Great deals, bec$AUS we can!

If you've been looking for an upgrade to your PA system or a new addition to the studio, there has never been a better time...and it's most definitely a case of first in, best looked after.

Recently the wheels have fallen off our dollar, and most pro audio wholesalers have reacted by putting prices up. As more than casual observers, we are amazed at how quickly we've received TWO price rises (or one enormous one) from some of our suppliers.

In fairness to them, many pro audio importers had significantly lowered the Recommended Retail Price of many lines while the going was good, although the drop in prices seemed to take a lot longer (and less steep) than the recent rises, which have been quick and big.

So rather than reducing our stock levels and running lean...we went out and spent the last of our beer money buying as much stock as possible to ensure we can offer the best deals around. We figure that the summer festival season doesn't care about our $AUD, nor does the upgrade your studio needs. The only thing that gets affected by a big price rise is your bottom line - that is, unless you go for it while you can.

While we've got stock, take advantage because the deals simply cannot last. Once our stock is gone, we'll have to replace it with more expensive stock.

Brands we have really bought up big on include: RCF (the great wall of Art boxes), Allen & Heath (Zed mixers, Wizard Mixers and GL2400 series), DBX (comps, graphics and drive racks), Soundcraft (EPM & EFX series mixers), Avalon (heaps of the black VT-737SE), Shure Wireless (PGX / SLX) and Wired (SM series & Beta Series), Sennheiser (Evolution wirelss + e900 series vocal & instrument mics), Soundcards by Presonus & RME, plus heaps more.

Until the new prices have settled (around first week of November...though there's probably more grief to come), we've disabled many 'go' prices on our website. We will be looking after existing customers first. This means that if your name is not already on our database, you'll need to subscribe to get the best possible pricing.

Think of it as an early Christmas pressie ; )

Audio milestones - just a few

We don't stop and sit down for too long at Factory Sound, and we've just realised that our original favourite Behringer product has turned 15. For anyone who doesn't remember, the old MDX8000 (multi-band compression) was a terrific studio tool that is almost un-findable thesedays. It was deleted by Behringer sometime in the 1990's...and there are never too many around for sale, but nontheless we remember you. Happy birthday Combinator!


If you stop and look back at the last 15 years of professional audio innovations and milestones, plenty has happened:
The home studio explosion - amazing how many musicians (and stand-alone engineers) have incredible studios in their own homes. The quality of gear versus cost is simply astounding. Besides, there's currently not enough enough spare water in Australia to justify digging up your backyard for a swimming pool...so spend your hard-earned on a studio!
The powered speaker revolution - we're now well-and-truly into the 2nd wave of powered speakers having paid for themselves several times over. Notables along the way included JBL Eons seemingly everywhere at the start, and then RCF Art300A going louder and harder to become a real alternative for many small bands. EV, FBT, JBL and RCF are all now so far ahead of where they started with powered boxes. Just look at JBL PRX series, or RCF TT series to see how much sound you can easily get from one little box!
Changing of the guard (effects) - About 10 years ago, just about any 'soundguy' could turn up to a gig in and around Melbourne (and probably anywhere else in the world), and know that they could pull up their favourite preset on the house SPX900 or SPX990 Yamaha. But then TC Electronic came out with the twin powers of M-One and D-Two, and it was all over. Within six months of their release in Australia, M-One had all but replaced SPX990 as the effect of choice for mid-level PA systems, and D-Two was a perfect companion. Of course now both TC Electronic and Lexicon are very popular for both live and studio applications.
Moving operations to China - We're sure that the Behringer motto was never 'Keeping the bastards honest' but that is what happened when the German company founded by Uli Behringer moved to China for its manufacturing.

We spoke with Behringer Australia's GM (Michael Jago) who has been with Behringer since it was first imported into Australia (originally through a company called Musiclink). He agreed that Behringer had driven the price quite seriously downwards, making it much easier to either make a start, or to simply get heaps more gear with your budget. "I have found our old (Music Link) 1999 catalogue....This product could be your story. The MX802A (pictured above) was $499 in the 1999 catalogue. Then when Behringer Australia started in 2002 it come down to $299.99. It's closest current day replacement would be the 1202. It has the 4 mic pre's and has a 2008 RRP of $159.99 Quite a price drop from $499 to $159 in 9 years. Young blokes today don't know how good they've got it"

That's quite true...and Behringer has had a far-reaching (positive) effect on our industry. It is without question that Behringer products offer maximum bang for buck. Manufacturers such as DBX have been kept honest by Behringer's pricing policy, and have since lowered prices to a level we would never have imagined 10 years ago. There are many manufacturers based in China, but only the ones who have invested time, energy (and lots of $$$) are consistently producing products for our market that just seem to work.

Have you seen this clip produced by Audio Technology magazine?


Watch part 2 here...

There have been so many other audio milestones: like Neutrik winning the connector armwrestle, Shure & Sennheiser going head-to-head and leaving the other live mics in their wake while doing it, the rise and rise of Rode microphones...

We'll come back to this one.

CX300B headphones put through the wringer

Well, kind of. We caught up with one of our tippers from Factory Sound Footy Tipping $2008 last weekend - Ivabiggin was his tipping alias. Anyway, he was a bit spewin because he'd left his favourite pair of iPod headphones - Sennehiser CX300B - in his pants (we're amazed there was any room left, with a name like that), and put them through not one, but two wash cycles. They also went through a tumble dryer, until the pants were ready for Iva to pull on in public again.

So...Iva packs the CX300B headphones, and brings them in, ready to say "can you order me another set of these". He told us the story, and being the inquisitive types we asked him what they sounded like now.
"I don't know, I haven't plugged them in" he said. So he whipped his shuffle out of the other pocket, and plugged them in. Shortly after, he broke into laughter.

They still work perfectly. Nice one Sennheiser.

Wrap up from AMAC 2008

As the sun sets on AMAC 2008, we stop and trawl through the hours upon hours 50 mins or so of video footage we took, and have turned it into a short clip for all to see. You'll see what we saw: quite a few new products, a bunch of exhibitors trying to show their goods to as many dealers as possible, and a few familiar faces.

AMAC 2008 was organised by the AMA (Australian Music Association). The show was predominantly staged as a way of showing musical instrument retailers the latest in guitars, drums, valve trombones, pianos and expensive ukuleles, plus a few seminars and informal discussion. There was also a bit of pro audio gear there, not as much as you'd see at an Entech or SMPTE exhibition, or perhaps even next year's Integrate show. For us, it was a bit like wandering through a music store that has a PA section in the corner to compliment their instruments. But we still had fun, and there was plenty to look at.
Anyway...the AMA do a great job of pulling the industry together like some kind of go-go-gadget-spiderweb, so good on them for coming to Melbourne for the first time this year.

Here's our take on the show: We took a stroll down there on the Monday (the last day of the show), to find the exhibitors a bit worn out...possibly following a little more sauce than they're used to consuming over the weekend. Perfect time for us to pull the camera out and start rolling. This is Factory Sound TV.

We've put model numbers for the new gear into this clip. Watch for them hitting our website over the next couple of days.