Conversation with John Carroll, director of Edinburgh audio retailer Loud & Clear, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary in the capital.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Hi there, I'm Scott Reid, Business Journalist for The Scotsman and I'm here with John Carroll,
00:06Director of Loud and Clear in this fantastic demonstration room that you've got here in
00:09your Edinburgh store.
00:10And we're here for a celebratory event, I believe.
00:14We are indeed.
00:1525th anniversary of the Edinburgh store.
00:1725th anniversary of Loud and Clear Edinburgh.
00:19Although it didn't start here on the shore at Leith.
00:23No no.
00:24Can you cast your mind back to 25 years ago?
00:26I can do, yeah.
00:27And in fact, today I've just had a few interesting conversations and a few strokes of genius
00:34pulled by a few popping in customers.
00:38One of them was all of his old receipts going as far back as the end of 1999, which was
00:45really lovely.
00:46Lovely in two fronts, nice to see all those old receipts handwritten.
00:52But yes, and the second one that's lovely is just to actually be having a conversation
00:57with him as a current customer 25 years later, which is really nice.
01:03Third incarnation of Loud and Clear Edinburgh, we started in a stop bridge on Hamilton Place
01:10in a premises that was actually my shop where I bought my bikes in the past.
01:18So I got to know the building that way.
01:21And currently that premises is still there serving lovely cheese and wine, which ironically
01:29we are doing here this evening as well.
01:32We then moved from there to the old paper mill, Bonnington Mill on New Haven Road, which
01:39was a fantastic quirky old premises, a bit of a bit of a dungeon and a bit of a hidden
01:45secret there, but a great place to listen to music, have live performances and art exhibitions
01:53and all the other things we like doing as we go along.
01:57And you moved to this current place we're in just now, in what, 2017?
02:02Yep, absolutely.
02:03Yes.
02:04So seven years, just a sniff over seven years we've been here.
02:07And we're here in Commercial Quay in one of the old whisky buns.
02:12In fact, the building that we're in at the moment is the, was formerly known as Bond
02:17Number 10, which was the Glenn Moringy Bond.
02:20So this room would have been full of casks of Glenn Moringy waiting to go onto the dockside
02:26train and be rushed off for consumption around the world.
02:32And now it's full of wonderful hi-fi equipment from all around the world.
02:34Now it's full of wonderful hi-fi equipment and we've, you know, we've tried to keep the
02:39sort of kind of the heritage feel in the building.
02:44It's quite industrial, as you know, as you wander through our showroom.
02:49And you know, we filled it full of furniture made out of Scottish timbers from artisan
02:57furniture makers around Scotland.
03:00We've got lots of lovely wooden fittings from Douglas fir trees and whatever.
03:05So we've still got a Scottish heritage here.
03:07And as I say, we're in this wonderful demonstration room we've got, so audio music lovers can
03:12sit here and enjoy the music and a fair bit of investment into this infrastructure.
03:16Yeah, yeah.
03:17So we have a concept of, you know, there was, if we again do the little rewind back to right
03:27to the beginning of Loud and Clear in Edinburgh, there was this concept of creating a better
03:33living environment.
03:36So, you know, on the 4th, you know, the real history of it, 4th of November 1999.
03:44This is almost the 25th anniversary, isn't it?
03:46Yeah, yeah, yeah.
03:47A little bit of leeway.
03:48A little bit of leeway, yeah.
03:4925 years to do.
03:50I couldn't do it on the 5th, the same date last month because I was actually out doing
03:56an installation and I had Chris with me and we were in California of all places doing
04:03an installation.
04:04So that's how far afield we go now.
04:08But you know, rewind back to those very early days, the concept of creating this new fantastic
04:14living environment, looking at the stylization of things, making sure that people are comfortable
04:21in their living space and that you can enjoy home life was this retail concept.
04:29And on the 4th of November 1999, that concept opened up and that other retailers, they're
04:35still going.
04:36They're called IKEA.
04:39One day later, 24 hours later, a similar concept existed on the other side of town called Loud
04:47and Clear Edinburgh.
04:49And we opened up with actually some very similar ideas.
04:53But the big idea difference that we had was filling people's life with music.
04:58And that's something that, you know, if you look at our background, first and foremost,
05:04it's about how we live our lives.
05:07We consume maybe a glass of red wine, as we're doing tonight, but we're music consumers.
05:14And hi-fi equipment is fabulous.
05:18The technology has always fascinated us, it's fascinated me from a very young age.
05:24But, you know, you've visited us a number of times over the years, we always come back
05:30to the music.
05:31Music is...
05:32The technology is a means to an end, basically.
05:34A means to an end, yeah.
05:37It's our playback methodology, yeah.
05:39Just on that technology, John, I mean, a lot's changed in 25 years, a quarter century, in
05:43terms of music consumption.
05:44How have you had to adapt to that?
05:46I mean, there's talk of the vinyl renaissance and that's reflected by the vinyl we've got
05:51behind us, but streaming is dominating the music consumption market now, is it?
05:59Absolutely.
06:00Absolutely.
06:01You know, we're a good 20 plus years into streaming.
06:04We were pretty early adopters, if you like, of streaming technology at Loud & Clear.
06:12But when we started Loud & Clear, streaming didn't really exist.
06:17Your computers were storing music on hard drives already, but music streaming as we
06:23see it now, the on-the-go streaming, the ability to walk down the street, sit on the bus, jump
06:29in your car, be at home, be in the kitchen, be in the lounge, be in the shower, and be
06:34able to stream that music everywhere.
06:37That was a pipe dream, absolute pipe dream.
06:43And now it is firmly embedded in the culture of civilization all around the planet.
06:52People stream music.
06:53They do it at different levels and different performance levels, but it's there.
07:00The other side of it is we see a cycle sometimes of people, particularly at the moment, people
07:06are looking for that retro feel in life.
07:09And I think it's a reach back to days have gone by where people spent more time socializing
07:17and doing things.
07:19And the big revelation in our industry has been the resurgence of vinyl.
07:25And so many times over the years, we've thought, this is a bubble that's going to burst.
07:32And it hasn't.
07:33And I now think it won't.
07:36Vinyl is back to stay.
07:38So it's going to run hand in hand with streaming.
07:40Absolutely.
07:41And streaming is capable of high quality sound.
07:43It's not just Spotify at low res.
07:45Totally, totally.
07:46If you've got the right gear, I'm sure the guys here will advise you on that.
07:51But there are different viewpoints.
07:53My own personal viewpoint on it is I own thousands of LPs.
07:59I don't want to waste my life digitizing them.
08:03I just want to listen to them.
08:05And to listen to them, I need a great turntable and a great vinyl replay system.
08:09And because I have that, I continue to consume more vinyl LPs.
08:16And there is a beauty in the collection.
08:19You know, the physical and tangible side of vinyl is something that people are really
08:24drawn to.
08:25And also the kind of the art of slowdown, if you like, as a number of people in our
08:31industry call it, which I thoroughly agree with, is really something that people are
08:39unfortunately, desperately trying to get a hold of.
08:42And you can't take it easy in a desperate fashion.
08:47You just have to give yourself over to it.
08:49This is all about appreciating the music as the artist intended.
08:53Absolutely.
08:54Giving over the time to sit and listen to maybe a complete album and only pause for
09:00a minute during that album to get up and turn the record over.
09:06But that whole thing of dropping the needle into the groove, looking at the album artwork,
09:12sitting down and it being a physical medium means that you're actually engaged in the
09:18playback thing.
09:20The streaming aspect of things is more often than not, people to control the streaming
09:25are using a device that's also used for other things.
09:30Sending work emails, taking telephone calls, browsing the internet, various other things
09:36that can distract you from the music that you've just chosen on that device.
09:43So you know, music streaming is a wonderful thing.
09:46Our single biggest encouragement to people who music stream is when they get to the point
09:51of using it, choosing the music, hitting the play button, please then switch off the
09:57screen on your device and put it on the coffee table and pick up a glass of wine or just
10:04sit back, put your feet up and enjoy the music.
10:08But put down the control device as you would do with your remote control.
10:13Once you've hit the play button, you hit the play button, you don't sit with the remote
10:16control in your hand, you put it down and enjoy the music.
10:20But the two things can live together, the convenience side of things and the absorption
10:24in the music and actually engaging with it physically.
10:27And I would say just in the very recent years, and I mean like in the last 24 months, we've
10:34actually seen manufacturers really produce and release systems where the systems sit
10:42comfortably alternating between both camps.
10:46So you can, of one evening, listen to vinyl, listen to stream music and jump back and forward
10:53between the two of them and enjoy them equally and actually have a nice method of operation
11:00that doesn't feel clunky to go and put a record on.
11:02It can feel nice and smooth and the same system will do it justice and that's a real peak
11:09in the technology.
11:11And in that time, as you mentioned, other technologies have come and gone.
11:17Especially digital disc formats, and I don't just mean compact discs, there have been a
11:23multitude of them, SACD, DVD audio, Blu-ray discs for music, blah, blah, blah.
11:31All of these things, they've come, they've had their little peak and they've faded.
11:37They haven't actually come and gone because they do tend to linger and people talk about
11:43the potential resurgence of CD.
11:46I don't really see it happening to the same level of vinyl and one of the main reasons
11:51CD has stuck around is it's a great digital format.
11:54It sounds really, really good and it's still really good for other parts of the world where
12:01they don't have the infrastructure to stream music.
12:04And that's the single biggest obstacle for music streaming.
12:08You need a network structure around about you.
12:10A reliable Wi-Fi connection.
12:11A reliable Wi-Fi connection, a reliable internet connection for connecting to Tidal, Qobuz,
12:17Spotify, Deezer, all the other music streaming services.
12:20Hundreds of them out there in the world that you can choose from.
12:24But you need to be able to connect to the internet.
12:27And if you live in a rural part of Brazil, you may not have that internet connection.
12:33And if you don't have the internet connection, then internally homes don't have the local
12:38structure.
12:40So music streaming doesn't happen.
12:42And there are still billions of CDs floating around out there.
12:45Absolutely, yeah.
12:46So just briefly, you've made it the quarter century with the Edinburgh operation.
12:50What does the future hold?
12:52Yeah, well, I mean, in some ways, again, people have said, so are you going to be doing this
13:01in another 25 years?
13:0359 years old, I'd like to be still kicking around in another 25 years.
13:11Will I still be doing this?
13:12I think the business will certainly still be going.
13:16We've got younger members of staff.
13:18So what the future holds is a continuation of hopefully serving up great music systems
13:26to the customers in and around Edinburgh.
13:30And with our colleagues in Loud and Clear in Glasgow, doing the same across the whole
13:36of Scotland.
13:38And we've got some young, enthusiastic staff that are fast-tracking themselves towards
13:44that.
13:45So the future kind of lies at their feet for the continuation of it.
13:50It lies at the feet of customers taking time to enjoy great music and great sound.
13:59And for the artists and the musicians and the songwriters to keep creating banger tunes,
14:07if you like, to keep us all involved in music.
14:12Which is, it's actually those new artists that are the lifeblood of all music, because
14:20usually getting into music starts with something new that triggers something, which then gets
14:27you back listening to your old Led Zepp albums and Pink Floyd and whatever.
14:33But it's...
14:34You're describing my music collection there, John.
14:35Yeah, exactly.
14:37But those incidental triggers of new music making going on in the background, it's the
14:45lifeblood of it.
14:47Well let's end on that very optimistic note then, and all the best for the next 25 years.
14:51Thank you, Scott.
14:52Much appreciated.
14:53Cheers, John.
14:54All the best, man.