6 Oct 2026 · Blog
‘Clarity is about building a collective - we’re stronger together’
In the latest in a series of interviews with Clarity members - retailers and suppliers - freelance journalist, Sean Hannam, talks to Michael Johnson, global marketing director of Monitor Audio, one of the latest suppliers to join the trade association.
British brand Monitor Audio is a leading manufacturer of high-quality loudspeakers for the hi-fi, home cinema and custom installation sectors.
Earlier this year, the company hosted a Clarity industry roundtable discussion event at its newly-opened Experience Centre, in Rayleigh, Essex, at which it expressed its intention to join the trade association.
Monitor Audio carried out its promise and became a Clarity member this summer. In an exclusive interview, global marketing director, Michael Johnson, tells us why joining Clarity is an important step for the brand and what it hopes to achieve by signing up. He also shares some of his thoughts on the challenges and opportunities for the hi-fi industry and reveals his passion for hard rock and heavy metal.
Monitor Audio joined Clarity this year. Can you tell us why it was important for you to become a member?
Michael Johnson: It’s a positive move for us because we wanted to be part of something where we could start to engage, in the first instance, with our trade partners - our network throughout the UK - on a subject that benefits not just them personally and their businesses but also enables us to build correspondence.
It’s developing engagement on a subject that can benefit both parties - manufacturers and retail partners - and to be able to have a forum to discuss ideas. It’s about building a collective, because you’re stronger together.
The industry is starting to show signs of slowing demand - especially post-COVID - so it’s important for us to be able to club together and understand the pain points, but also the opportunities, and see if there's a way that collectively we can work towards trying to do something that’s better than what's gone on in the past. That's where I think Clarity provides an excellent platform.
I think there are several challenges for the hi-fi industry to overcome - for example, not just the current state of retail, which is tough, but also trying to appeal to a wider range of consumers. For a start, the word ‘hi-fi’ is a bit old-fashioned, isn’t it?
It is. We’ve talked about that internally for years. Does the term ‘audiophile’ sound stuffy? These sorts of things are interesting points that we [Clarity] need to overcome as a trade organisation, but we need to get the buy-in from the retail partners and the manufacturers. It’s a recruitment drive - let’s make Clarity valuable to those that are part of it and those who want to be a part of it.
What about the hi-fi industry trying to be more attractive to younger consumers?
That’s something that comes up all the time: ‘we must engage with a younger audience, but how?’ We [Monitor Audio] would love to do more work with a younger audience, but when you look at our portfolio [of products], our entry-level price point is £500, which is a very considered purchase.
We’ve accepted that our audience isn’t a young one, but we are a second or a third purchase - as they develop their careers and their life journey, we’d like to be there when they’re ready. I’m not going to say that we’re less concerned about reaching a younger audience, because we do want to influence them. We want to be a brand that they recognise and aspire to own in the future.
We want to engage with a younger audience through collaborations - putting our aspirational products in front of them in a way that resonates with them. We’re working with the Museum of Youth Culture [in Camden, North London], which is celebrating 100 years of youth culture. It’s a broad church of music and fashion and is a great opportunity to enable us to reach a younger audience, but also to engage with someone like you or me, who were a youth once, so it also sits in our demographic of target customers. We’ve got massive sound systems throughout the entire place - we provide the backdrop to the experience.
In a typically male-dominated industry, Monitor Audio has a diverse range of employees, including many female staff, doesn’t it?
The fact is that it doesn’t matter whether you’re male or female, there is a fantastic array of job opportunities within our sector. It’s about ‘the people of hi-fi’ and ‘the future of hi-fi’ and how we engage with those people to tell those stories.
A lot of our team are young people, and they have lots of ideas - they have a shared passion for music and an engagement with media, whether that’s film or TV series. Consumption of media is extremely high within that group of people, and some are techier than others, but, at the end of the day, it’s all driven by that love of music, movies and TV.
I think where Clarity can add value as a trade organisation is to understand what sort of jobs are available to entice more people into our industry because it's fun, right? What we do is fun: music, film and TV are great. As Clarity, collectively, we need to define the value proposition more clearly - what it means for a B2B partner, but also what it means in terms of outreach and how we make more people aware of our industry. Clarity is the springboard for that action to take place.
Earlier this year, Monitor Audio unveiled its Experience Centre at its HQ in Rayleigh Essex - it’s a huge investment - a big commitment - and it’s very impressive…
Thanks. That’s where we see significant value being added. We’ve got a class-leading range of products and we know we can compete with our competitors with the products that we make - now it’s about getting them in the hands of our partners and ensuring that they have the confidence in installation and making sure the products continue to perform once they’ve been put in. Our Experience Centre and Elevate Sound Performance Academy are about providing confidence, knowledge and insight into what we do and how we do it. We’re giving our customers the best possible platform to sell and utilise our products.
Let’s talk more about the audio market. Is it tough out there?
The global geopolitical environment is a mess - the Middle East, Russia and Ukraine. There is a lack of component supplies - large companies are heavily investing in data chips for AI and massive data banks, and there’s a logistics problem off the back of that, with ships going around the Strait of Hormuz and other areas. It feels like one thing after another, honestly.
There's a lot of slowing across the global market, but we're in a fortunate position as we've been refreshing our core ranges, which have seen us through this slowing down - we're definitely seeing our market share increase. If you talk to our retail partners, they’ll say it’s quiet and very hard. We’re seeing that all over the world - there are some markets that are slightly more buoyant than others, but, ultimately, everyone is affected. There are huge challenges out there - we’ve seen several retail partners close and consumers have low spending confidence - the decision-making process is taking much longer. It’s extremely difficult, but I hope we get through it soon.
You joined the hi-fi industry in 2002, working for Rega, when you were also a drummer in a band. What type of music were you playing?
It was bluesy rock - quite hard. Our band was called Rocket. I was always influenced by heavy metal and heavy rock from the ‘60s and ‘70s. The guys that did it for me were Mitch Mitchell, who was Hendrix’s drummer, and Cozy Powell.
Do you still play?
I haven’t played for ages. I got rid of my kit… It got to a point [with the band] where it was, ‘do we do music or do we focus on getting careers?’ In the end, we went with our careers.
What are your earliest memories of music?
Queen were my dad’s favourite band and he liked Billy Joel. I tuned into the rockier stuff - when I was at school, Guns N’ Roses released Use Your Illusion 1 and Use Your Illusion 2, which was a big moment for me - I had them on cassette.
The first CD I purchased with my own money was Parklife by Blur - they were big at the time - and then my best friend said, ‘You need to listen to this,’ and it was a Deep Purple compilation album, along with an album by Hendrix. It completely changed my outlook.
I’m a huge Iron Maiden fan too - I’ve seen them so many times - but my favourite band of all time is Judas Priest. I adore their twin lead guitars and what they look like on stage. It’s the whole theatre and power of it, and their drummer, Scott Travis, is an absolute machine. What’s not to like?