What Are Your Audio Morals?

Leafs, What about the guy that goes into the local hi end boutique shop (if those still exist), listens to say Vandersteen model 2 speakers, loves them, comes back every weekend for the next month to same dealer to hear them over and over again. Takes up a ton of the dealers time; then said dealer finds out this person just ordered a pair from a different dealer.

Frap,that would not be ethical.
I am fortunate Living in the Greater Toronto Metro area there are still many High End Boutique,s around.

I have struggled with this issue of auditionong equipment knowing a sale was at best dubious. In my area we have few high-end shops; coupled with the advent of used product availability over the net, I find it remarkable that dealers retain open doors. A high-end buddy, who opened an audio shop lives on home installs of predominately video systems. He carries a decent selection of well-known manufacturers,i.e. Krell, Thiel, Mcintosh, Aerial, Genesis, Classe, but unfortunately the risk of bringing lines of the more esoteric introduces too much risk. I feel for him and anyone else trying to succeed in this most specialized of retail offerings.

The last product I did buy from him, which incidently proved to be my last retail purchase, was Sony's SACD player. Being a newly introduced product none were available within these or comparable sites. He discounted for me, but not within reach of the used market plateaus. I cannot, at this time, justify purchasing a product from a retailer, with the competive availability. The outrageous pricing, most markedly in the cable industry, has forced the used market to flourish. Without it, my system is frightfully different.

As for taking advantage of dealers, my philosophy holds strong fiat. I have completely disassociated from the institution, even barring phone exchange. Galen Carol used to receive a hand full of calls annualy, but I morally believe, without the potential towards purhase, I have no right. How the retailing market of high-end evolves, vis-a-vis the preowned, may strongly effect the industry as a whole.

Fpeel-- such language :>) What did we do before the advent of the internet? Personally, I've only used i-net purchasing for the last year and a half or so. Prior to that, I used a combination of a good local dealer (and their annual 20% off sale), and mail order dealers.

In those not so distant days, I paid much more for audio gear too. I think the real issue is can "brick and mortar" high end audio dealers stay in business without using the internet? And how will they compete?

It's my feeling that it's going to be really tough for them. I personally think that only those manufacturers and dealers that can find a way to compete with/in cyberspace are going to survive. My local dealer has survived by getting into HT like so many others-- and inevitably they are carrying less pure audio gear.

As to this specific topic, I use a combination of a local dealer and the internet for my audio purchases. But I don't abuse the dealer. Cheers. Craig.

Fpeel -

You got me to go back and read your original post. For the life of me, I can't figure out why anyone would rate it negative. Then again, I've gotten "-2,-2" for mentioning that I'd be in LA soon and would enjoy meeting to audition power cords!

By the way, are you talking about Bay Area Audio? They carry those exact lines. And like you, I stick my head in every few months for the exact reasons you gave (although I did buy a CD player from them in addition to the cheap cable).

Cheers,
Jordan