Supporting Local Audio Stores are we?

But back on topic... My feeling is that it is a small market, and there are too many manufacturers. This means that dealers cannot carry enough brands for knowledgeable people, and carry too many to appropriately serve the people just starting out (lack of choice is a blessing sometimes).

We Audiogon habitues are 'bad customers' for B&M stores because we know what we want and in many cases we may have more experience, and more invested in what we really like, than the dealer, and certainly more than Lrsky's $10/hr college student. As people who do this because we like it, we spend more of our own money and time searching for information than is probably reasonable.

I might suggest that the model for metropolitan areas might be different than what we are used to... The model might be for manufacturers to supply demo equipment to a couple of dealers who split a listening room site. Dealers split up a large-ish factory building and outfit it with a dozen rooms with sound-proofing between them, Ikea furniture in most, and some nicer furniture in others (that can be sourced from local high-end estate auctions). Customers would be free to bring in their own equipment, and set it up on rolling racks prior to using the room. The rack(s) would be rolled in, stabilized, plugged in, and set in the first few minutes. Dealership staff would hook up the piece to be auditioned. If the rooms were set up well beforehand, speaker placement would likely be a snap, and concentric placement rectangles would be set up on the floor. Because the site is communal, rooms would be rented at some hourly rate in order to cover the cost of the site (maybe $10-20 an hour). Dealers would offer auditions of products they sponsor, along with customers' own equipment, for free if they want by putting their own money into the pot if they wanted to bring the customer in without him/her paying. There would be another set of rooms which allowed full dealer set-ups of 'recommended systems' at certain price ranges and those rooms would have rolling racks of equipment.

Rooms could be reserved (and pre-paid?) by internet. Rooms which had time-contiguous rentals would have a buzzer go off 5mins before the end.

Such a dealership set-up could act as a used equipment dealer as well I expect, with a place to audition if you wanted.

In return for the customer paying his audition fee, MSRP would no longer be sacrosanct on new products.

I obviously have too much time on my hands...

The UK has an organisation called BADA (British Audio Dealers Association), it is a group of up market real audiophile shops that go that little but further to keep the customer satisfied and not sell anything that the customer does not like or need, there is no hard salesmen bullshit tactics, it is all easy and a relaxed atmosphere. They do not discount on the items they sell (If I remember correctly) as you are paying for their expert service, before, during and after the sale. The 'other sort' of hi-fi shops mostly located in Tottenham Court Road, central London, are the discount stores where you can barter the prices, but do not expect good customer service, and once you have left the store, or once the cash has been handed over, you are on your own.
The real king of cheap hi-fi is a shop called 'Richer Sounds', actually there are about 30+ richer sound shops dotted around the UK. The owner's policy is to get small premises in good locations, stack the shelves high, sell cheaply. If you have been to one of his shops it is about the size of a restaurant rest room here in the US, I kid you not they are tiny, no demo rooms (a few locations do but are so small literally only book shelf or diddy floor standers can fit in the space), the whole shop is just a room, a small room also. That's what the general public in the UK want, cheapness. When I was in the UK I was a regular customer of 'Grahams Hi-fi' shop, yes a member of BADA. No discounts off the MRSP, but the service was top notch. This was how good it was, I bought a 2nd hand Linn LP12, I was having a few problems with it, I took it there one Saturday morning, the Linn service chap spent about hour+, tinkling tweaking, adding the bits it needed that were not there and getting it all up and running sweetly, and they never charged me for their time. The turntable was a mess due to some home hi-fi DIY person (butcher more like).Graham's was the best shop I have ever been in.
A no pressure take your time kind of attitude.

01-11-09: Chadnliz
John, man up and clean that snot off your shirt!

That might be insulting if it came from a real man, considering the source, all I can do is LMAO.

I’m pretty sure those folks who can pony up the $$$$$$$$$ for Yachts & Bugatti’s aren’t too concerned with web sales of used audio gear. The one’s capable of laying out such copius amounts of money will continue to do so as the spirit moves them irrespective of current financial prosperity or woes. Speculative buyers, or collectors might well pull in their claws during such instances… or not.

Top tier stuff sells to an entirely different clientele. Dream systems aren’t bought by dreamers generally speaking.

When we were kids we’d all day dream out loud as to what we would own had we the $$$ for it. Eventually someone would opt for a Leer. Shortly thereafter another naysayer would chime in, “If you could buy a Leer jet, you couldn’t afford the gas for it! ”

I always thought if I could afford a private jet, gas would be the least of my worries.

When I was selling electronics, the owner of the building we leased dropped in to discuss the sale of it to us. This fella owned a goodly number of warehouses around the US. He was a car collector too.

He liked Fords especially. He had so many from the line, even FoMoCo would contact his ‘mechanics’ when another collector needed something special from an older model Ford he owned, such as a replacement part. His techs, upon approval, would pull the part off one of his cars, pack it up and send it to FoMoCo. FoMoCo would then fabricate several of this ‘sought out part’, sell the one in question, inventory another one or two, and send duplicates and the orig back to this ‘collector’.

As such, he’s never at a loss for new parts for his old cars.

Have your people call my people… we’ll do brunch sometime.

There are markets which will remain recession proof.

I think the list of buyers for the Hope Diamond, or Fabergee Eggs, were quite short… and financing was not discussed.

Uber expensive items aside… What continues to intrigue me is the ‘actual retail price’ of audio or video gear.

Just what is the actual price? MSRP?

I’ve always felt the ‘going price’ for a thing is simply what it can regularly be sold for.

Over inflation of a products list price is nonsense, and often laughable. Whatever it sells for in the end is it’s price. That’s it. Finis.

Any number of dealers or makers do submit to buyers a Yada Yada amp goes for $10K…. BUT they’ll sell it direct to you for $6K and avoid the middle man.

Hmmm. Then isn’t it worth only $6K?

For a thing to be worth $10K…. sales of it for that amount would be required to substantiate it… just saying it isn’t making it so.

Of course, those “people who have people” might have paid top dollar for it, though I seriously doubt it…. That’s why they have those “people’ around them.

No one, rich or poor, pays more than they can legitimately justify paying for a given thing.

The value of it is another story entirely.

I think that is where we find our own faults… we value certain electronic creations at times, more than needs be. You know… it’s one of them… Man! I just got to have that yada Yada preamp, or some such thing!

I’ve quit telling my friends what I pay for the stuff I get any more. … or anyone else for that matter.

I just tell ‘em to stay behind the yellow tape I have strung up about the rig and speakers, and don’t step on any cables, or touch anything… especially the remotes!

Oh, and yeah…. When they ask about my ‘antiques’, I say, “Yeah… They still make tube gear.”