Meyer Sound has switched things up in this part of the world. After many years as Meyer Sound Australia and a short stint in the hands of traditional distribution, Meyer is going it alone and going direct. Meyer Sound product has had a reputation for its exceptional quality, high price and exclusivity. But (some of) that’s about to change… at least according to Meyer’s Sound Sales Manager for ANZ, Owen Ironside.

AV: Describe the new distribution arrangement in Australia/NZ? Are we the odd ones out in Aus/NZ or is this move to ‘going direct’ part of a more global strategy to homogenise Meyer’s approach?

Owen Ironside: Meyer Sound has been listening to our customers and with the impact of COVID-19 still affecting our industry in such a big way, I think it is fair to say that from manufacturers to production companies, and integrators to retailers, people are changing the way they are doing business.

Our customers want to be closer to the manufacturer, they want a higher level of service and support, they want training, they want demo gear to listen to, and they want to learn more about how to implement our wide and exciting range of products and solutions. But business has been impacted and budgets are being stretched more than we’ve ever seen, so on top of all this and everything they’ve come to know and demand of Meyer Sound’s high level of quality and durability, the price has to come down.

At the beginning of 2021 we launched a direct, non-exclusive reseller network for loudspeaker solutions in Australia and New Zealand to meet these needs head on.

This fantastic new reseller network already has industry leaders in their markets and have undertaken intensive factory training to be able to represent Meyer Sound at the highest level across Australia and New Zealand. Together, we now offer a vastly increased local presence of design services, sales, technical support, training, and servicing across all of the local territories and their markets. We’re now able to offer all this while significantly reducing the price to the end user.

The new approach in ANZ is not in any way new to us, however. Meyer Sound has always sold direct in the US and the same reseller network approach has already been in place in Mexico, Germany, and the UK for many years. But it’s far from a global strategy and doesn’t work just anywhere. These countries along with Australia, each have a unique set of circumstances that have allowed them to work.

AV: Who’s on the Meyer Sound team in this region?

Owen Ironside: The APAC Meyer Sound team has leapt up in size over the past few months. Not only do we now have a new team of local factory staff offering sales, design services, calibration, and technical support right here in Australia, we are about to formally announce what we consider to be the extended team of new, fully authorised, Meyer Sound resellers.

Each of our new resellers get to go through our extensive factory training and onboarding programme covering every detail of the company from our rich history, to our factory and product manufacturing as well as deep dives across our complete solutions range. Meyer Sound have a very strong belief in education and training and it’s really exciting to use this programme and work with our resellers to offer a much higher level of advice and support to our customers than ever before.

AV: Is Meyer Sound better positioned to participate in ‘on location’ demos or shootouts?

Owen Ironside: One of the great things about being a manufacturer is we can build any equipment we need ourselves. That’s really been great, as since making the change, we’ve been overwhelmed with enquiries. 

One of the first things we did, was ship over a large volume of demo gear covering our full product range to live here permanently. It’s flightcased up and already getting out across the country into people’s hands and venues.

We even have a touring Spacemap Go spatial sound design and live mixing system. Getting this new technology into peoples’ hands has been amazing to see. Straight away people are flying helicopters around and creating their own immersive atmospheres and spatial mixes. The Spacemap Go kit has been so popular all across Australia that it hasn’t been back to the warehouse since we first built it back in February, in fact it’s booked solid until 2022!

This is where our new resellers have been amazing. They have been setting up their own facilities and demo systems to fulfil the increasing demand. We have Spacemap Go systems now in every state, and you can demo any box you like from an MM-4XP all the way up to a full LEO system.