I have been quietly working on opening a retail store here where I live in Portland Oregon. !! Its been a lot of work and $$
But I really lucked out and snagged about as good a place as possible. If any of you know Stumptown you will know Hawthorne Blvd, thats where my space is. Hawthorne even has its own business association In preparation for doing all this I have had tremendous support from big and small vendors and as you might expect I will be expanding the gear significantly. I am in negotiation with many vendors at the moment and plan to add the good stuff as we move forward.
Specifically I want to thank the following people and vendors for their support. Not in any particular order and sorry if I missed someone!
Sennheiser, Thank you Eric Palonen for the kick start.
Grado Labs, specifically my awesome rep. Tony Leckband from Market Share who is also helping us with the new Monster Cable IEMs
Ultrasone Inc.
AKG
KingRex and the folks over at Obad Imports (Sasha)
Maximo, Andrew
Trends Audio
Audio Technica
Nuforce
Lee at Cryo-Parts
SoundMAGIC
Jeff over at Comply Hearing components
Louis at Omega Loudspeakers
Hart Huschens (Audio Advancements) I am brining back the Ear Max Pro to the shop.
Jena Labs, Jennifer and Michael
AudioEngineUSA, Brett
Jeff @ Tone Audio
And of course Red Wine Audio (Vinnie)
The store will not be like a traditional audio shop, so we will not be anything like the local AV shops in town or any town as far as I can think of. The model for the retail space is a personal audio store that will focus on headphones, IEMs, headphone amplifiers and quality small home systems and speakers. We will also try and focus on systems where computers are a source, so DAC centric. I want to be there for the average guy or gal who wants more out of his or her say iPhone or people curious about headphones and in turn be introduced to the portable audiophilia. For people who think the best place in town to buy headphones s the Apple Store or Best Buy, however I will of course have all the stuff that even a hard core head-fier would salivate over! We feel that this will be one of the few places were you can try so many world class headphone all in one place, listen to a Red Wine Audio HPA amp! or Ear Max Pro. We hope that in a world where people can click and buy pretty much anything on line the people will respond to a personal touch. A place where the customer can become engaged again in a community based audio store where we are passionate about the music.
We want to eventually have small after hours iTunes classes, hands on session for ripping music etc.. Guest speakers with audio related subject matter. I will have most displays on casters to roll to the side so Portland Head-fi meets will be the Pho-Shizzel!!!!
I am flying Vinnie Rossi Red Wine Audio out to help us finish up the custom headphone listening station!! Which is will be 6 imods embedded in a slab of wood, each with its own Amphora guts and own volume control. The listening station should be a real treat.
The name of the store will be (32 Ohm Audio) and not ALO. I am going to have a logo contest with a sweet grand prize and will be posting this thread soon. I will post photos soon also. ALO Audio will not change, I plan to still be making all the cables (small work shop in back of store
)
I want to deeply thank all of head-fi and all of my past customers because you made all this possible. I also want to thank Jude especially for all the help over the years, and of course I probably would not be at this point if it were not for Vinnie Rossi at Red Wine Audio , "quasi business partner" and full time friend.
Ken
Specifically I want to thank the following people and vendors for their support. Not in any particular order and sorry if I missed someone!
Sennheiser, Thank you Eric Palonen for the kick start.
Grado Labs, specifically my awesome rep. Tony Leckband from Market Share who is also helping us with the new Monster Cable IEMs
Ultrasone Inc.
AKG
KingRex and the folks over at Obad Imports (Sasha)
Maximo, Andrew
Trends Audio
Audio Technica
Nuforce
Lee at Cryo-Parts
SoundMAGIC
Jeff over at Comply Hearing components
Louis at Omega Loudspeakers
Hart Huschens (Audio Advancements) I am brining back the Ear Max Pro to the shop.
Jena Labs, Jennifer and Michael
AudioEngineUSA, Brett
Jeff @ Tone Audio
And of course Red Wine Audio (Vinnie)
The store will not be like a traditional audio shop, so we will not be anything like the local AV shops in town or any town as far as I can think of. The model for the retail space is a personal audio store that will focus on headphones, IEMs, headphone amplifiers and quality small home systems and speakers. We will also try and focus on systems where computers are a source, so DAC centric. I want to be there for the average guy or gal who wants more out of his or her say iPhone or people curious about headphones and in turn be introduced to the portable audiophilia. For people who think the best place in town to buy headphones s the Apple Store or Best Buy, however I will of course have all the stuff that even a hard core head-fier would salivate over! We feel that this will be one of the few places were you can try so many world class headphone all in one place, listen to a Red Wine Audio HPA amp! or Ear Max Pro. We hope that in a world where people can click and buy pretty much anything on line the people will respond to a personal touch. A place where the customer can become engaged again in a community based audio store where we are passionate about the music.
We want to eventually have small after hours iTunes classes, hands on session for ripping music etc.. Guest speakers with audio related subject matter. I will have most displays on casters to roll to the side so Portland Head-fi meets will be the Pho-Shizzel!!!!
I am flying Vinnie Rossi Red Wine Audio out to help us finish up the custom headphone listening station!! Which is will be 6 imods embedded in a slab of wood, each with its own Amphora guts and own volume control. The listening station should be a real treat.
The name of the store will be (32 Ohm Audio) and not ALO. I am going to have a logo contest with a sweet grand prize and will be posting this thread soon. I will post photos soon also. ALO Audio will not change, I plan to still be making all the cables (small work shop in back of store
I want to deeply thank all of head-fi and all of my past customers because you made all this possible. I also want to thank Jude especially for all the help over the years, and of course I probably would not be at this point if it were not for Vinnie Rossi at Red Wine Audio , "quasi business partner" and full time friend.
Ken
