This audio cable business is getting out of hand...

[Deleted member 89782]

"Boo hoo traditional hifi stores are dying, people come and get our qualified advice, then buy online"

If only he had given me the correct advice … I‘d have gladly paid 5 EUR more for 10 meters than I they cost me online.

 

[Doodski]

"Boo hoo traditional hifi stores are dying, people come and get our qualified advice, then buy online"

The present/recent past situation is dire regarding product availability/selection in the local stores, there are size issues always occurring and now I just go to Amazon, find the stuff, confirm I am not getting ripped off on the price because some prices are totally off the deep end at Amazon and I buy the stuff online. Even my groceries. I am on a fiber, romaine lettuce, orange juice and Shreddies cereal diet and lost 57 pounds doing that in the recent ~10 weeks and so I order near all my groceries from Amazon too. It makes life so easy to have it delivered right to my door. I am looking at some speakers/active/passive for my desk and those will come from Amazon too. I just don't have time to go wayyy over to the Hi-Fi stores, see what they might carry or not and try to fill my needs stuff from their stuff. It's all a hassle.

 

[Selkirks]

"Boo hoo traditional hifi stores are dying, people come and get our qualified advice, then buy online"

Good riddance

 

[jmdesignz2]

Even CCA is nowhere near as bad as its reputation. A bit lower conductivity, that's all. It isn't even much. If you choose one or two sizes bigger, it's the same as copper in all things that matter for this application.

Well then post a picture of your system CCA zipcord?

 

[jmdesignz2]

The present/recent past situation is dire regarding product availability/selection in the local stores, there are size issues always occurring and now I just go to Amazon, find the stuff, confirm I am not getting ripped off on the price because some prices are totally off the deep end at Amazon and I buy the stuff online. Even my groceries. I am on a fiber, romaine lettuce, orange juice and Shreddies cereal diet and lost 57 pounds doing that in the recent ~10 weeks and so I order near all my groceries from Amazon too. It makes life so easy to have it delivered right to my door. I am looking at some speakers/active/passive for my desk and those will come from Amazon too. I just don't have time to go wayyy over to the Hi-Fi stores, see what they might carry or not and try to fill my needs stuff from their stuff. It's all a hassle.

Ask your Dr their opinion of that diet. IMHO it sounds dangerous

 

[jmdesignz2]

I lately bought some new speakers (Dali Epicon 2) from my local dealer. I hadn‘t auditioned them, I knew what I wanted. When I picked them up, I also asked for a run of standard 2.5mm2 speaker cable. Immediately the owner of the shop tried to get me into buying something ‚more special‘. I wouldn‘t know what I am giving away. Yeah, right. I left it at that and bought online what I needed. This sort of advice doesn‘t exactly support the alleged and urgently wanted advanteges of local dealerships. Very sad.

I’m sure judging from previous posts most ASR members are running straightened coat hangers. Lol

 

[pablolie]

"Boo hoo traditional hifi stores are dying, people come and get our qualified advice, then buy online"

Exactly. When I still lived in Germany, I had a trusted store. It was awesome to roam around. You could also sit down and read some magazines (German HiFi mags have always had measurements). When you have a trusted store, you feel compelled to regularly give them some business.
They would let me take stuff home to audition all the time.
That is the way it should be.
I am also into mechanical watches, and have been a faithful customer for over 20 years. They never ever try to push something I don't need down my throat. Because of that, if I want something they don't have, I ask them to get it and I'll but it.
Shame the whole people buy from people (they trust) is gone.
Same thing when we used to wear nice suits for corporate work. I had one shop I'd give all my business to. Or where I used to go buy nice meat cuts... they knew what I liked and would give awesome advice and even just text me.
Which my fav sushi restaurant for 25 years still does... they text me when they get a special something.
Competency and good customer treatment foster a loyal customer base.

 

[Doodski]

Ask your Dr their opinion of that diet. IMHO it sounds dangerous

I am eating ~1-2 cans of beans/day of various flavors, a small bowl of pasta per day with sauce. 1-2 bowls per day of Shreddies with OJ with pulp, 1 romaine salad per day with dressing and sometimes I will make a 4 package bowl of those dry Chinese instant soup things that cost like a dollar each. Plus I take a iron supplement everyday and that helped with the energy drain that I felt. That fills me up and I still lose weight at a appreciable rate. 47 pounds gone(I checked just now and it is 47 pounds gone.) over ~10 weeks and another ~110 pounds to go yet and then I will be at 180 pounds ate 6 feet in height. I can't get there fast enough but I gave myself a year and I am exceeding that schedule.

 

[Doodski]

Exactly. When I still lived in Germany, I had a trusted store. It was awesome to roam around. You could also sit down and read some magazines (German HiFi mags have always had measurements). When you have a trusted store, you feel compelled to regularly give them some business.
They would let me take stuff home to audition all the time.
That is the way it should be.
I am also into mechanical watches, and have been a faithful customer for over 20 years. They never ever try to push something I don't need down my throat. Because of that, if I want something they don't have, I ask them to get it and I'll but it.
Shame the whole people buy from people (they trust) is gone.
Same thing when we used to wear nice suits for corporate work. I had one shop I'd give all my business to. Or where I used to go buy nice meat cuts... they knew what I liked and would give awesome advice and even just text me.
Which my fav sushi restaurant for 25 years still does... they text me when they get a special something.
Competency and good customer treatment foster a loyal customer base.

The entire HiFi business here has disappeared in a major way. There used to be many HiFi specialty stores plus the major big store chains and now there is 2 chain stores and 2 HiFi stores for a city of >1 million people. Best Buy is a dead zone and doesn't appear to bother merchandising the audio dept. The other major store called Visions has gear but not full line selection and the prices are not great and not even variable from what I can tell. The 2 HiFi stores I have not gone to/visited because they are not easily accessible and out of my way. The hundreds of technician service/repair shops are all gone. Even the die hard technicians that stuck it out or reopened thinking vintage gear would support the business model have failed and are gone. It's a gone business for the most part.

 

[egellings]

I am eating ~1-2 cans of beans/day of various flavors, a small bowl of pasta per day with sauce. 1-2 bowls per day of Shreddies with OJ with pulp, 1 romaine salad per day with dressing and sometimes I will make a 4 package bowl of those dry Chinese instant soup things that cost like a dollar each. Plus I take a iron supplement everyday and that helped with the energy drain that I felt. That fills me up and I still lose weight at a appreciable rate. 47 pounds gone(I checked just now and it is 47 pounds gone.) over ~10 weeks and another ~110 pounds to go yet and then I will be at 180 pounds ate 6 feet in height. I can't get there fast enough but I gave myself a year and I am exceeding that schedule.

Those dry soup packets are some sodium bombs. Check that out on the packages.

 

[Doodski]

Those dry soup packets are some sodium bombs. Check that out on the packages.

Yes, I agree. I found some that has 54% per package of daily sodium recommended intake. I was experiencing muscle cramps and my doctor told me extra salt on all my food and the issue stopped. I still have textbook good blood pressure even with the increased salt intake. So not really a concern for me. But I really appreciate the heads up warning about the sodium from you.

 

[Philbo King]

Coming soon: Gender neutral cables. Male connector at one end, female at the other. Available in a rainbow of colours.

Followed soon after by transgender connectors?
"O brave new world!" - Aldus Huxley

 

[rdenney]

Exactly. When I still lived in Germany, I had a trusted store. It was awesome to roam around. You could also sit down and read some magazines (German HiFi mags have always had measurements). When you have a trusted store, you feel compelled to regularly give them some business.
They would let me take stuff home to audition all the time.
That is the way it should be.
I am also into mechanical watches, and have been a faithful customer for over 20 years. They never ever try to push something I don't need down my throat. Because of that, if I want something they don't have, I ask them to get it and I'll but it.
Shame the whole people buy from people (they trust) is gone.
Same thing when we used to wear nice suits for corporate work. I had one shop I'd give all my business to. Or where I used to go buy nice meat cuts... they knew what I liked and would give awesome advice and even just text me.
Which my fav sushi restaurant for 25 years still does... they text me when they get a special something.
Competency and good customer treatment foster a loyal customer base.

Yes. I keep hearing about the transition to a service economy, and I wonder where the service is. It’s still out there, but it seems nowadays the responsibility for loyalty is put in the customer rather than being assumed by the retailer.

Back in the deeps of time, my mother sold jewelry in the costume jewelry department of a high-end specialty department store in Houston. (Not Neiman-Marcus, but similar.) I can remember her spending evenings on her own time maintaining a clientele list and sending notes to her best customers. She was one of the top salespeople in the store who was not in a separately run boutique (as was fine jewelry and haute couture). Nowadays, if the point-of-sale system doesn’t do that work for them, it won’t get done, which is partly why such stores are now mostly gone. And even if the system does it, the salespeople think of themselves as mere users of that data, not owners, and don’t remember the names of their frequent customers.

I was in a locally owned jewelry store where we have done a lot of business over several decades. I don’t think I ever walked out of that store without buying something. But recently I was in there and for ten minutes couldn’t even catch the eye of salespeople who were more intent on entering stuff into their computers (at the counter, right in front of me!) than asking me if I needed help. I guess my weekend attire trumped my history there, or something. I’m not going to beg for service. I walked out, and the money I was prepared to spend for my wife on our 25th went somewhere else. I have a hard time thinking about going back into that store now.

If fancy audio junk is going to have no more efficacy than jewelry, the sellers of such have to adopt such high-touch customer management practices, because the customers are buying the feeling they get in the sales process as much as the product. They certainly aren’t buying anything functionally important.

Rick “buying functionally excellent inexpensive products online provides a different sort of satisfaction, but devoid of emotional investment” Denney

 

[Doodski]

Yes. I keep hearing about the transition to a service economy, and I wonder where the service is. It’s still out there, but it seems nowadays the responsibility for loyalty is put in the customer rather than being assumed by the retailer.

Back in the deeps of time, my mother sold jewelry in the costume jewelry department of a high-end specialty department store in Houston. (Not Neiman-Marcus, but similar.) I can remember her spending evenings on her own time maintaining a clientele list and sending notes to her best customers. She was one of the top salespeople in the store who was not in a separately run boutique (as was fine jewelry and haute couture). Nowadays, if the point-of-sale system doesn’t do that work for them, it won’t get done, which is partly why such stores are now mostly gone. And even if the system does it, the salespeople think of themselves as mere users of that data, not owners, and don’t remember the names of their frequent customers.

I was in a locally owned jewelry store where we have done a lot of business over several decades. I don’t think I ever walked out of that store without buying something. But recently I was in there and for ten minutes couldn’t even catch the eye of salespeople who were more intent on entering stuff into their computers (at the counter, right in front of me!) than asking me if I needed help. I guess my weekend attire trumped my history there, or something. I’m not going to beg for service. I walked out, and the money I was prepared to spend for my wife on our 25th went somewhere else. I have a hard time thinking about going back into that store now.

If fancy audio junk is going to have no more efficacy than jewelry, the sellers of such have to adopt such high-touch customer management practices, because the customers are buying the feeling they get in the sales process as much as the product. They certainly aren’t buying anything functionally important.

Rick “buying functionally excellent inexpensive products online provides a different sort of satisfaction, but devoid of emotional investment” Denney

Even when we first had the PC at work we still used paper invoices and each salesperson was given a special cardboard box sort of thing for each month with the metal rings inside to organize the invoices and keep track of their sales and commissions. So... I used those invoices and I used to regularly work at a stereo stand @ the sales floor writing up to ~700+ thank you cards at a time. I would hand write, sign and send them to each and every customer that I sold gear to. The office staff was young females wishing for something to do and they would put stamps on the envelopes and mail them for me. I had many many customers come back and say that the card made a very big impression on them. I see the computer and smart phone focused concentration in all people now too and think it's absurd. It's not the younger crowd. it's all the age groups. I too have switched over to online shopping. It takes far less emotional investment, allows for a huge increase in availability of selection and is convenient.

 

[izeek]

Hanging these high-end cables in the air is 100% image marketing, designed to sell more expensive and fancier cables, as well as various fancy stands designed for them at luxury prices, of course. This market segment is extremely shamelessly deceiving many wealthy people out of their dollars and other currencies, which end up in the pockets of the sellers, and there is no science involved in this.

In a way, you always have to think about it like this: where there is big money, there will be a lot of snake oil salesmen with happy faces and dressed in beautiful jewelry. A bit like the bullshit lies of new age salespeople.

The dumbest people will never understand this. Because the money burning in their fingers fuels their desire to waste it on such rubbish.

i kinda feel those with money and time to entertain this really just have the money and time to entertain this.

 

[izeek]

Yes. I keep hearing about the transition to a service economy, and I wonder where the service is. It’s still out there, but it seems nowadays the responsibility for loyalty is put in the customer rather than being assumed by the retailer.

Back in the deeps of time, my mother sold jewelry in the costume jewelry department of a high-end specialty department store in Houston. (Not Neiman-Marcus, but similar.) I can remember her spending evenings on her own time maintaining a clientele list and sending notes to her best customers. She was one of the top salespeople in the store who was not in a separately run boutique (as was fine jewelry and haute couture). Nowadays, if the point-of-sale system doesn’t do that work for them, it won’t get done, which is partly why such stores are now mostly gone. And even if the system does it, the salespeople think of themselves as mere users of that data, not owners, and don’t remember the names of their frequent customers.

I was in a locally owned jewelry store where we have done a lot of business over several decades. I don’t think I ever walked out of that store without buying something. But recently I was in there and for ten minutes couldn’t even catch the eye of salespeople who were more intent on entering stuff into their computers (at the counter, right in front of me!) than asking me if I needed help. I guess my weekend attire trumped my history there, or something. I’m not going to beg for service. I walked out, and the money I was prepared to spend for my wife on our 25th went somewhere else. I have a hard time thinking about going back into that store now.

If fancy audio junk is going to have no more efficacy than jewelry, the sellers of such have to adopt such high-touch customer management practices, because the customers are buying the feeling they get in the sales process as much as the product. They certainly aren’t buying anything functionally important.

Rick “buying functionally excellent inexpensive products online provides a different sort of satisfaction, but devoid of emotional investment” Denney

i like dressing like i just came from the gym. exposes real salespeople in a heartbeat.
as a salesperson myself, i never make that mistake. some of my wealthiest customers drive nice 20yr old cars. and if you're judging on how they dress, you're already losing.
we always say "don't spend anyone else's money."

 

[jsrtheta]

I am eating ~1-2 cans of beans/day of various flavors, a small bowl of pasta per day with sauce. 1-2 bowls per day of Shreddies with OJ with pulp, 1 romaine salad per day with dressing and sometimes I will make a 4 package bowl of those dry Chinese instant soup things that cost like a dollar each. Plus I take a iron supplement everyday and that helped with the energy drain that I felt. That fills me up and I still lose weight at a appreciable rate. 47 pounds gone(I checked just now and it is 47 pounds gone.) over ~10 weeks and another ~110 pounds to go yet and then I will be at 180 pounds ate 6 feet in height. I can't get there fast enough but I gave myself a year and I am exceeding that schedule.

I also would question that diet. I don't see a complete protein in the bunch, and while you can combine various foods to get complete proteins, (e.g., beans and rice), you have to eat a lot of them and know what amino acids are specific to them.

Oh, and fat is a necessary nutrient.

 

[Doodski]

I also would question that diet. I don't see a complete protein in the bunch, and while you can combine various foods to get complete proteins, (e.g., beans and rice), you have to eat a lot of them and know what amino acids are specific to them.

Oh, and fat is a necessary nutrient.

I eat a good size portion of butter everyday with my 4 eggs at breakfast and in a small bowl of pasta. Is that fat good enough? As per the protein I don't eat much and sometimes I toss a few chicken strips in the oven and snack on them. But no actual hunks for meat. I suppose maybe I should buy some salmon pieces and eat them. Thanks for the ideas and intervention.

 

[egellings]

I also would question that diet. I don't see a complete protein in the bunch, and while you can combine various foods to get complete proteins, (e.g., beans and rice), you have to eat a lot of them and know what amino acids are specific to them.

Oh, and fat is a necessary nutrient.

With that amount of beanage, you must fart like a steam engine!

 

[Doodski]

With that amount of beanage, you must fart like a steam engine!

Actually not really. I eat 1 to 2 cans of various flavors of beans a day. If I feel like stuffing myself I eat 2 cans. I also eat a extra bowl of Shreddies if I am watching a movie and want to munch plus I eat whatever in BBQ and salted peanuts whenever I want but not too many because I don't like them that much to eat tons. At breakfast 4 eggs. All eggs get a sizeable pat of butter and the small bowl of pasta does too and cheesy scalloped potato stuff when I feel the urge. I also ordered from Amazon a large 64 serving container of freeze dried potatoes that are delicious if following the water and milk proportions recipe on the package with lotsa butter too and they are delicious and so easy and taste same as fresh mashed potatoes. Boiling a cup of water/milk and then tossing in 1/4 cup of potato flakes takes like 2-4 minutes maybe. It's really fast and easy to do. I recommend them if you like potatoes and suggest you immediately get the stuff if you enjoy potatoes too and I will link you to them below. For lunch/dinner once a day a small bowl of pasta with whatever sauce I use like cheesy or whatever. I don't really limit myself in quantity because most of it is zero fat food and fiber and my body is processing the fiber without any consequences to really speak of. So no major gas more than usual. I was on Ozempic for ~3 months for appetite suppression. Every Thursday injected in the arm. Cost me ~$256 for the largest vial with dosage meter and that lasted the entire ~3 months because the dose at the first months is not very large and does not require lotsa liquid from the vial thingy. I cancelled the Ozempic because I was eating 5 meals a day anyway and still am and the Ozempic was not blocking my appetite and I still lost to this minute as I check my weight ~51 pounds. I was 337 pounds and now am less than 290. I feel the improvement. My face had cheek jowls forming and they are gone the ladies say and my shirts are lose now and not filled up with belly now.

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