Tadco restructures, consolidates offering
After a period of restructuring and consolidation of its brand offerings in the local market, well-known audio brand specialists Tadco are back on the road with a streamlined operation, and are seeing their core brands holding their own – and in some cases taking off.
Says owner, MD and industry personality Simon Oates, ‘Our Clear-Com products are selling extremely well, since we acquired the distribution rights back in 2014. We offer their intercom solutions, including partyline, digital matrix, wireless intercoms, and intercom-over-IP conferencing software. It’s a very dependable and robust product set, and we offer support for the products across all their installation sectors. Most recently we’ve supplied MGG and Gearhouse Splitbeam locally, and they’re very happy with the product. Interest in the product suite has been growing exponentially.”
Tadco still specialises in audio brands, and has long been a local supplier of Australian-manufactured professional audio brand Quest Engineering. “Quest has been doing very well for us in installations and events throughout Africa, funnily enough. We recently supplied their equipment to the Pope’s visit to Uganda, and supplied a huge event in Malawi. Quest’s MX range of full IP67 weatherproofed speakers are fantastic. Another brand that’s doing well for us is Coda. Earlier this year, Virtual Productions in Pretoria bought 24 of Coda’s new AiRays with 12 Nexo subs to augment their existing kit. Another product line that does well for us is the Camco Q-Power range. It’s a fantastic amp.’
Oates returns to Tadco’s recent success with the Clear-Com range. ‘It’s always a surprise to me that we have so much need to communicate effectively and we don’t do it well. But the Clear-Com FreeSpeak range of transceivers and antenna splitters is seriously impressive. Its frequency response goes up to 7K, with easy to wear lightweight headsets. Up to 15 beltpacks can run off the FreeSpeak stations, so it’s ideal for use in live event and theatres – it’s such a great product I’m not surprised it’s doing well. We’ve had a demo system in the country for a few months which is out so often I hardly see it!’
‘We’ve been justified in our decision not to hold stock locally of our high-end audio brands. We can still get stock of Coda, Quest and Nexo very easily, within days, and we’re consequently not trying to convince clients to take product from us that may not exactly fit their requirements, simply because we’re holding stock. Everything we do now is customised and exactly to the client’s specifications.’
