Our Story
How a Saturday Job Became SMC Hi-Fi
The story of a Saturday lad who loved hi-fi, the people he learned it from, and how he came to be running a showroom of his own.
“What happened to the old shop?”
It is the question we are asked more than any other. If you bought a turntable, an amplifier or a pair of speakers in Shrewsbury over the last thirty-odd years, there is a good chance you knew the building on St Michael’s Street — and the people in it.
Of the people from those days, Duncan is the one still doing this — the others have retired or moved on to other things. The hi-fi itself never really went away, though. It moved, paused for a while, and has now been picked back up.
- 1987
The St Michael’s Street years
Salop Music Centre, trading since 1975, moved into St Michael’s Street. The building became something of an emporium — instruments and sheet music at one end, a hi-fi department of its own at the other. For much of Shrewsbury, it was simply where you went to hear something properly before you bought it.
- 1997
Duncan starts as the Saturday lad
Duncan Lewis took a Saturday job on the hi-fi side while he was at university, working for Peter Owen, who ran the hi-fi department. He learned the trade the way most good demonstrators do — carrying speakers, making tea, and listening to a great deal of music with people who knew more than he did.
- 2000
SMC Sound & Vision
The audio-visual side was formalised as SMC Sound & Vision, with Peter continuing to run hi-fi. Same building, same faces, a tidier structure behind the scenes.
- 2006
SMC Custom Installs
SMC Custom Installs was formed and Duncan took it on — home cinema, multi-room audio and the careful wiring that disappears behind walls. He still runs it today. Hi-fi was never part of it: that stayed with Peter, and the two ran separately.
- 2018
Everyone moves on from St Michael’s Street
The St Michael’s Street chapter ended and the businesses went their separate ways. For several of those involved it was the start of a long-planned retirement.
Salop Music Centre moved out to 294 Monkmoor Road, and has since moved again to Space Station on Battlefield Road. Peter moved to Monkmoor Road as well, trading as Shropshire Hi-Fi. SMC moved into its own demonstration premises at 2 Henry Close.
- 2024
Peter retires, and the thread is picked up
After several more years looking after long-standing customers and a few new ones, Peter chose to retire properly. He had run the hi-fi department for the SMC brand in Shrewsbury for the better part of three decades, and a great many systems in this county exist because of him.
SMC Hi-Fi grew out of that as a natural handover — taken up to keep looking after those customers, to represent both the long-standing names and newer ones worth hearing, and to carry a genuine passion forward.
- Today
Where to find us
The SMC Hi-Fi showroom sits within the SMC Custom Installs premises at 2 Henry Close, with its own dedicated listening room — a space built for sitting down and listening properly, not for browsing boxes. Duncan runs the hi-fi side alongside the installation business, doing more or less what he started doing on Saturdays in 1997.
Whether you’re an old customer or a new one
If you knew the old shop, you are still a customer of ours. The listening room is there to be used, and you are welcome to bring your own music. Familiar records tell you far more about a system than anything we could pick for you. And if you have equipment from those days that needs attention, we have an in-house repair workshop and are glad to look at most makes, whether we sell them or not.
If you are new to us, then you now have a fair idea of where we came from and how we got here. The same welcome applies — unhurried listening, time to make your mind up, and no assumption that you already know what you are looking for.
And if you simply want to know what became of someone, ask. We probably know.
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