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Richer Sounds founder hands over control of hi-fi and TV firm to staff

billy_bob said:
People I've disagreed with on this thread have talked about workers' conditions worsening. By definition, the fact that worsening is even possible means that the economic model is not simply already 100% bad or 100% good - if worsening is possible then so, at least theoretically, is improvement. The fear seems to be that acknowledging that improvement, when it happens, is letting the bad guys off the hook, but I don't think that follows at all.
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It's because of... something something structural wotsit! :mad:
 
Can't say I'm inclined to be very grateful for all the benefits capitalism showers on me. Always liked the attitude of the ancient pauper :
Up spoke an ancient pauper,
his face as bold as brass :
"You can take your Christmas pudding
and shove it up your arse".
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However while I like the attitude his strategy is ridiculous. Waste perfectly good pud up the arse of some boss ? Fuck that. I'll have the pudding, and anything else that isn't nailed down. The only thing I'd want to see going up his arse is the toe of my boot. And I'd probably only soil that if I thought he deserved it.

If I should find myself sitting next to someone too proud to eat their own portion of pudding I'd probably eat that as well. I would ask first though. Well unless they'd really really irritated me.
 
seventh bullet said:
Yet worker action to defend, win back or improve conditions is 'pie in the sky. ' What needs encouragement and support the most? And this isn't strictly about morals. Hope that those with power allow some of their wealth to go down a bit or create the conditions where collectively people can be in the position to demand and take more of a share whether a boss is 'nice, a really great guy' or not?
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I 100% believe in worker action and strike action and in my industry we never go far enough. I don't believe it's 'pie in the sky' to defend workers rights or improve conditions. But I also believe that the new Richer sounds model should be encouraged and supported. There are many more companies that deserve not to be supported or encouraged.
I don't believe it's a case of either or. I support both.
 
Thinking about it, Richer Sounds has done well to thrive over the years, because they have been difficult for many retailers.

I expect staying out of town centres will have meant they weren't paying top rent and rates which must have been a positive, I only heard of them through word of mouth (years ago) and visited in Leeds IIRC but haven't made a purchase, does anyone know if they advertise?
 
weltweit said:
Thinking about it, Richer Sounds has done well to thrive over the years, because they have been difficult for many retailers.

I expect staying out of town centres will have meant they weren't paying top rent and rates which must have been a positive, I only heard of them through word of mouth (years ago) and visited in Leeds IIRC but haven't made a purchase, does anyone know if they advertise?
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They used to advertise in What Hifi and the like years ago which is where i originally saw them. I think hifi buffs like to use them as they sell all the best gear, but always offered good deals and warranties.

They can also set up a room for you with different set ups and you can bring in your own records/cd's whatever and compare before you buy, or at least they used to do. A bit like a local shop, but on a national scale. Trying to think of a comparable chain, but struggling.
 
I'm still using one of their mugs from yonks ago when I used to be tempted by them on my way to work from the London Bridge shops on the walkway.
IMG_20190515_214934751~2.jpg
 
seventh bullet said:
There hasn't been talk of an ideal world, though. Continuing erosion of conditions in one of the largest and lowest paid sectors is not fantasy. That talk about what are really modest improvements in the grand scheme of things is also seen as utterly unthinkable (which not only existed as conditions previously with that workforce under further attack without adequate responses from weakened organised labour) says more about the person saying the above than others who are being made out to be far left caricatures.
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It's a sad state of affairs when people can't see just how far things have fallen in the last 40 yrs. Retail has always been full of exploitative fucks, big and small, but the erosion of unionisation, collective bargaining, terms and conditions and job security since 1979 are blatantly obvious, and most of all in the retail sector.
 
mx wcfc said:
The John Lewis model is probably as good as it gets in the current environment. Of course if the staff all sell the shares, they will end up owned like everyone else.
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Admiral Insurance is pretty damn good too.
Although they admit their model was more accident than design.
 
ViolentPanda said:
It's a sad state of affairs when people can't see just how far things have fallen in the last 40 yrs. Retail has always been full of exploitative fucks, big and small, but the erosion of unionisation, collective bargaining, terms and conditions and job security since 1979 are blatantly obvious, and most of all in the retail sector.
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But no-one as far as I can see on this thread has denied any of this, have they? Or suggested that the actions of Mr Richer, or even 100 Mr Richers, make up for it?

It's simply a matter of saying that while we wait for/work for structural change, here's one example that goes against some of those trends (without, I hope obviously, suggesting that it reverses any of them) - and that it would be a good thing in itself if we saw more examples like it.
 
NoXion said:
Nearly two grand for a cable?! Is it one of those rip-off cables that are used to extract the maximum amount of money out of gullible audiophiles?
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cupid_stunt said:
Fucking hell! :eek:

I assumed that was a typo, and it was actually £17.60, but having googled it, there're other websites selling them at £1760.00!
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Yeah. Anything over a couple of quid a meter is a con.

Everyone I know who bought their hifi stuff from them in the 90s or 00s was spun a line of bullshit and upsold cable. Including me.
Not 2 grands worth, mind!

I remember having an argument about it with friends. Then one guy made us do a sound test with someone's ten quid cable and some 30p Bell wire...

No difference.
 
I confess my first reaction was that next month we will have the “high street gloom -Richer Sounds calls in administrators”. I hope not. I bought a NAD CD player at the London Bridge shop in 1993 and (cheap speaker cables) and have never been back.
 
Ever the contrarian, I actually think they're quite good. I bought something from them a few months ago. I didn't initially intend to, but in these days of internet shopping, I knew what I wanted and shopped around for the best price. Turned out they did a 'we beat any price by x amount' deal, so I found the cheapest online price and gave them a call. They checked, and without any quibble offered to beat that price by a decent amount.

The bigger thing though was the service. I got chatting to the guy on the phone, and eventually said I'd have to call back after chatting to the mrs about installation dates and so forth. I asked if I'd be able to speak to him again, and he laughed and said they were just a bunch of (iirc) 8 people in the same room, so just call the main number and ask to speak to him. I had no problem getting back through to him, and had various conversations about local installers, then ended up in email conversation for a while on which installers I'd had good experiences of speaking to and which I hadn't. A few months later I realised I hadn't received some of the paperwork I was meant to, so I just pinged him a line back on his direct email address and he sorted it for me straight away.

I've genuinely not experienced personal service like this, from people who really cared and were enthusiastic about what they did, for a living for a long time now. I guess we have to ask which we care more about. Knowing that people at work are happy, enthusiatic and fulfilled in what they do, or strict adherence to the writings of a bearded man who died nearly 140 years ago.
 
I replaced my Cambridge amp with a ten quid amp the size of a match box. It sounds just as fantastic.

I had whittled down my sound requirements to just watching films on a projection screen.

Music is now done by Google home devices spread around the house.
 
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