While 2025 had a great start, August brought enough bad news to spoil the whole year. The US market was lost overnight, thanks to Trump’s abrupt tariff policies. Our best Finnish reseller, Custom Sounds, left business altogether. Thanks for the good years! Finally, our workshop had to be relocated on a month’s notice. Luckily, new premises were found immediately.
It’s deep in the Finnish mindset to start off with the dark clouds. Let’s not forget the silver linings:
- Exactly 100 Toobs and Metros completed, bringing the total to 920 units by year-end
- New website up and running
- A new, skilled pair of hands busy with 10”–12” Toobs
- New Toob 10EB and 12EB models for electric bass
- Strong showing at the Nordic Bass Fest in Gothenburg
- New resellers, Musamaailma in Helsinki and basist.se in Sweden
- Many repeat customers and new top-level Artists
- The new workshop, although costlier, is a big improvement
The outlook? Market signals are bleak, but when have they been otherwise? We’ll go from order to order, and those keep coming. Strong inventories of key materials and components – expensed in 2025 – will contribute to improving finances. We aim to return to the US market. The 15% EU tariff should actually give us a competitive advance over imports from Asia.
The enemy? We still have no competitors offering equal performance/weight/price benefits. However, many bands have abandoned on-stage amplification, relying on house PA systems and in-ear monitoring. We already offer full-range speaker cabinets as lightweight stage monitors for modeling amp users, and will look into active (powered) versions to make their lives even easier.
The 8” speaker caliber in another area of further investigation. 10-15 years back, who would have believed that anything under 10” is seriously stageworthy? While we have proved that even 6.5” works, 8” may well be the New Black.
Stay tuned!