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Have you ever wondered why speaker manufactures do not consign speakers to dealers?

How many of you have wanted to hear a pair of speakers and the dealer only has a pair of their low end speakers to listen to?  I would say in most cases, dealers in Colorado have limited availability of speakers to listen to on their floor.  How then is it possible to purchase a speaker without listening to it first?  You would think speaker manufactures would want to sell their higher end speakers and consign at least three speaker models to dealers so they could have them available for their customers to listen to.
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audiotroy's avatar
audiotroy
3,778 posts
 
Stevecham, you are absolutely right about your above feelings.

We just boxed up a pair of Paradigm Persona 3F and a Naim amp and preamp/dac streamer and drove 40 mins to a guys house to home demo.

If you offered to put the gear on your credit card, help box and unbox the speakers the dealer was being difficult. 

There has to be an elastic relationship, as long as a key piece of demo gear is not out ouf our shop for more than a day we have no problems with lending out test gear. 

As per quality gear you can get from the above list, sorry most of them have restocking fees of 15% and without having a whole host of products to compare them with which is what a store offers you, it is hard to make a real judgement. We have had at one time JL audio, Paradigm, Kef subs all in the $1,500-2,000k price range for our clients to demo. 

If someone was considering PS Audio and didn't need a 250 watts, the new Krell amplifiers are freaking amazing sounding as well as the new Coda amps. 

Dave amd Troy 
Audio Doctor NJ
prof
3,471 posts
 

"When I was in the sales side we tried to resolve some of this by offering in home demo. With the condition that if the customer did not like it he would not get a refund but credit."

Yikes, while I'm very empathetic in regards to the problems faced by audio dealers, I also couldn't imagine going for that solution, as a customer.
If I were curious about a $15K speaker, in your model just demoing it (at home) automatically commits me to having spent that 15K (if not on that speaker, another you sell).
No way I could commit lots of money just to get a demo of a speaker.  I hear tons of speakers that seemed appealing during research, but which I didn't end up liking.

I've had a couple of in home demos and for the last one even offered to pay the dealer for his time.  He said no problem, it's part of what he does as a dealer.   (It turns out I intend to buy the speaker I demoed, from that dealer, btw).

audiokinesis
2,737 posts
 

@audiothesis wrote:  "I am a dealer and operate out of my home, but I have also invested heavily in product and am committed to seeing returns on those investments. This buy-in is a commitment to the manufacturers and distributors that is very much needed."

@audiotroy wrote: "The reality of what you think are nauseating markups don’t tell you half the story, if all of us brick and mortar guys were making so much money don’t you think there would be lots of audio stores not less?"

Good for you both for being able to make it work in this day and age, and finding a way to still offer a brick-and-mortar auditon experience to your customers!

"If it wasn’t for our custom installation business which is much more profitable in general we wouldn’t be here either."

Totally understand. If it wasn’t for my prosound side, I wouldn’t be here either. 

Duke


invictus005
597 posts
 
This is a non issue really. OP should seek out products from more established manufacturers as they usually have a good dealer network or even their own stores, i.e. Bang & Olufsen, Devialet, Harman, Apple, etc. Or brands with vast dealer networks such as Bowers & Wilkins, Martin Logan, yadda, yadda, yadda...




willieva's avatar
willieva
61 posts
 
I used to be a dealer back in the early 80's .. most of the audio lines have multiple items and you have to represent all or most of the time was not easy to pick only one model of their speaker if they happened to have 4 other models.  Question to the dealers are the brands still sort of exclusive? ,say if you carry Vandersteen for example, could a local competitor of yours suddenly decide to take on the brand that you have built up  pick up the line being two blocks away from you and start selling them in your market? 
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