A&B Sound
Encyclopedia
A&B Sound was a Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 home electronics retailer based in Richmond, British Columbia
Richmond, British Columbia
Richmond is a coastal city, incorporated in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Part of Metro Vancouver, its neighbouring communities are Vancouver and Burnaby to the north, New Westminster to the east, and Delta to the south, while the Strait of Georgia forms its western border...

. Its flagship store was located in Downtown Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

, and the chain expanded to other cities in B.C. and in western Canada, but the company began struggling in the 2000s decade and collapsed altogether in 2008.

History

A&B Sound was founded by Fred Steiner in 1959. The first store was located in downtown Vancouver, and in 1970 it moved to 556 Seymour Street. The store initially sold televisions, stereos and radio equipment, adding music later that year.

Expansion throughout British Columbia

A second store opened in 1977 in Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...

 in a building once used as that city's first hospital, and later as a brothel. In 1980, the company's Vancouver location expanded to three floors, followed in 1981 by the construction of a new store on Hastings Street, near the border of Burnaby. A fourth location opened in 1984 on South West Marine Drive in Vancouver.

Fred Steiner retired in 1987, and his son Nick became president of A&B Sound. New stores subsequently opened in Surrey
Surrey, British Columbia
Surrey is a city in the province of British Columbia, Canada. It is a member municipality of Metro Vancouver, the governing body of the Greater Vancouver Regional District...

 (1987), Burnaby's Metrotown
Metrotown
Metropolis at Metrotown is a shopping mall complex in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. With over 450 shops and services, it is the largest mall in British Columbia, and the 2nd largest in Canada...

 area (1988), and Nanaimo (1990). Fred Steiner died in 1991, the same year that the East Hastings location moved into a larger property at the corner of Hastings Street and the Trans Canada Highway, close to the PNE Playland
Playland (Vancouver)
Playland is an amusement park in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is located in Hastings Park and is the oldest amusement park in Canada....

. The following year, an eighth store opened in Kelowna
Kelowna
Kelowna is a city on Okanagan Lake in the Okanagan Valley, in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. Its name derives from a Okanagan language term for "grizzly bear"...

.

Expansion into Western Canada

In 1993, A&B Sound moved into the Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

 market, opening locations in Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...

 and Edmonton
Edmonton
Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and is the province's second-largest city. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census...

, followed by south Edmonton (1994), a second Calgary location (1995), Lethbridge
Lethbridge
Lethbridge is a city in the province of Alberta, Canada, and the largest city in southern Alberta. It is Alberta's fourth-largest city by population after Calgary, Edmonton and Red Deer, and the third-largest by area after Calgary and Edmonton. The nearby Canadian Rockies contribute to the city's...

 (1996), and Red Deer
Red Deer, Alberta
Red Deer is a city in Central Alberta, Canada. It is located near the midpoint of the Calgary-Edmonton Corridor and is surrounded by Red Deer County. It is Alberta's third-most-populous city – after Calgary and Edmonton. The city is located in aspen parkland, a region of rolling hills...

 and a third Calgary outlet in 1997. Also in 1995, a store was opened in Abbotsford, British Columbia
Abbotsford, British Columbia
Abbotsford is a Canadian city located in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, adjacent to Greater Vancouver. It is the fifth largest municipality in British Columbia, home to 123,864 people . Its Census Metropolitan Area, which includes the District of Mission, is the 23rd largest in Canada,...

. Expansion continued throughout Western Canada, with new stores in Regina
Regina, Saskatchewan
Regina is the capital city of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The city is the second-largest in the province and a cultural and commercial centre for southern Saskatchewan. It is governed by Regina City Council. Regina is the cathedral city of the Roman Catholic and Romanian Orthodox...

 and Saskatoon
Saskatoon
Saskatoon is a city in central Saskatchewan, Canada, on the South Saskatchewan River. Residents of the city of Saskatoon are called Saskatonians. The city is surrounded by the Rural Municipality of Corman Park No. 344....

, Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....

 (1999) and Winnipeg
Winnipeg
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...

, Manitoba
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...

 (2000). In 2001, Nick Steiner stepped aside as President, retaining his role as Chairman, and long-time CEO Tim Howley became President and CEO. A number of locations, such as those in Calgary, also included bookstore sections, though by the start of the 2000s decade most of these sections had been removed.

Impact on Vancouver's record, tape and CD retail industry

For years, A&B Sound maintained a reputation in the western Canadian music market for having the lowest prices and best selection on records, cassettes, and later, CDs. Often, the chain would out-price other major retailers, including A&A Records and Tapes
A&A Records
A&A Records was a Canadian record store chain, which declared bankruptcy in 1991. Prior to the expansion of Sam the Record Man in the early 1960s, A&A was the dominant record store chain in Canada...

, as well as Toronto-based Sam the Record Man
Sam the Record Man
Sam the Record Man was a Canadian record store chain that, at one time, was Canada's largest music recording retailer. In 1982, their ads proclaimed they had "140 locations, coast to coast"....

, which was unable to penetrate the Vancouver market with as much success as it had in eastern Canada. A downtown Vancouver location of Sam the Record Man was located next door to A&B Sound's Seymour Street location until late in 2000, when it was closed. In a 1993 article in The Georgia Straight
The Georgia Straight
The Georgia Straight is a free Canadian weekly news and entertainment newspaper published in Vancouver, British Columbia, by the Vancouver Free Press Publishing Corp...

newspaper, it is noted that A&B Sound's aggressive pricing policies resulted in Vancouver having the lowest record prices of any Canadian metropolis. These low prices were not only blamed for the failures of other chains, but may have been one reason for some chains not opening stores in Vancouver, including Tower Records
Tower Records
Tower Records was a retail music chain that was based in Sacramento, California. It currently exists as an international franchise and an online music store....

, which had scouted Vancouver as a possible location to expand into Canada. When HMV
HMV Group
HMV is a British global entertainment retail chain and is the largest of its kind in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The company also operates in Hong Kong and Singapore. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE Fledgling Index...

 finally opened stores in the Vancouver area in 1993, HMV Canada's then-president, Paul Alofs, said that breaking into the Vancouver market would be difficult. "A&B is certainly a very strong competitor, and we have a lot of respect for what they do."

Bankruptcy and a new owner

In the 1990s and 2000s decade, A&B began to face increasing competition for music, DVD and electronics sales. Vancouver-based Future Shop
Future Shop
Future Shop is Canada's largest consumer electronics retailer. Future Shop currently operates a total of 146 stores across all of Canada's provinces as of December 2008....

 added music to its product mix, using the same aggressive pricing structure it did with consumer electronics. Besides HMV
HMV
His Master's Voice is a trademark in the music business, and for many years was the name of a large record label. The name was coined in 1899 as the title of a painting of the dog Nipper listening to a wind-up gramophone...

, other retail giants like Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. , branded as Walmart since 2008 and Wal-Mart before then, is an American public multinational corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company is the world's 18th largest public corporation, according to the Forbes Global 2000...

, Virgin Megastore
Virgin Megastore
Virgin Megastores is an international chain of record shops, founded by Sir Richard Branson on London's Oxford Street in early 1971. Virgin Megastores are best described today as entertainment retailers....

, and Best Buy
Best Buy
Best Buy Co., Inc. is an American specialty retailer of consumer electronics in the United States, accounting for 19% of the market. It also operates in Mexico, Canada & China. The company's subsidiaries include Geek Squad, CinemaNow, Magnolia Audio Video, Pacific Sales, and, in Canada operates...

 entered the marketplace as well, the latter having purchased Future Shop in the early 2000s decade. In early 2005, with a debt of C$
Canadian dollar
The Canadian dollar is the currency of Canada. As of 2007, the Canadian dollar is the 7th most traded currency in the world. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or C$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies...

57 million, A&B Sound filed for protection under Canadian bankruptcy
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....

 regulations. A sale to American company Sun Capital Partners Group Inc. was announced, but this sale was not approved by A&B's creditors. Instead, the company was purchased by Canadian computer manufacturer Seanix Technology Inc., based in Richmond and led by Paul Girard. He announced that they planned to close down or relocate some of the branches that were losing money and focus on the BC and Alberta markets. That year and the next, a number of employees were laid off, and several locations were closed, including both the Winnipeg
Winnipeg
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...

 stores in 2005, the Hastings Street store in January 2006, and in August 2006, their Red Deer
Red Deer, Alberta
Red Deer is a city in Central Alberta, Canada. It is located near the midpoint of the Calgary-Edmonton Corridor and is surrounded by Red Deer County. It is Alberta's third-most-populous city – after Calgary and Edmonton. The city is located in aspen parkland, a region of rolling hills...

, Regina
Regina, Saskatchewan
Regina is the capital city of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The city is the second-largest in the province and a cultural and commercial centre for southern Saskatchewan. It is governed by Regina City Council. Regina is the cathedral city of the Roman Catholic and Romanian Orthodox...

, and Saskatoon
Saskatoon
Saskatoon is a city in central Saskatchewan, Canada, on the South Saskatchewan River. Residents of the city of Saskatoon are called Saskatonians. The city is surrounded by the Rural Municipality of Corman Park No. 344....

 locations. Its high-profile Downtown
Downtown Calgary
Downtown Calgary is a region of central Calgary, Alberta. It is not a single neighbourhood per se, but is actually a larger community containing three neighbourhoods and a number of districts....

 Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...

 store was also closed in February 2005, although that city maintained locations in the northeast and deep south. Meanwhile, new locations were opened in North Vancouver
North Vancouver, British Columbia
There are two municipalities in the Greater Vancouver region of British Columbia, Canada, that use the name North Vancouver. These are:*The City of North Vancouver...

 and Pitt Meadows, while the Kelowna
Kelowna
Kelowna is a city on Okanagan Lake in the Okanagan Valley, in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. Its name derives from a Okanagan language term for "grizzly bear"...

, south Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...

, and Surrey
Surrey, British Columbia
Surrey is a city in the province of British Columbia, Canada. It is a member municipality of Metro Vancouver, the governing body of the Greater Vancouver Regional District...

 stores were relocated. In March 2007, the Downtown
Downtown Edmonton
Downtown Edmonton is bounded by 109 Street to the west, 105 Avenue to the north, 97 Street to the east, 97 Avenue, 100 Avenue, and Rossdale Road to the south and Jasper Avenue to the southeast , though many people consider part or all of the surrounding neighborhoods to be part of downtown...

 Edmonton
Edmonton
Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and is the province's second-largest city. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census...

 location closed, with plans to re-open another Edmonton location in the works. The Burnaby location was also closed around this time. On December 15, 2007 a new location opened in Langford (near Victoria). On January 4, 2008 the Delta store, which had re-located from Surrey, was closed. In early 2008, A&B was planning to open a new store in Chilliwack, located not far from the local Future Shop. In July 2008, all signs for this location were removed, and plans for the Chilliwack location were scrapped.

Store closures and second bankruptcy

On April 3, 2008, it was announced the historic Victoria location would close. On April 8, 2008, A&B Sound said that it would be joining the Audiotronic chain, but nothing further came of this.

On July 23, 2008, management made the decision to close the Nanaimo location. Several days later, on July 29, 2008, the decision was made to abruptly close the once-profitable Calgary North location as well, leaving A&B with no remaining presence in Calgary, as the south location had been dismantled a few months earlier after only a year in its new location. Employees and management at both branches were greeted to a locked front door and a message stating that the location had been shut down, with no prior notice.

Over the next few months, the remainder of the A&B Sound chain collapsed, with its remaining branches closing on the following dates:
  • August 12, 2008 - Closure of the two remaining Vancouver stores, Seymour and Marine Drive.
  • August 29, 2008 - Langley, B.C. (Greater Vancouver).
  • September 18, 2008 - Pitt Meadows.
  • October 23, 2008 - The South Edmonton and Abbotsford store were closed, although both re-opened briefly later in the week for liquidation sales.
  • November 7, 2008 - The last remaining A&B Sound store in North Vancouver closes.


The collapse of A&B Sound was predicted by retail analysts during the summer of 2008. Retail Analyst David Ian Gray was quoted as saying, "I think they're done. They had to close stores, for sure, but they're getting to a point where their brand is lost, and I just don't see them being able to restart it." A&B, on its website, wrote a letter to its employees and customers stating that they had to restructure their business to work in today's market, so the business itself believed it would continue on. However, A&B dropped its A&B credit card from Wells Fargo October 15, 2008, and as expected, no replacement was issued.

On November 7, 2008, A&B Sound officially announced that it had gone out of business, joining a number of other now-defunct Canadian music chains, including A&A Records
A&A Records
A&A Records was a Canadian record store chain, which declared bankruptcy in 1991. Prior to the expansion of Sam the Record Man in the early 1960s, A&A was the dominant record store chain in Canada...

 and Sam the Record Man
Sam the Record Man
Sam the Record Man was a Canadian record store chain that, at one time, was Canada's largest music recording retailer. In 1982, their ads proclaimed they had "140 locations, coast to coast"....

.

Since the final store closed in late 2008, A&B Sound's remaining inventory was in limbo, with a briefly advertised sale in its Abbotsford location cancelled without explanation. However, in late June 2011, the inventory resurfaced; Able Auctions in Vancouver was liquidating the remaining stock on Saturday, June 25. With the auction now over, it seems that the last chapter of A&B Sound has finally been written.
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