Milan Weber

Like many people in hi-fi, I love music — Zappa, Hendrix, Joplin, Dylan, Mahavishnu, Miles Davis, King Crimson. And to listen, you need something to play it on.

With no money and no experience, I dreamed of opening a SONY store — for me, the best company there ever was. Why hi-fi, electronics and my own business? A love of technology and music — and the urge to grow.

In 1990, at the Tuzex store in Prague, I asked the assistant to play me a SONY system with a CD. After three minutes he said "enough". And on 4 November 1991, with my friend Robert, I opened the first SONY specialty store in Moravia — twenty-eight square metres.

At first it didn't work — a beautiful shop, excellent service, but no customers. We printed 15,000 flyers and handed them out around Těšín and beyond. A few days later I arrive one morning and there's a queue outside: "We're waiting for you to open, Mr Weber." In 1996 came a larger shop in the city centre — and with it the brands NAD, Rotel, Denon, Tannoy, Mission, LOEWE and a listening room.

From 1998 I began building hi-fi distribution in Poland together with Czech makers — Pavel Dudek, SHAN, Petr Král and, above all, Pro-Ject. Gradually came Triangle, Sonus Faber, Cabasse, REL, Cardas, Primare, Isotek, BAT, Audiovector and Chord.

We exhibited, ran tests and presentations, built a dealer network. Three times we won the best-sound award at the Audio-Video Show in Warsaw.

My greatest school was meeting the makers — John Franks and Rob Watts of Chord, Christopher Cabasse, John Hunter of REL, Viktor Khomenko of BAT, Lars Pedersen of Primare, George Cardas. The one who shaped me most was Heinz Lichtenegger, father of Pro-Ject and of the analogue renaissance — I had the honour of being his partner for over 25 years. The turntable, the records, the whole philosophy: GO ANALOG.

It all led me to one realization.