Grupo Classic is made up of five companies. The oldest "A Serenata Ltda", is a retail store chain that was established over 40 years ago by Marco Bousas' grandfather Antonio Carlos, who still runs the division today, with the help of his son Junior. At the inception of the company, it was primarily a retail store for musical instruments. Today it sells over 5000 local and international brands of music industry related items. "Michael" the wholesale musical instrument division is now seven years old and sells a total of 700 different instruments including two proprietary brands Michael and Trigger. Icone Logistica is a one year old logistics division that takes care of warehousing, packaging, storage and handling, Log Importaçao is a 3 year old Importations only company, and Sotex was recently created purely out of a desire to branch into the Pro Audio industry side, and was a direct result of the partnership with Adamson.
The demo rig purchased by Sotex includes 16 Y-10's, 12 SpekTrix, four SpekTrix Waves,four SpekTrix Subs and four T-21 Subs. The Demo rig includes four complete Adamson specked Turnkey Rack's made up of Adamson A/C panels, Adamson Cable Breakouts, Adamson A.I.D. Install Panels, Lab.gruppen fP3400 and 6400 amplifiers, and XTA Controllers.
Sotex owner Marco Bousas visited the Adamson Factory in May for a training seminar and to finalize the agreement. Adamson's head of technical support Ben Cabot travelled to Brazil in September to give three consecutive 1-day demos, to a total of 75 curious representatives of various local, regional and national companies.
One of the reasons why Adamson Chose Grupo Classic and Sotex is their extensive contacts and proven history in the business. Sotex has already set-up a Portuguese version of the Adamson Website as well as translated all available literature to better serve their territory. Bousas visited AES in San Francisco in October with his technical staff Rogerio Garcia and Fabricio Neiva, to get further acquainted with the pro audio world and scouting for other brands to distribute.
Marco Bousas sited "the excellence of the engineering and performance of the products", as well as "strong technical support" being major factors in the choice to pursue Adamson for the flagship pro brand for Sotex. "It is an exciting time to represent Adamson in Brazil. In the past very little support and training has been offered by other brand representatives here. We hope to change that," concluded Bousas.
(Chris Henry)
