Adventures in speaker shopping

[A Surfer]

True on the gas money, and I'd love to have my Saturday back. I didn't even listen to music for 3 days after that.
Having been in the online business I can't escape feeling bad buying stuff that I'm likely to return.

Don't. It is the risk people take when they decide to operate a business in the world today. They don't have to if it is not worth it to them. Everything comes at a price they say.

 

[MattHooper]

That’s a bummer about your shopping experience!

I certainly missed the days when there were far more AV and high-end stores to visit and audition gear.

Fortunately there are still quite a few stores and high-end shops in my city.

Ultimately, I end up going back to dealers who “ get” audiophiles like myself. I generally come in knowing what I’m doing knowing what I’m looking for, I don’t need any song and dance or salesman patter, and so these places basically would set me up comfortably in front of whatever speakers I wanted to audition, possibly adjust speaker position if I request, and then just hand me the controls for music and volume, and leave me be.

Those are the dealers who ended up selling me gear.

 

[ta240]

I often find if salespeople let me act like something is mine, I will start thinking of it as mine and end up taking it home.

 

[ta240]

Ultimately, I end up going back to dealers who “ get” audiophiles like myself. I generally come in knowing what I’m doing knowing what I’m looking for, I don’t need any song and dance or salesman patter, and so these places basically would set me up comfortably in front of whatever speakers I wanted to audition, possibly adjust speaker position if I request, and then just hand me the controls for music and volume, and leave me be.

Those are the dealers who ended up selling me gear.

That is what I was hoping for. Last time we bought speakers that is what they did. We weren't even shopping for speakers, my wife went to use the restroom and when she got back I said "listen to these" and she said "those sound good, but what about the bigger ones next to them".

The one size fits all method of cranking it loud just baffles me. But I guess they get enough people that are shopping for that ability that it must work enough of the time.

The guy at the high end shop asked what we listen to and my wife said "pop, jazz, classical, rock" and so he put on smooth jazz. When I asked for some classic rock to see what something that might not have been recorded perfectly sounded like, he put on some new sounding version of Hotel California that never made it through the intro that sounded very acoustic.

And I'm still baffled by the guy at Best Buy. We had talked to him before and instead of even asking if we were back to buy the speakers he turned and left as soon as he recognized us, to just hang out with another employee. And on the prior visit there we got to hear one Dire Straits song, over and over. I don't think I ever want to hear "You And Your Friend" again. Do people often spend thousands of dollars after hearing one song?