Circuit City Closing Stores

By: Heero Yuy, SoundDomain Member

Today CC had a meeting at every store company wide. For 77% of the stores, it was a standard run of the mill Holiday Meeting. For the other 23%, an 'Emergency Meeting'. This letter was distributed to the employees at the unfortunate 23%:

"This notice is being provided to inform you the Circuit City Stores, Inc. ("Circuit City") has made the difficult decision to permanently close the _____ store located at _______________. While an exact date has not yet been established for the store closure, it is anticipated that your employment with Circuit City will terminate on or before December 31, 2008. The exact date of your termination will be communicated to you at a later date. This employment loss is expected to be permanent.

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Tweeter Sold to a Liquidator

By: Ben Vollmer, Car Audio Nationals / Team SoundDomain

Founded in 1972, Tweeter was a national specialty consumer electronics retailer providing home and car entertainment solutions. Just two weeks after CEO George Granoff has parted ways with the chain, Tweeter was purchased by a liquidator Thursday night after closing all of its distribution centers and pushing all inventory out to its stores, TWICE is reporting.

Schultze Asset Management Group acquired the former Tweeter Home Entertainment Group for $38 million in a bankruptcy auction last year. They employed more than 2,400 employees and operate over 100 stores under the Tweeter, Sound Advice, HiFi buys and Showcase Home Entertainment names

It looks like they have already started a clearance on stuff over on www.tweeter.com with the ability to search on each of the store's clearance stock.  I wish all of their employees well. Several fellow competitors worked at Tweeter and we hope that they land on their feet.

Maestro Badenia Coming to the US!

By: Ben Vollmer, Car Audio Nationals/TeamSoundDomain

A new company is coming to the US, with a very familiar management and product set.  Maestro Badenia has announced that they will begin to do business in the U.S. mobile electronics and marine markets under the brand name German Maestro offering high quality, high performance amplifiers, speakers, component speaker systems and subwoofers.  (You can read a recent review of the speakers at this link.)

GermanMAESTRO is a premium audio brand founded by members of the management and leading employees of the German MB Quart Enterprise. GermanMAESTRO will continue the proud tradition of best-in-class loudspeaker design and manufacturing in our renowned Obrigheim, Germany facility.

Maestro Badenia is headquartered in Obrigheim, Germany comprised of industry experts who were the marketing, engineering, and manufacturing strength behind the original German-made MB Quart products when that brand enjoyed significant market share, great brand image and a loyal consumer following. Maestro Badenia occupies the original MB Quart manufacturing facility.

German Maestro expects to ship products in December 2008.

The products for Car, Marine and Home Audio can be viewed at their website at: www.german-maestro.de

Mobile Electronics Magazine 2008-2009 Top Retailers and Installers Announced

Mobile Electronics Magazine, and industry rag for installers, sales people, and other ME industry folks, recently sent an email out to a special groups of installers and car audio shops announcing their nomination for the annual Top 100 Retailers and Installers, as voted on by industry reps and manufacturers. This is a pretty coveted nomination, and to make the list is a pretty big deal. That being said, I'd like to congratulate SoundDomain's own Brian Murphy for making it into the Top 100 Installers list!

Starting in November, Mobile Electronics magazine will open up the polls to see who from this list will be voted the #1 installer and shop in the US. Check out the complete list after the jump! I noticed my old employer, Custom Sounds, is on the list, as are a few other shops we've covered in our blog: JML Audio, Benchmark Motoring, Mobile Edge, Sound Sensations, and Syndicate Automotive, just to name few.

Is your shop or installer on the list?

UltraSubs-- Are you Ready??

Posted by: Brian Murphy, SoundDomain Moderator

Hello friends & Ultra enthusiasts,

I am very proud to announce that ULTRA is now shipping our new FULL line for 2009 !!!
The "Early Bird gets the Worm", our 2009 products are being released early due to public demand for more ULTRA offerings.

We have completed our offerings with THREE lines of performance subwoofers, Reference standard 6.5 separates and of course our new ULTRA 4200AM four channel and 1600AM mono block amplifiers.

All the new 2009 products are also "Standard Equipment" on the Christian Audigier and Ed Hardy limited edition $475,000.00 custom Escalade and Navigator, the Escalade was recently on display at the recent World famous Barret-Jackson auto auction in Arizona last month.

Another notable ULTRA enthusiast, Mr. George Foreman, with his new personal limo is loaded with ULTRA products to keep all his travels interesting.