that streaming was the Devils work and felt out of his depth with it.

Mum continued in her role as company secretary and Paul Cooper and Doug McCarthey stayed on in sales. The commute was a lot less, the parking was fantastic and all of a sudden we weren’t having to be on guard against the saddest and most unpredictable members of society.

I’ve included more pictures because we took a lot more at this time. Thanks to Dave Brearley for sharing his pictures with me as well.

Business on Woodseats started well and remained well. We discovered a lot of customers who didn’t like driving into town and who didn’t like parking outside the substance abuse clinic. But Woodseats was different and closer to where they lived. We also started to see a lot more people from Derbyshire further south. Mainly because we were closer to the M1 and we were not located in the city centre.

We opened up with more or less the brands we have now but with a few subtle changes and a few losses and additions. Our range is a work in progress and will remain so whilst we remain in business because it underscores everything that we do.

Life was better. The commute was shorter. We didn’t have deadbeats watching us like silent, twitching sentinels. Idiots didn’t say “we know where you park your car”. And customers came.

Part 6 soon.






n530-top_3-4

Bluesound Streamer line up for 2024

The Icon is the new flagship streamer from Bluesound and it will join our range soon. We know it will retail for £899 and here's what else we know.

The NODE ICON is a flagship wireless music streamer, designed for the audio obsessed. With its sleek aluminum chassis, and vibrant 5” full-color display, it sets a new benchmark for wireless music streamers. Seamlessly connect it to any premium amplifier, powered speakers, or headphones, and enjoy BluOS hi-res streaming, Apple AirPlay 2, THX AAA™ technology, and more. HDMI eARC, Dolby Digital, and Dirac Live* ensure an immersive audio experience for music and TV.

  • Dual-mono DAC design with 2 x ESS Sabre ES9039Q2M DAC
  • THX AAA™ headphone amplifier technology with 2 x 1/4" jacks for cable management
  • High-quality balanced XLR outputs
  • HDMI eARC, optical, analog and USB-C inputs
  • RCA, coax, optical, USB outputs
  • Apple AirPlay 2 and aptX Adaptive Bluetooth*
  • Dirac Live Ready*
  • Beautiful 5” full-colour HD display and backlit touch panel with presets and controls

*Available via future software update

We're excited to hear it and will report back. We expect it to be good and it is priced very well for the claimed performance and specs.

Node (2024)

At £499 this is the tried and tested Node that we all love. It's earned some subtle improvements and a full sized headphone socket. It is a great way of adding streaming to your existing hi-fi system and does everything you might want. At the heart of this experience is a superb app. I can't state enough how important this is to your streaming experience and Bluesound have it right.

Simply put, there is nothing like the NODE. With re-engineered components and circuitry for even better performance, the original wireless hi-res music streamer now features built-in THX AAA™ headphone technology, DSD playback, and more. Connect it to your stereo system and stream music, radio, podcasts, and more from popular streaming services or your personal library. With HDMI eARC, Dolby Digital decoding, and Apple AirPlay 2, the NODE is at the core of your home audio experience, with the flexibility to wirelessly connect to Bluesound Players for seamless multi-room music throughout the home.

  • ESS ES9039Q2M SABRE® DAC
  • Quad-core 1.8GHz ARM® Cortex™ A53 processor
  • THX AAA™ headphone amplifier technology
  • Full-sized 1/4″ (6.3mm) headphone output
  • HDMI eARC, Optical inputs
  • Dirac Live Ready*
  • Five programmable quick-touch presets
  • User interface with proximity sensor
  • AirPlay 2 integration
  • Spotify Connect + TIDAL Connect

*Available via future software update

Node Icon is an affordable introductory streamer but it's no slouch in terms of price and performance. And it does absolutely everything you could want. Just add an amp and speakers, or even a soundbar and you're away. £299

Upgrade your stereo system effortlessly with the NODE NANO. Just connect to Wi-Fi and start streaming music, radio stations. Experience audiophile-grade sound with the industry-leading ESS SABRE® DAC, supporting audio up to 24-bit/192kHz for exceptional clarity. ESS ES9039Q2M SABRE® DAC Stereo RCA output Optical, coaxial, and USB outputs 2 programmable quick-touch presets Quad-core 1.8GHz ARM® Cortex™ A53 processor DSD playback* AirPlay 2 integration Spotify Connect, TIDAL Connect, Roon Ready Two-way aptX™ Adaptive Bluetooth* *Available via future software update

Both the Node and Nano are in stock now and available here;

https://moorgateacoustics.com/product/bluesound-node-2024-model/

https://moorgateacoustics.com/product/bluesound-node-nano-new/

Both are now on demo. We have lots of alternatives and we can easily demo them and explain what they do. We can take the tech out of it and play you some music.

Image1

Moorgate History part 4

Part 4 

Home cinema was gone. In less than a month too. All sold and what little we could recover from the stock was ploughed back into two-channel. And at that time I recall it was turntables that were slowly starting to regain a momentum which surprised us. Not in terms of performance but in terms of growth. We’d expected vinyl to remain constant within a small audiophile community. But we had not foreseen the massive growth which has continued to this day.

The great news for us is that we never missed Home Cinema one jot and our lives became a lot more enjoyable. We were happier and we were more focussed. Slowly some of the customers who had drifted towards Home cinema began to drift back to two-channel. They’d lost their passion for listening to music because HC equipment was fundamentally not that good, especially when matched with speakers compact enough to go all around the lounge.

Looking back on it we realised that a lot of Home Cinema equipment had got worse. For music playback anyway. It had come down in price, higher specifications had been added to the digital side, connectivity had increased and speakers had mostly got worse and the whole thing was essentially poor when it came to playing music. Not the high end kit of course but the market for high end kit was quite small.

So once again we were about our business doing what we enjoyed and doing what we felt our customer valued. It was a good feeling and both the atmosphere and morale improved in the store in the following years.

Our staff slowly changed. We lost Ian Blay and David Coleman and these were replaced with John Kenny and Adrian Cox. Both brought their own ideas and their own character to the job and both were very liked by our customers.

Customers

I’d like to pause for a moment to talk about customers. In short they are our life blood and the reason we thrive and are in business today. Everything else is secondary. Without them we cease to exist. Satisfied customers have built our business.

When things are tough (as they often are in retail) it is customers that carry you through. Customers provide loyalty, support and repeat business if you look after them. They also recommend you to their friends. I do think a lot of retail in general (and not just in our industry) has forgotten this. Part of it is when the people who own the business become disconnected from the sales floor. They move to an office and they lose touch of what is going on. What customers are saying, how staff are behaving and so forth.

My desk is in the shop for this very reason. I hear stuff. I find stuff out. I am not “insulated” from what’s going on. It can be painful at times but for the most part I consider it vital.

Staff

We've always enjoyed social outings with our suppliers and staff. These usually involve a few drinks and a curry and have strangely become somewhat legendary, particularly our Christmas Party which has strode the Indian restaurants of Sheffield over the last 43 years. Some of the pictures in this section of our history are taken on these nights out. I don't find myself with anywhere near as many photos of our shop as I thought but they're probably squirrelled away on a drive somewhere and when I do find them I'll share.

Music

Music is the bond we share with our customers. It’s our shared passion and our enthusiasm. Despite this we noticed that so much of the day to day discussions with customers were based on specification and things which are hard to quantify. The demo room helped immensely with this but strange as it might seem, not all customers are aware that we have them or have the confidence to ask to use them.

We recognise that walking into a new environment where everyone is an expert can be intimidating. Our Fitzwilliam Street store had a lot of windows and we had to wipe nose prints off. These were left by people who were interested enough to look in but rarely actually crossed the doorstep. I thought about this a lot. I thought about what they were seeing; a lot of equipment that they didn’t recognise by brands they didn’t know. And staff who clearly did know a fair bit more than they did. If you don’t know the business and you don’t know you’ll be welcomed by someone who wants to help then that can be a situation that you won't want to enter into.

For this reason we decided to try to take the focus off equipment and engage with people about music. Music is a shared passion so it’s vital that we connect with people on the music that they love. We all talk the same language when we’re talking about music. When we bang on about specifications it’s like the teacher in Charlie Brown “whahahahahaha wahwahwahwahwah”.

In the early 90’s we started doing manufacturer events in store and sometimes out of the store at local hotels. These were non-sales events and were very low key and informative. We still do them to this day although we brought them in store because in store we have everything to hand and we can ensure we can at least produce a good sound.

Our demo rooms have never been about trying to produce perfect sound and they are not anechoic chambers. We’re not chasing perfection. To do so would be dishonest. All we require of our listening room is that it be good enough to enable you to hear the differences between pieces of equipment or systems. And for you to relax and be comfortable.

Anyway to get back on track these are the things we learned and we attempted to put them into practice with our website and later our social media output and in particular Facebook.

So our website was about music and equipment. And we tried to make it easier to browse and less techy.

The growth of online

In the mid 90’s our website was bringing us a lot of new customers and towards the late nineties it was vital for communication. In the past we’d printed a newsletter and we’d done email communications to our customers. We pulled the plug on these when we saw that we could reach people online. I’ve always felt emails and mail coming through my door to be a nuisance but visiting a website or page where I could easily get the information I wanted suited me better. I hoped customers would feel the same way and the statistics indicated that they did so we kept at it.

It’s a real boost to realise that our customers are interested in us and want to learn more about us, our history and our products. I consider it something of a privilege that you’re reading this now and have been willing to invest your precious time to learn more about the company my dad founded forty three years ago. It is only worth writing or speaking if somebody is reading or listening.

We’ve found that pretty soon it was clear that most of our new customers were coming to us as a result of something they’d read or seen online. As a result of this we put more effort into keeping things fresh and updated.

We also resumed our relationship with Naim Audio. This came about because Tony Gascoine ( a good friend of mine and director of Lintone Audio in Gatehead) rang and told me how well he was getting on with Naim and how a lot of this was down to their new rep. My ears pricked up at this and I said as much. Tony mentioned our interest to the new guy and he arranged to come and see us. We found him a complete breath of fresh air and we hit it off immediately, primarily because of our love of music. This was the sort of relationship we wanted. Once based on a shared passion and a similar one to the relationship we shared with many of our customers.

As a result of Paul Darwin’s efforts Naim Audio was once again welcomed into our store and since then we have never looked back. Sometimes a break is truly as good as a rest and with Paul supporting us and our love for the products we were off and running again.



Around this time our core products were;

Rega
Naim Audio
Cyrus Audio
Bowers & Wilkins
Spendor
Arcam
Project
Linn Products
Denon
Rotel
Wilson Benesch
Ayre Audio

There were other peripheral brands of course and our range was in flux because we always (and continue to this day) spend the quieter times listening and comparing equipment to ensure we were offering the best performance and value for money.

The internet also meant that we could sell products directly. Initially this was people seeing something and picking up the phone. But eventually our website enabled people to buy directly from us via a shopping basket system.

This didn’t (and doesn’t) apply to everything we sell and this is because contractually some of our suppliers insist we do not offer “click to buy”. We very much feel that some products require face to face demonstration and sometimes home installation. Higher end record players are a good example of this but there are lots of products that are better bought in store, where we can ensure they are right for you by demonstration.

Even today a lot of people see products on Facebook or on our website and pick up the phone. They may have specific questions and there may be a trade in or they may want advice on system matching and of course general condition and warranties. We try to provide as much information as possible but it is reassuring to speak to someone who isn’t a bot and who can answer questions and chat. This will remain the way we prefer to do business.

We felt we had the right people, the right store and the right products. And our customers seemed to be happy with what we were doing. We knew this because they would tell us so and they remained loyal.

Tougher times

One thing in business that you learn pretty quickly is that when things are good, they’re extremely unlikely to last. Whilst I am a fan of our city I am considerably less of a fan of our council. I’d even go as far as to say that they are anti-business. But during the early noughties the council repeatedly had their fingers in our eyes.

The banking crisis brought about a huge recession in retail and in luxury goods in particular. And we sell almost exclusively luxury goods. It wasn’t our first recession so we weren’t overly concerned. However the council took the opportunity to increase the cost of parking in the city at the same time. In fact they doubled it. They also took an extremely proactive approach to enforcement.

We were also told by our landlord two things that came as something of a surprise. The first was that our shop would be demolished and turned into student accommodation but that this would not happen immediately due to the banking crisis. It did forewarn us however.

The second was that the council were drawing up plans to charge vehicles entering the inner ring road. At the time we found this hard to believe because this was in 2008 before we could see the direction that eventually the whole nation would take, starting of course with London before slowly being rolled out.

In any event we had plenty of time as it would be seven years before we would actually have to move.

Sadly our last seven years were marred by the office space across the road being converted into a substance abuse clinic. We found out about this when a builder laughingly pointed out to us that we would soon be getting some very bad news. I asked him what and he told us that the site had been earmarked for a Substance Abuse clinic.

We contacted the council and they denied this. They informed me that there was a limitation on use for the property and it could not be used for such a clinic. Five weeks later the sign went up and it was indeed a Substance Abuse Clinic. We complained, wrote to the press and even considered legal action but it was a done deal and so we had to suck it up.

I can’t emphasise enough how much this move damaged our daily life, our business and even our mindset. We saw the worst kind of behaviour on a daily basis. Car crime went through the roof, as did antisocial behaviour. We had people sleeping outside the store and sitting on the steps outside whenever the sun was out. We also had an increase of theft and attempted theft within the store. I personally can’t abide people who want to steal and meanwhile are nice and are simply waiting for the moment you nip in the back for a drink. We would see people standing outside across the road watching the store. When we nipped in the back folk would appear.

Working with this takes away the joy in life. We had a large glass fronted store and a ringside seat to degeneracy and vicious violence. I get angry even thinking about it and I am so glad that part of my life is over with.

Next - the move to Woodseats.






Selekt-DSM-Classic-2024_Black

Linn Launch new Selekt DSM & speakers

Three new products

Selekt DSM is billed as as the most configurable streamer ever. This is because of its modular construction. It can be configured with a variety of insertable DACS and with a single or multiple power amps. The end result is a product that will suit many customers and yet can also be upgraded when funds allow.

It can be configured as a source only, married to a high quality DAC and with a wealth of inputs both analogue and digital. It can be configured as the same but married to a high quality pre-amp, to enable connection to a power amp or some active loudspeakers. It can also be configured as a one box solution with in-built amplification. Finally a home cinema module can be fitted.



More info here; https://www.linn.co.uk/uk/network-music-players/selekt-dsm

The Classik hub has been improved fairly dramatically to offer greater structural rigidity and the new chassis, looks, feels and sounds better. This product is now on demo at Moorgate.

119 compact loudspeakers


Linn has a reputation for creating compact loudspeakers with excellent performance characteristics, even when positioned close to a wall. 119 is the latest Linn speaker to accomplish this feat, with a new performance benchmark and fundamentally entertaining presentation.

Pair your 119 loudspeakers with a Selekt DSM: Classic Hub, and you are investing in a complete system that can get better with age. Go from passive to Exakt by adding more internal amplification, upgrade your DAC modules, and benefit from free over-the-air software updates – all in one go, or incrementally as you desire.

119 features top-quality drive units which deliver superb linear performance. Drawing from what we learned during development of our 360 loudspeaker, drive units are mounted flush with the front of the cabinet, with no grille, to minimise obstruction of sound waves and improve movement.

Focus has been placed upon component quality throughout the speaker. The passive crossover in 119 is created for signal purity, lending the speakers speed and dynamism.

Inspired by our reference 360 loudspeaker is a magnet-mounted drive unit trim, featuring a series of fine, etched arcs evoking the surface of a vinyl record, and an electro-formed Linn logo tweeter guard.

RRP is £2500.

Both items are on demo now.

© 2022 Moorgate Acoustics Store. All Rights Reserved.