The new shape of home theater shops

[MakeMineVinyl]

Do they really think they can afford to alienate the handful of people who are even INTERESTED in what they have to sell?

Unfortunately, yes. In their view, any effort on their part which they do not think is going to lead to them making money is wasted. In a way, I can see their point, but they're still being assholes. Your ultimate revenge is to buy your stuff online and ignore the retail loop altogether. I know that after sales service is a reason some give for going B&M, but the reality of today's electronics is that almost all of it is highly reliable with modern manufacturing methods. In any event, online retailers like Amazon have liberal return policies as do online stores like Audio Advisor.

If you take something like an amplifier with a problem back to a B&M shop, they are just going to ship it to the manufacturer anyway; you might as well do that yourself and not have to depend on the dealer.

 

[Randy]

I have actually had stores refuse to let me listen to a pair of speakers on the grounds that they did not think I could afford to buy them. I wish I were kidding, but I am not. One store told me that the speakers I wanted to hear were for "serious" customers after I answered their questions about my gear list. I was then dumped without ceremony in their "mid-fi" room and ignored. I generally have around $12,000 to $15,000 worth of gear in my system at any given time. While I acknowledge that this is a drop in the bucket compared to some, it still puts me in a very small demographic with regards to A/V spending. Do these guys really value their snobbery over their business? Do they really think they can afford to alienate the handful of people who are even INTERESTED in what they have to sell?

Not exactly the same thing, but I have a decent history with one of the sales guys at the local Caddi Shack. I told him for almost 2 years that I was looking for a CTS-V. Every time he said "ya, sure, ok". Then a buddy of mine tells me that have one on the lot so I go up there to talk to him about it and they had just sold it. He didn't even call me. I went to Chicago and bought mine and every time I see him I subtly remind him that I bought it. I run into him the other night and after reminding him again I told him I really like the 2016 and 17 models which are updated and significantly more expensive and out of my price range, but his tune changed and he says to me "Well the next tome we get one in I will definitely call you and we will test drive it and talk about taking yours in on trade and I will make you a good deal".

That's fine but even if they get one in I seriously doubt I would consider buying one they are just too damn much money. But he still lost a 40-50k sale that was all but a done deal.

 

[CMonster]

Unfortunately, yes. In their view, any effort on their part which they do not think is going to lead to them making money is wasted. In a way, I can see their point, but they're still being assholes. Your ultimate revenge is to buy your stuff online and ignore the retail loop altogether. I know that after sales service is a reason some give for going B&M, but the reality of today's electronics is that almost all of it is highly reliable with modern manufacturing methods. In any event, online retailers like Amazon have liberal return policies as do online stores like Audio Advisor.

If you take something like an amplifier with a problem back to a B&M shop, they are just going to ship it to the manufacturer anyway; you might as well do that yourself and not have to depend on the dealer.

Yeah, but dropping it off with a dealer and immediately receiving a replacement beats the hell out of waiting for one to be shipped. The last time I dealt directly with the manufacturer to get a repair, they didn't send me a tracking number and they didn't require a signature so a fairly expensive component sat on my front porch for several hours while it rained.

 

[Botch]

I seem to remember reading a story about Mr. Reidel (the guy who designed the fancy wine-tasting glasses, and is very well-off). He would dress as a bum and go to wine-sampling rooms in famous wineries, and if he was treated well by the staff, would drop his credit card and buy 5 cases of their best offering that visit.
I like that story.

 

[Deleted member 133]

Not exactly the same thing, but I have a decent history with one of the sales guys at the local Caddi Shack. I told him for almost 2 years that I was looking for a CTS-V. Every time he said "ya, sure, ok". Then a buddy of mine tells me that have one on the lot so I go up there to talk to him about it and they had just sold it. He didn't even call me. I went to Chicago and bought mine and every time I see him I subtly remind him that I bought it. I run into him the other night and after reminding him again I told him I really like the 2016 and 17 models which are updated and significantly more expensive and out of my price range, but his tune changed and he says to me "Well the next tome we get one in I will definitely call you and we will test drive it and talk about taking yours in on trade and I will make you a good deal".

That's fine but even if they get one in I seriously doubt I would consider buying one they are just too damn much money. But he still lost a 40-50k sale that was all but a done deal.

The only time my local Mercedes dealership ever even had someone talk to me when I walked into their salesroom, was when I pulled into their lot with my Porsche. If I was in our Hyundai Sonata or Toyota Previa they would not even get their lazy asses off their chairs. But as I pulled in with the Porsche three of them were scrambling over each other to rush to the door and greet me.

 

[Haywood]

Back when I worked at an A/V boutique store back in the '90s, a guy came in wearing work boots, dirty jeans and a sweaty T-Shirt. We still took the time to show him what he wanted to see, do some demos and chat him up. It turned out that he was the owner of a large contracting company on his way home from a job site. We sold him several thousand dollars of stuff that day and he brought two of his cars in later. If we had judged on his clothing and ignored him, we would have lost a ton of business. True story.

 

[Randy]

Back when I worked at an A/V boutique store back in the '90s, a guy came in wearing work boots, dirty jeans and a sweaty T-Shirt. We still took the time to show him what he wanted to see, do some demos and chat him up. It turned out that he was the owner of a large contracting company on his way home from a job site. We sold him several thousand dollars of stuff that day and he brought two of his cars in later. If we had judged on his clothing and ignored him, we would have lost a ton of business. True story.

Absolutely, you just never know. A few of the wealthiest guys I know wear work boots and get a little dirty from time to time.

 

[team_tsp]

On the same line as what everyone has mentioned, most dealers I have visited push expensive cables, speaker/amp tone matching, etc. pretty hard.

However, there is one dealer in my metroplex that has frustrated me to a whole new level. He's the only dealer for certain brands in the area, and does only in-home demos (in the potential customer's home). I've spoken with him on the phone a few times over the past few years about listening to certain speakers, but haven't been able to get him to agree to come to my home to provide a demo, even when making it clear I'm interested in purchasing. I get that he may be busy chasing bigger projects, but I feel it's poor service on his part.

 

[TitaniumTroy]

My experience is kind of all over the place. Bought mostly used equipment, from BM stores, eBay and Audiogon, have also used Audio Advisor. Or direct from the manufacturer like HiFiMan. Been to a few expensive retailers in NYC, and other cities. Never had them turn me down to listen to some speakers though, wow.

I kind of like the old school stores that have a lot of equipment in various rooms, I like to take flashbacks to when I first started in audio in the 80's. Also the listening room needs to be of a decent size, and hopefully some room treatments (the more the better, but I don't see a lot ). Audio Solutions out of Indy would be a favorite and they are not low pressure, they are no pressure in sales.

My local audio dealer is exactly like Akula's, they do a lot of custom home theater's. Plus they sell high end appliances, Miele, home automation like Control4. Nice looking place they have, listening room is smaller than my computer room. While I stop in once in awhile to look around at the nice McIntosh and B&W, I have no use for them. Way out of my price league, besides I think know more about audio than they do.

 

[Bote]

I am glad that the reverse is happening here in the islands. High end as well as medium range gear shops are thriving. First time i saw tidal, mbl, b& w as well as wilsons and the likes bunched with sony , yamaha, emotiva, pioneer, onkyo, denon and marantz.

 

[Bote]

Incidentally i think the annual hi fi show held every november here is up and coming.

 

[Haywood]

Honestly, I end up buying everything online anyway. The prices are usually better, service from some of these companies is great, return policies are often generous and I stopped believing that I needed to listen to a piece of solid state electronics to evaluate sound quality a long time ago. Codec support, room correction, video processing, amplifier power and anything else I need to know are readily available, as are hundreds of professional and consumer reviews. With proper research, there is very little risk of getting a bad product. Speakers are really the only exception, but some of these guys make in-home demos so risk-free that I could easily be won over.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

The prices are usually better, service from some of these companies is great, return policies are often generous and I stopped believing that I needed to listen to a piece of solid state electronics to evaluate sound quality a long time ago.

Absolutely. Salesmen in shops generally are more interested in saying just about anything to close the sale so they can move on to the next sale. I've heard so much bullshit in the times I've gone to a B&M store that I'm surprised they have survived as long as they have.

My favorite bullshit from a saleswoman was that if I didn't buy a CD player that didn't oversample at twice the sample rate, I'm only hearing half the music. My dry reply was "Exactly which half am I missing?". She didn't reply to that one.

As an aside, the real reasons for oversampling in the first place are:

1) Going from a traditional R-2R resistor ladder DAC to one which uses a form of PWM (aka "1-bit) is both cheaper and more stable since ladder DACs can drift, especially with temperature, but age is also a significant contributor to drift.

2) Using a higher sampling frequency as required in PWM raises the fundamental clock frequency higher up so that a simpler, cheaper, and less audibly invasive low pass filter can be used.

The first generations of CD players used insanely steep and complex analog low pass filters directly in the signal path; its no wonder that they tended to sound bad.

 

[Flint]

We should start a thread on the insanely stupid claims from HT salespeople.

I have a female friend who bought a pricy Sony TV who was told that she was wasting money on such a good TV and wouldn't experience the full potential of the TV unless she purchased at least the next to the top of the line Monster HDMI cable for it - the cable was priced at $250. She bought it. After the cable installer reiterated my claim of how stupid that advice was, I met her at the store during her lunch break a week later and returned it.

 

[Haywood]

I think I mentioned before that my favorite stupid cable claim of all time was back in the days of analog modems when a salesperson at Best Buy tried to sell me a $40 phone cord from Monster, because it would deliver faster internet speeds. I asked them to explain how plugging this into 50' feet of crap phone wire inside the walls leading to a patch panel and another 25' of crap phone wire to the panel on the outside of the house could possibly have any impact. They couldn't give me an answer.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

We should start a thread on the insanely stupid claims from HT salespeople.

I have a female friend who bought a pricy Sony TV who was told that she was wasting money on such a good TV and wouldn't experience the full potential of the TV unless she purchased at least the next to the top of the line Monster HDMI cable for it - the cable was priced at $250. She bought it. After the cable installer reiterated my claim of how stupid that advice was, I met her at the store during her lunch break a week later and returned it.

A good idea, and potentially amusing!

BTW, there is good reasoning behind purchasing at least a good quality of video cable. Cheap ones tend to introduce visible crud into the video signal, the most obvious being "green mosquitos" in the image. Of course the Monster cable solution is stupid in the extreme. The cable just needs to be good enough to pass the (digital) video in an unaltered state.

 

[Haywood]

I am amazed that nobody has gone to jail for fraud over some of the claims around various cables.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

I think I mentioned before that my favorite stupid cable claim of all time was back in the days of analog modems when a salesperson at Best Buy tried to sell me a $40 phone cord from Monster, because it would deliver faster internet speeds. I asked them to explain how plugging this into 50' feet of crap phone wire inside the walls leading to a patch panel and another 25' of crap phone wire to the panel on the outside of the house could possibly have any impact. They couldn't give me an answer.

Just like a butterfly which flaps its wings in Brazil affecting the weather in the USA, it has to have some effect.

 

[Haywood]

A good idea, and potentially amusing!

BTW, there is good reasoning behind purchasing at least a good quality of video cable. Cheap ones tend to introduce visible crud into the video signal, the most obvious being "green mosquitos" in the image. Of course the Monster cable solution is stupid in the extreme. The cable just needs to be good enough to pass the (digital) video in an unaltered state.

Given that "good enough" these days can be had from Monoprice or Amazon Basics for $8-12, that is a pretty low bar.

 

[Haywood]

Just like a butterfly which flaps its wings in Brazil affecting the weather in the USA, it has to have some effect.

If you feed a giant water pipe into a small water pipe, you get higher pressure. Feeding a high-bandwidth cable into a lower-bandwidth cable, causes pressure that increases speed. Yeah, that's it. Three cheers for spaceships with wings.