Robbed Luke helped to turn the music back on | Bay of Plenty News | Local News in Bay of Plenty

A Tauranga teen who was beaten up and robbed of his $300 headphones is listening to music once again, thanks to the goodwill of the headphone manufacturers and an interesting internet tool.

The Bay of Plenty Times presented Luke Barlow, 16, with a new set of Audio Technica headphones yesterday after the manufacturing company in Singapore was alerted to the  article on the paper's  website.

Teng Shaokai, regional business development executive at Audio Technica, was notified of the article by a Google alert.  Mr Shaokai said he was "frustrated" to hear of someone being beaten up for their headphones.

"Then, I felt even more for the boy when I discovered that he was holding on to our headphones." 

Mr Shaokai got in touch with the New Zealand agents,  who contacted the Bay of Plenty Times and offered to assist Luke  with replacements.

Simon Adams, director of Jansen Professional Audio and Lighting in Auckland,  said Luke's situation was very unfortunate. "I think this is a great thing to do and it's nice to inject a bit of good karma back into the world."

When the Bay of Plenty Times visited Luke he was blown away by the generosity of Audio Technica. The smile could not be wiped from his face.

"I don't know what to say but thank you. I can't believe it, this is great."

Luke, who did not want to be identified in the photograph, said he was not expecting to anything like this to happen and would like to thank the Auckland distribution office and the person responsible in Singapore for the generous offer.

"It's just amazing and whoever it was, I would just like to say 'thanks'."

Luke had already started to save up for a replacement set.  

Audio Technica is one of the world's leading headphone and microphone manufacturers. The company has provided microphone systems for the Olympic Games and as well as the Grammy Award ceremonies.

No arrests have been made in relation to the incident.