KEY POINTS:
For more than a quarter of a century, Stereo World has occupied a site on the corner of Dominion and Walters Rds in Mt Eden, offering personalised service, solid customer support and a frontage as loud as any of the amplifiers sold within.
But in the past decade
parallel importing, the rise of the Australian-based retail giants and an ongoing row with Auckland City Council over signs have taken their toll on the business, and director Bill Belton.
The global credit crunch was the final straw, and in late September the receivers moved in, 10 staff lost their jobs and Mr Belton was relegated to the scrapheap.
A receivership sale is on and - according to the website - "all stock must go".
The store has been operating since Mr Belton moved from an earlier Queen St site in 1982. The business originally traded in stereo equipment before later expanding into televisions, and at one point was New Zealand's largest independent stockist of Panasonic plasma-screen televisions.
Mr Belton told the Herald he first began to sense trouble in the mid-1990s with the advent of parallel importing, which, he said, put cost above product service and backup.
"People went for the [lower] price."
Before long, Australian retailers such as Noel Leeming and Bond and Bond were making life tough for the independents such as Stereo World.
"Each time they come ... they just open bigger and bigger stores."
Things took a further downward turn in 2005, when Auckland City Council removed the store's giant signs, many of which had been in place since opening day.
Removing the signs seemed to rob the store of its mojo, Mr Belton said.
"While it was garish, a lot of people said it was iconic.
"It was the whole centre point of our marketing. Everything we did was based around the blue building with all the signs, by Eden Park."
Changes to legislation on maternity and holiday leave, Government compliance costs and the global credit crunch sounded the death knell for Stereo World.
Nine of the 10 staff made redundant have found new jobs.
As for Mr Belton, he has gone into retirement. "It wasn't my intention. I would have worked on for as many years as I could have, of course. I am not a retirement-type person. But it's very hard to get a job when you're 65. Not many people want you."
The building was likely to become "a pub or a cafe when the stocks get sold", Mr Belton said. "It's been a very sad, forced ending to a very long interest in the business."