Keeping Audiophilia And The Love Of Music Alive & Well!

So, all you folks who believe the time of brick & motor shops have come & gone, please help me understand this.

By way of example, lets say you were in the market for a new pair of speakers and had narrowed your contenders down to... say... 3 or 4 or maybe even more different pairs you thought would sound really great with your system, room acoustics, etc. And lets say each one of those speakers weighed around 100 lbs. or more and each pair had a price tag of around $10,000.00 or so. Are you saying you would systematically buy/order each pair of those speakers from an on-line seller(s), have them delivered to your home, audition them there during the return policy period and send them back until you arrived at your final choice? And, if that final choice happened not to be the last pair you ordered & auditioned at home, would you then re-order the ones you wanted and have those re-shipped back to your home? I suppose, if money isn’t an issue, one could order/purchase everything in one fell swoop, have it all shipped to your home simultaneously, audition everything at the same time and then ship back only the speakers you didn’t want.

Speakers are probably not the best hypothetical example, here, since most of them need a good amount of break-in time to sound their best. Maybe amps, pre-amps, etc. would be a better example but most electronic stuff like that needs some burn-in time, as well. I suppose if one had good relations with on-line sellers that could deliver demo equipment that was already burned-in or broken-in, this could speed up or make the in-home auditioning process easier. Is this what you folks do or do you do some reading & research and order things you’re reasonably assured will work well at home? I can see how this approach might be feasible for things like cables, interconnects, maybe a DAC, etc. But, for major components like speakers, amps, pre-amps? Really?

@oldaudiophile:

The more expensive the gear, the less likely I'd be to base a purchase on an in-store demo, with no chance of return.  I would never lay down $2500, let alone $10,000 on any component that I could not first hear in my system, in my room. But that's me-- I'm neither sufficiently wealthy nor sufficiently enamored of risk to embark upon such an "adventure".  

On the other hand, millercarbon appears to have developed strategies that enable him to make repeated successful gear purchases without demos of any kind. Perhaps he'd be willing to share this info with you. 

@oldaudiophile  - I have auditioned by way of purchase multiple large amplifiers (like Lamm M1.2 monos and Clayton M300 monos - each about 100 lbs per amp), many preamps, and also digital front end gear.  There is certainly a cost and risk in shipping them but also a savings in purchasing used.  With speakers, I had a better handle on what I wanted so I have not needed to cycle through multiple heavy speakers.  Your other best options are to listen at audio shows or go on the road to various dealers since it would be rare to find a single dealer who represents a large selection of speaker manufacturers.

It all sounds like a great idea to me but the only problem is all of the unfamiliar rooms, components, speakers, and music involved in such situations. the good thing is that you could compare different components on the same system, but if there is component interaction that is not good you will hear bad sound. A lot of the time a system has to be made to sing and switching out one piece will destroy the magic, it all comes down to assembly and balance to truly achieve a great system, and when you do you will know it.

Stuartk, I understand completely and couldn't agree more! All the shops I've ever purchased any major component from have always had either a 30 day or 60 day full refund return policy and most never had a re-stocking fee for returns. So, I've always felt comfortable doing my due diligence on the reading, research and preparation end and, then, some serious seat-time in auditions before laying down serious or even semi-serious simoleans for a purchase. So far, I've never been disappointed with what I brought home.

I tend to be very compulsive with my reading & research. My friends love to bust my chops about that and just can't understand why sometimes my reading & research will go on for the better part of a year, if not more, before I pull the trigger on something I want. They give me the same grief about my seat-time or shopping habits. Prior to upgrading my speakers a few years ago, I logged somewhere around 19 to 20 hours of serious critical listening time with around 18 different pairs of speakers and, yes, of course, that was in 5 different high-end shops in 2 different states. I like to think I've acquired enough audiophile smarts over the years to be able to factor in variables like different sound rooms, different acoustics, source equipment, etc. I always make a point of controlling for as many of those variables as possible when I make appointments, to the point of specifically requesting which components I want the shops to use if they don't have something exactly like what I have. I even ask them, for example, specifically how I want speakers set up in the sound room. In short, I try to replicate or, rather, approximate as closely as possible, the conditions I have to contend with at home. In this last experience, the speakers I bought actually sound better under my roof than they did in the showroom. I'm blessed with a living room that has good acoustics. I just can't imagine doing anything even close to this by buying a bunch of stuff on-line. I don't trust whatever audiophile skills I think I've acquired to make that kind of educated guess, especially when it comes to speakers. I think I'd be more comfortable doing something like that for an amp or a turntable, if I had to, but I would try to avoid that if I possibly could.  However, as you've said, that's just the way I roll.