Premium Audio Company the manufacturer of Klipsch products have snared the rights to the Teac and Esoteric audio brands with the real possibility that they could be distributed in Australia in the future by the Vox International Company.
Premium Audi Company used one of their subsidiaries, businesses, 11 Trading Company to snare the rights for the brands, which will initially be distributed in the USA where Premium Audio Products already sells Onkyo, Pioneer, Pioneer Elite, Integra Electronics, Magnat and Heco products.
NSW Retailer Pymble Audio is currently selling the Esoteric brand.
Currently the Teac TV and selected Teac branded audio products are distributed in Australia by the struggling TTA Holding a Melbourne based ASX listed Company whose share spiked to as high as $0.78 and then dropped back to a low of $0.40 cents recently with no explanation.
The subsidiary of Premium Audio Company will start selling the brands in the USA as of this week.
Premium Audio Products recently set up a subsidiary in Australia after two former employees of Melbourne based distributor Qualifi Peter Shamoon and Phil Hawkins, spent 18 months plotting how to remove the brand from Qualifi while still employed by the Company.
ChannelNews understands that Singapore based management at Premium Audio Products, a subsidiary of Vox International went along with the questionable activity with several retailers contacting ChannelNews to express their disgust, at the actions of the US Company and in particular the dishonest actions of Sydney based Shamoon, and Melbourne based Hawkins a former executive at Yamaha.
One major retailer who was recently invited by Shamoon and Hawkins to participate in a sales presentation of Premium Audio Products 2021, described the event as a “wankfest” as for the American executives on the call they were described as ‘A bunch of Americans describing how great Phil and Pete were”.
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Apparently, there was no mention of their dishonest actions of Shamoon or Hawkins or the removal of confidential Qualifi information by the pair who were labelled by another retailer on the call as “Utter Tossers” during the call.
Within days of Premium Audio Products axing Qualifi, their biggest global rival Sound United the manufacturer of brands such as Polk, Martantz, Bowers and Wilkins and Denon swooped buying out Qualifi making it part of the Sound United global business.
In Australia, the Sound United business will be run by former Samsung Vice President Philip Newton who is the CEO of Bowers & Wilkins Australia.
Rob Standley, VP and GM of 11 Trading Company said, “We are thrilled to represent these timeless, high performance brands,”.
“Teac’s combination of excellent audio quality with the latest digital audio technology and a nod to their heritage with vintage styling will undoubtedly connect with our business partners and consumers. In addition, Esoteric sets a standard in their pursuit of the ‘Original Master Sound’ as products are meticulously crafted by hand and tuned to perfection.”
Currently Teac is better known in Australia, for their cheap bottom end TV’s and cheap audio range which is sold at online retailers such as Catch.com.au.
In 2013, Gibson bought a majority stake in Teac, giving it 54.42% of the company. After Gibson’s went bankrupt in 2018 Teac announced that they would continue to operate on their own.
Teac is a Japan-based company mainly engaged in the development, manufacture and sale of audio equipment and information equipment.
The Company has two business segments.
The Audio Equipment segment is engaged in the manufacture and sale of various audio equipment under the Teac and Estoric brands, as well as music production and professional audio equipment under the TASCAM brand.
The main products include analogue record players, super audio compact disc (SACD) players, high resolution audio playback devices, multi-track recorders, universal serial bus (USB) audio interfaces, memory recorder players, compact discs (CD) recorders and players.
The Company currently distribution both Teac audio and Teac TVs has a questionable parent Company in Singapore with questions being raised as to whether the Australian Securities and Investment Commission should question directors of the Australian operation, (TTA) about inter Company loans with parent Company TT International.
This is a Company that in the past has struggled because major cash generating assets owned by the business were placed into liquidation.
In the last three months of 2020 the TEAC distributor transferred $144,000 to their parent Company TT Interna claiming it consisted of payments for shipment inspection fees, restructure fees and Directors fees.
