Wait! You’re telling me that salesman want to sell me something?!!
That can’t be!
Obviously I am not imagining that high end audio dealers have gone to the effort and expense of stocking all that gear so they can give free demos to everybody without expecting anything out of it.
Of course, every salesman would prefer that I end up buying something from their store.
This grew out of Atmosphere’s comment that for years many audiophiles have made purchase decisions not simply on measurements, but through listening to gear themselves at stores. Then it seems it was suggested that this was ultimately just marketing making the decision for audiophiles. I’ve simply been pointing out that it’s not like all high end stores were some pressure cooker environment swaying audiophiles into making purchases against their own interests, as if they weren’t agents with reasons of their own being satisfied.
I frequent my favourite audio dealer for quite a while auditioning numerous loudspeakers.
He would’ve been happy if I’d walked out having purchased a loudspeaker every time I was there to audition one. But ultimately, I simply chose the one that I actually liked.
At that point if you want to label it a “soft sell” I just be wondering what your point is.
The fact that I was given the opportunity to audition numerous loudspeakers with no pressure to buy any of them, and the fact that I ended absolutely loving one of the products and purchasing it means….what? I frankly can’t imagine a better scenario.
And since I understood it wasn’t easy keeping a high-end audio store afloat, and that I really appreciated I had such stores in order to actually look at and listen to gear, I was interested in, I made sure to support this dealer when I could. I could’ve gone and bought the same speakers secondhand for much cheaper, but I would’ve considered that to be a real ****** move given the amount of time I’d taken in the dealer’s store, with him carefully moving speakers around into set ups that I preferred, etc. So I saved up my money to buy the speakers from him.
Likewise, when it came to purchasing a new cartridge for my turntable, I wanted a certain cartridge, but the first thing I did was to inquire whether this dealer sold those cartridges because if he did, I wanted to bring my business to him.
So it’s a reciprocal relationship and just the way that I would want. Good for him and good for me. I see no problem with this.
Sure, but it’s quite possible to get a good idea of the general performance of loudspeaker from a store audition. Personally, I’ve never had any trouble with how the sound of a loudspeaker in a store translated to how it sounded in my home.
As long as the loudspeaker had traits that I clearly liked, I knew that those would show up in my home, but I would be able to dial in the sound even better.
Yup.
I’ve had my experiences with awful salesmen.
But I’ve also found high end dealers who are clearly passionate about what they sell, and they themselves are believers in what they sell. And when I found chill dealers who recognized I was an audiophile who generally knew what I wanted, and they could just sort of step out of the way and offer me access to their gear to check it out, I tended to frequent those places for many years and grow friendly with the owners. This was always with the background understanding that this was this person’s business, and I wasn’t there simply to play with his toys, and that he’d really love it if I’d buy something.
And so when I was looking to purchase a piece of gear I would go to these dealers first.
