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The Risks of Buying Demo Gear

Sometimes it’s tempting to consider dealer demo gear to save some cash, or to acquire higher value gear that you wouldn’t otherwise be looking at.

I won’t be doing that again.  First, I’ve seen how gear gets handled in stores.  Even when bringing in my Nordost Valhalla 2 speaker cables in to audition some Wilson speakers with my amp, I couldn’t believe I had to tell the sales guy not to step on my very expensive cables.  I witnessed him stepping on the stores own cables during setup.  I felt like telling him to move aside, I will do it.

Second bad experience is I had purchased a demo Innuos PhoenixUSB reclocker to save a few bucks.  I now regret not buying new.  After a while, I noticed that both the power socket and the USB A sockets were a bit on the loose side, in comparison to my other Innuos products.  I sent it back to Innuos to repair, which is at my cost because it’s a demo unit.  Thankfully the repair costs are minimal, unlike Innuos products - I was expecting much worse.

In reflection I realize just how many times demo products must have cabling cycled/swapped/changes out, often recklessly.  And even before it was a demo at the store, who knows what the history of the unit.  The vendor may have used the unit as a demo that travelled around the globe from show to show, for who knows how long.  I can’t even imagine the abuse gear used in this capacity must go through.

In my opinion, it’s much less risky to buy used gear from an honest individual seller with a good reputation, as I believe individual owners of HiFI gear take far better care of their gear than dealers do.  I think it’s also okay to consider buying used gear from trustworthy dealers when the history of the gear is traceable to one prior owner, and the gear in question has not been used as a demo by the dealer.

Just my take based on my experiences.

nyev
nyev OP
1,031 posts
 

That’s a good point. Dealers vary for sure. This particular dealer has the largest, flashiest showroom of anyone within an extremely large radius, and they have by far the most demo gear to try. I think they likely have about $8M worth of demo and stock, on site.  Yes, they have massive security. Sometimes I’ve no other choice based on many, many brands they offer that the numerous other dealers in my region do not carry. I do get a weird and very uncomfortable vibe there too. The sales guy there has said some pretty weird things to me, unsolicited, making the whole experience uncomfortable and extraordinarily awkward (groaning and complaining about customers, their “crazy” bosses, how they are going through hell.. I won’t go into it there is so much). They like to portray that they cater to elite, rich, upper class society who also drive exotic sports cars, and the owner has a reputation for being a hothead (heard this from other dealers in the region and I witnessed this too). And because of their fancy showroom and all the demo gear they have on hand, they can’t offer deals that can be had elsewhere. But they carry such great brands with demos that sometimes I grit my teeth and shop there when there is no other choice. Doesn’t make me feel good supporting them, like I do when I shop at other stores.

So yeah, that’s where I ran into the issues. Would have been fine had I bought new.

mitch2
4,082 posts
 

Benefits of demo are purchasing current model gear with full warranty at a discount.  It is not wrong to expect that demo gear has been used harder than similar aged used gear.  I would be most concerned with demo speakers.

mahler123
3,402 posts
 

Bricks and Mortar dealers are such a rare entity that I guess we have to put up with foibles.  I recently went to MusicDirect in Chicago, since I live a few miles away and didn’t want porch pirates to make off with my new purchase.  Hadn’t been there for 8 years.  They have moved to a really inaccessible location.  You have to call a number to be let in and then the guy opening the door has a large, snarling Doberman on a leash.  The old place used to be more inviting and had some foot traffic .

  I bought a Bluesound Node2 from another dealer that was going out of business, their demo unit, for 50% off.  They probably had used if for years.  It just died on me this week but after 5 years of use.  When I bought it I was already having problems with previously purchased Bluesound products so I wasn’t expecting a lifetime usage.  It worked out to about $40/year of service 

larsman's avatar
larsman
2,035 posts
 

I buy store demos whenever possible, and I only had a problem once, when a pair of headphones looked a lot more like 'very used' than a 'store demo', but I contacted the dealer and said this should be selling as 'used', not 'demo', and I sent them back, they replaced the headband strap and the ear cups (which were the worn-out parts), no charge, and sent them back to me, and now they're great, and I saved big bux. 

kren0006
1,859 posts
 

Depends on the dealer. If you frequent the store, you probably have a pretty good idea of how much use a particular component gets. Can be a steal with full warranty for barely used components. Yeah be more careful with speakers for sure. People still like to press the tweeter or drivers on demo speakers, haha -- amps, more likely to pull trigger on these

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