The Sound Well has moved out of our old location to a small space down the street....
July 15th 1974 marked the opening of The Sound Well at 1708B Grove Street (now Martin Luther King). While we've survived all the shops that were open at the time these last few years have been a real struggle for us-as it has been for many businesses small and large.
Our old landlord was wonderful and had not raised the rent in a long, long time. However we just could no longer afford a store that size. Our old time customers may have noticed our staff was shrinking as well. At one time as many as 7 of us earned a full time wage at The Sound Well. That is now down to one and a half.
We are now sharing Handy Electronics @ 1467 University Ave. located in the first block below Sacramento Ave. Our new "business roommate" Ying Han is an excellent video technician who has been in business over 20 years.
This is a very small space and our business model has changed considerably. We will be doing much of the work from our homes and using this store as a contact point for local clients and a place to drop sets off to sell us. We will offer some local retail sales here as well on Saturday afternoons. The bulk of our high end sales will be online through outlets such as Audiogon and E-Bay and directly off our website.
We are currently not taking in any outside repair work. Our limited bench time is now spent restoring for resale the vintage gear we own- and taking care of warranty service for items we sell locally. See our link "Repair Service" on the home page for a list of referrals on that page for other shops that can help you with some of the things we used to service.
There are other specialists that do installation work and repairs on esoteric items that are not listed there. If you e-mail us and tell us the kind of gear you need serviced we'll tell you who we like best for that item. We'd always appreciate feedback if you use someone on our referral list. We want to make sure you're happy with our referrals!
We're not going away but shrinking to adapt to this economic climate. Full time brick and mortar stores have gotten harder to maintain and still make a living wage. This hybrid model has worked for us for almost 6 years now and we intend to keep our operation small. We appreciate all your support and we plan to stick around for a long time!
