About the VALCO online shop

VALCO is a manufacturer of audio products.

We started in 2018 by importing a variety of stuff that has long since disappeared into the great recycling bin in the sky. The idea was to test and import all the products we sell ourselves, to ensure the best quality and the best prices for our customers.

We soon realised that it didn't really make sense.

First of all, the constant hunt for new products and testing was a lot of work. Secondly, as soon as you had found a good product, someone at Verkkokauppa.com had quietly added it to their own range. Third, there was always some fat guy on our Facebook wall whining that "you can get this cheaper on eBay or Wish" (when in reality our prices were the same + taxes and duties).

So it makes much more sense to develop and sell your own products.

While we were thinking about this, we looked at the sound guru. Jasse "Jazmanaut" Kest, who had bought the headphones we had imported and wanted to help us improve them.

We put our hands together with Jasse in early 2019 and set out to design our very own model of headphones, the Valco noise-cancelling headphones. A blog post has been written about this. During 2020, sales and imports of practically all other products fell by the wayside and at the time of writing (November 2020), the company has changed from an online shop to a manufacturer.

Going forward, we will strive to bring new, excellent Valco products to the market that are (at least partly) of domestic design and hopefully someday domestically produced.

What gave the company such a great name?

Valco Oy was a company jointly owned by the Finnish State, Salora Oy and the Japanese company Hitachi, in which the Finnish State had a majority shareholding, established in 1976. The purpose of the company was to manufacture colour television picture tubes using technology supplied by Hitachi.

It was a party project from the era of Kekkoslovakia, involving corruption, incompetent social democrats and Kepu regional politics. Naturally, the company was never made profitable and production at the Imatra cathode-ray tube factory finally came to an end as early as December 1980, when more than 500 workers and employees lost their jobs.

The politicians' Valco adventure cost the taxpayer something like a billion marks and is one of the greatest disasters in the history of domestic industry.

Valco was criticised heavily at the time. For example, the SMP's J. Juhani Kortesalmi said Valco was built for 'decay, revelry, drunkenness and card-playing'.

The name Valco Ltd happened to be vacant, so we decided to grab it for ourselves to make our fortunes. Naturally, the present and the then Valco have nothing in common other than the basic pillars mentioned by Kortesalmi. Occasionally, in some of the product names or advertisements, someone clever might notice other similarities with the original Valco.

Vision

Our vision is that everyone in the world has access to quality, affordable audio products - bought from us - that improve everyday life. We strive to be the leading manufacturer of innovative, durable audio products designed (and largely manufactured) in Finland, offering customers the best value for money. With all the money we make from the sale of these products, we aim to build the Death Star (no relation to the Walt Disney Company). In our vision, some of our customers' money goes to beer, alimony, large gold watches, fast cars (or unnecessarily large cars) and other necessities before the actual Death Star can be built.

Mission

Valco is dedicated to providing high-quality, durable and affordable audio products that enhance customers' listening experiences - and fatten business owners' bank accounts. Our mission is to design and manufacture innovative audio products that provide the best value for money for customers and handsome profits for business owners. We strive to achieve this by putting quality, durability (or at least repairability) and sound quality first, and by treating our customers as we would like to be treated. Our mission is to make people feel good about giving us their hard-earned money. Our goal is to continuously improve our products and processes and minimise our environmental impact while providing our customers with the best possible audio experience. In the end, nothing matters because we are building the Death Star (not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company) and enslaving all of humanity (except our customers, partners and retailers).

VALCO is entirely Finnish

VALCO was originally founded by Henri from Oulu and Jani from Tampere. Now, of course, there are many more of us here.

The company through which this is run is Valco Oy (2919697-5)

Postal address:

VALCO Oy
PL 1001
33721 Tampere

Phone: +358 8 666 0 333

NOTE! No returns to the above address, only letter mail there!