Gone are the days of the great audition.

Well, that depends on how long ago it "used to be easy." During the so-called golden age of stereo there were rooms full of a wide range of speakers and components coast to coast. However, most were populated with the usual suspects--JBL, Bose, Altec, KLH, AR, Advent, Infinity, and perhaps Dahlquist, ESS, and Ohm. However, if you wanted to audition some truly boutique speakers (e.g., original Klipschorns, JansZen, Soundlabs or other full-range electrostatics) it wasn't much easier than it is now. For that you always needed something like Sound By Singer in NYC.

Living in Seattle, I have immediate access to Sonus Faber, Vienna, Magnepan, Wilson, lower end Focal, GoldenEar, B&W, Linn, Tannoy, Rega, Quad, Martin-Logan, Dali, Gallo, Totem, Alon,and several others, but not Dynaudio, Magico or Focal's Utopia series.

However, I have to say that if were in the market for a $170K pair of speakers, a flight and overnight hotel stay for an audition would be chump change.

Your situation is the exact reason that audio trade shows such as RMAF, T.H.E. show (and others) have exploded on the scene in recent years. In your area, go to the Capitol AudioFest. I have been to the RMAF several times and enjoyed the experience immensely. This year I will go to Newport Beach T.H.E. show for a change of pace. It's the audiophile world we live in now.

And very soon even the Yellow Sign store may be gone too. What do we then? At least a subsidiary company of theirs that goes by the name of a certain flower brings some very good brands to market for people to audition. I bought my Viennas from them after a lenghty and enjoyable audition.

This is why I am not quick to advise people to go out and listen to a speaker themselves rather than ask opinions about it in a forum. They simply can't. There are no venues in their area to do it. They must rely on forum opinion or published reviews.

Everytime each of us buys something off the internet vs a local B&M guy, we have only ourselves to blame. Everytime we bash the Yellow Sign company because of incompetent help, we put another nail in the coffin. Everytime we put the absolute cheapest price before value, we ultimately limit our choices. And since the number of participants aka potential buyers is very small, this will only hasten the total collapse of the HIFI hobby even more.

These ain't the glory days of the seventies! I like your comment about the Dark Ages of getting what you want when so much more is available. But where?

"The op must live in NYC or London."

Slooow doooowwwn and read the original post again. You will be enlightened to the geographical location of the poster in question.

Shakey