The UK’s fastest-growing high-end audio distributor, Fine Sounds UK, the British home to McIntosh, Sonus faber, IsoTek and Bassocontinuo, has expanded its UK team with two new appointments, and a key promotion.
The company’s Sales Director, Andy Oattes, has been promoted to Country Manager and takes on a key role in business strategy, expansion, and development for Fine Sounds UK. Commenting on Andy Oattes’ promotion, Lionel Nunney, McIntosh Group Chief Commercial Officer said, “Andy has been instrumental in achieving strong growth for our brands in the UK and Ireland, and building strong relationships with our trade partners. We are thrilled by the progress made in just over one year and the positive feedback received from our partners.”
Fine Sounds UK’s sales team sees the addition of ex-Chord Company Area Sales Manager, Joe Gormley as Business Development Manager, a role also undertaken by Fine Sounds’ Matt Peddle, allowing the expanding business to cover the whole of the UK and Ireland more effectively.
Joe brings an enormous amount of both CI and hi-fi experience to Fine Sounds, gained from his 17-year history in the audio industry, including positions with well-known retailer Hi-Fi Corner (Glasgow and Edinburgh), installation expert Finite Solutions (London — where Joe and team won a CEDIA Best Home Cinema award), and most recently, Chord Company (Wiltshire).
In addition, Fine Sounds has also appointed well-known industry creative Dale Linzey to the full-time role of marketing coordinator. Dale has worked independently within the audio industry for over 25 years and brings a wealth of design know-how to the business, having worked closely with hundreds of well-known audio brands in recent decades.
Commenting on the two new appointments, Andy Oattes, Country Manager said, “We are delighted to welcome Joe to the Fine Sounds family. Joe’s extensive background in the high-end audio and CI space will be a huge asset to our business in the UK and Ireland. He is incredibly well respected and has an intimate understanding of the needs of the dealer and a planned, supportive, and professional approach. When we launched Fine Sounds UK, we set-out with the ambition to provide our community of hi-fi and Ci-Fi dealers the very best service across the industry, and we know that Joe will make a significant positive impact on our journey.
“Dale Linzey has been a huge asset to our business. His graphic design talent and passion for going the extra mile has resulted in a class-leading company branding, but also proved invaluable to our dealers when we have collaborated on projects. Moving forward, I’m looking forward to being able to work closer with Dale to increase collaboration with dealers, suppliers and our brand partners.”
The appointments follow last year’s expansion of Fine Sound UK’s headquarters in Fife, Scotland, to allow a greater range of hi-fi and ‘CI-Fi’ products to be kept in stock and reduce customer waiting times. 2021 also saw a significant expansion of the product portfolio to include McIntosh and Sonus faber installation products. In the same year, Fine Sounds UK also became an official CEDIA partner, bringing McIntosh and Sonus faber’s high-performance CI-Fi offerings to the organisation’s accredited installers (and its customers) for the first time.
