Describe the ideal high end audio dealership

My apologies for taking your thread in a more specific direction than you intended. As long as we are fantasizing, my perfect dealership would:

1. Carry a complete inventory of multiple product lines with multiple dedicated acoustically treated demo rooms

2. Spend time getting to know me and musical tastes and offer informed suggestions based on my current budget. They would help me build a system that could be easily and cheaply upgraded.

3. Schedule dedicated individual appointment time for customers to bring their own music and sample products in their store prior to an in home demonstration.

4. Allow unlimited in home demos, bring over the equipment, set it up and make sure it is perfoming to their satisfaction. Subsequently, the dealer would come back and pick up the equipment.

5. Provide pricing significantly below retail with generous trade-in allowances even on brands that they did not carry.

6. Continue providing #1-5 after customers purchase their equipment on Audiogon :-)

Jazdoc and Phd, Absolutely no apologies necessary, not in the least. In fact, all respective opinions are much appreciated and welcome. Just trying to stay on topic.

I agree with Pubul57. The ideals expressed in some of these posts would be wonderful for us music lovers and audiophiles; I'd love to know of dealers that are so flexible and customer-centered. I think it would be next to impossible for most dealers to make a profit and survive though.

Attitude is something that can be changed at little cost, and it does seem that some dealers seem to have a problem in this area. But carrying everything and in-home trials of everything would be beyond the financial means of most real world dealers - not that I don't want it. But a good welcoming attitude (yes even for tire kickers), real knowledge of the products carried, and a wide enough selection to compare tubes and SS, digital and analog, and different types of speaker designs (electrostatic, horns, etc.) would be nice. This would be particularly useful for those that aren't yet audiophiles, but know they want to move into better sound, or have enough money to get it right the first time with some good advice and direction. I just don't know how BM can survive with the internet, at least among those already into the hobby. Just too easy to buy and try from places like Audiogon.

When I was in graduate school, there was a place in New Brunswick, New Jersey called HiFi Haven. This place was a meeting place...a club if you will for audio enthusiasts. A guy named Stan and his wife owned it, but the real deal was the salesman...a young guy at the time - 30 or 40 years ago named Jerry. The guy was one of the nicest guys I have yet to meet...as a matter of fact, all of the people who came into the store were friends. I remember Jerry showing me the Grace 707, comparing it to the 714, and which cartridge would be better for each of the arms. I remember him demoing the Spatial Coherence preamp to the DB Systems preamp...the ARSLT, the original Dahlquist speakers, etc. It was the most fun I have had being an audiophile. If anyone knows where Jerry is/what he is doing, I'd like to touch base.