HiFi House, the three-store mid-Atlantic AV specialty chain, abruptly closed...

HiFi House, the three-store mid-Atlantic AV specialty chain, abruptly closed its doors Wednesday after 59 years. An outgoing phone message at the store’s Broomall, Pennsylvania, location said the company had “ceased operations.” Questions emailed to the chain weren’t immediately answered. Bob Hana, managing director of the Home Technology Specialists of America (HTSA), told us in an email, “Unfortunately this morning we've heard the news that HiFi House was forced to close their doors.” While sales had been “steadily increasing” at the HTSA member retail chain, “their bank had grown impatient with their situation and has forced them to begin liquidation proceedings immediately,” Hana said. On the move’s reflection of the specialty AV market, Hana said the closing was “just another one of the unfortunate stories that has occurred a few too many times over the past five years.” He said HTSA’s hope is that other local HTSA members “will engage where possible” to assist HiFi House custom installation clients “where this makes sense.” HiFi House CEO Jon Robbins, a founding member of HTSA, has been “a key, instrumental contributor to HTSA and our industry for many, many years,” Hana said. HiFi House had been in business since 1955, and Robbins joined the company in 1976. Richard Glikes, former head of HTSA, said the shuttering of HiFi House is another example of the Internet’s impact on consumer electronics specialty retailing. “The Internet arc has come to a point where people don’t want to leave their house to shop, and they're willing to buy from pictures,” he said. “Unless a store is an event or a Disneyland of sorts, people are not going to come out,” he said. “You have to be mean and lean and tough to make it in retail,” he said.