Dealer Profile

We recently caught up with Nigel Ng, Partner, to talk about Audio Connection.

Audio Connection, with one location in Sydney, Australia and six employees, was founded by Josef Riediger in 1987. He started it originally to service his passion for hi-fi, after being introduced to it by a friend of his. He got started by going to one of Sydney’s other hi-fi dealers, offering to sell their second-hand equipment on consignment as a rep, and gradually build up the business from there. He had married Nigel’s aunt, Maggie Leow, and together they started the distribution company, Advance Audio Australia in 1995. Originally intended to be a vehicle to import product solely for the purpose of Audio Connection’s retail needs, over time the distribution business widened its network to service dealers across Australia and New Zealand.

Nigel has been working at Audio Connection since the age of 14, during school and university holidays. When Josef sadly passed away from cancer in 2020, Nigel took over the business, before inviting Arthur and Sam to join the business with him in 2024.

Today, Nigel is the director of both Audio Connection and Advance Audio and uses this vertical integration to benefit not just his own companies, but the wider industry, using Audio Connection’s retail experience as an informational and operational resource for Advance Audio’s dealers.

Thoughts on the importance of training?

Training is everything. Let’s face it. No consumers need to buy our stuff. They need fridges, houses, beds – but no one really needs to buy hi-fi. It’s a luxury discretionary purchase, and we’re competing for luxury discretionary dollars that would otherwise go to luxury cars, boats, watches and holidays. For us to exist as an industry for decades to come, everyone – manufacturer, distributor and retailer - in the industry needs to be able to present, demonstrate and support our products to the highest level, and that’s only possible through continual training the people within the industry, and continual accountability that the lessons learnt during training are executed in the field.

What do you like most about HARMAN Luxury Audio products and which lines do you feature?

We carry the ARCAM range from HARMAN and have done since 2018. For me, ARCAM is in a really sweet spot right now after the release of the new Radia Series. Prior to this, the buying choice on the floor for a customer was, in a nutshell, by the ARCAM version of the two-channel or AV Receiver if you want an audio-first experience without the bells and whistles that the competition have. Now though, with the Radia range, a customer can have both without compromise. The SA35 and SA45 in particular are stand out products in this line-up for us. For the money, I don’t think there is anything better in the market that offers all the connectivity, versatility, aesthetics and performance.

How do you think the luxury audio industry is currently doing?

If you read all the formal market research, it suggests that the luxury audio market has grown and is set to continue to grow, and that’s something we’re observing anecdotally on the ground. The more that manufacturers produce products that are suitable for the modern music lover, the more distributors are able to relay that on the ground to both the industry and the public, and the better retailers get at being able to execute demonstrations and provide value-added service to the customer, the more our industry will grow. It’s no longer a lack of choice or practical issues that are holding the industry back.

What is Audio Connection’s mission?  

The more people we can put in front of decent hi-fi to show them what the music they thought they knew really sounds like, the happier we are. There’s nothing quite like watching a customer’s face when we put on a track they love or listen to on a regular basis through AirPods. It’s a mixture of, “whoa, what the hell”, “omg I love this song”, “what! I didn’t know that was in there”.

Sorry it’s not a snappy one liner =)