This Historical Picture was
from the inside cover of our 1979 Pro Audio Catalog. Before
being the King Of Guitars, We were definitely the undisputed
kings of signal processing, PA & recording gear. Just like
our guitar customers today, sound & recording engineers &
producers would fly in from all over the world to visit our mail
order studio gear warehouse. We were located 60 miles from New
York just over the state line and our prices were 20% lower than
the New York Pro Audio Dealers. Plus we gave them another big
price advantage by saving them the NY ripoff sales tax.
Today here in Nevada we do that for our California customers
whose sales tax is the highest in the USA. (We sell very little
in Nevada). Most of the time we ship our customers their
merchandise instead of them having to take it back on the plane.
Most Pro Audio dealers back then were not musically inclined.
They came from the school of Radio Broadcasting, & ceiling
mounted speaker systems in airports to movie houses. Most music
stores still carried Accordions' & Violins. Sam Ash, Guitar
Center etc were just big music stores that barely even
understood the electronic keyboard market. We were one of the
first dealers to have 100 different keyboards on display.
Our big advantage was, We were rock n' roll musician's, we spoke
the language that the people in the musical side of the pro
audio world understood. So the company grew to immense
proportions.
Eddie Kramer, Phil Spector, John Lennon, Alan Parsons, Willie
Nelson, Ed Germano, Tony Bonjiovi, Phil Ramone, & many more. I
went to the Parnelli Awards in 2008 and ran into people from
Showco, National Sound, See Factor who all used to call us for
Crown amps to Eventide Harmonizers. We used to manufacture the
Goliath line of Speaker cabinets and we supplied hundreds of
sound companies and night clubs their PA systems. (many still
working and on he road)
We dealt with every studio from Electric Ladyland to Sigma
Sound, To The Hit Factory, We supplied 2" tape for hundreds of
80's & 90's producers that were recording mega hits.
In 1995 Joanne & myself decided that we were going to slow
down and just do guitars. We were used to selling real pro
gear!!! Casio, Korg, & Roland were coming in with
unbelievably nice keyboards for 10% of what the original classic
keyboards cost. Tascam & Fostex were making complete recording
studios for under $1,000.00. Home recording was very cool but it
killed the real pro audio business. When digital software based
recording took over there was no way I was going to stay in that
business.
Being used to dealing with professionals it's sometimes hard
to try and support customers who spent less than $600.00 and
required more help than studio owners who would drop $100.000.00
yearly.
Well because of the internet being so prevalent and the fact
that we started the guitar thing in 1995 things never really
slowed down. After a 15 year roller coaster ride in the guitar
business Ed Roman guitars has gone back to strictly mail order
guitar sales.
We are working on some historical pages for the site. Stay
Tuned
Ed |
