Would you trust a local dealer to help you put

Mr. Tennis,

If you and I, together, attended a concert where the sound was clearly off, we would most likely be in agreement. It wouldn't be a case of where I thought it was great and you were looking at me in bewilderment as if I was tone deaf.

In my experience, 99% of the time when I heard a sonic improvement, the client heard it as well. Sadly, clients don't trust their own ears enough and I wish they would. I am not keen on selling people individual components based on a review that the client read somewhere. A systems approach is what we both preach and practice.

You and I (and others in this thread) ALL AGREE that only the client knows what sounds most pleasing to him or her -and this sound can change over the course of one's life, too.

There isn't a perfect speaker that suits all. Everyone has a favorite flavor of sound. If they know which flavor and can communicate it to me then great - I will know exactly how to advise them.

If they can't describe what they are looking for then I start from ground zero - asking them what speakers they have owned - what they recently heard and liked and by playing for them 3 different sounding systems (warm, neutral, bright) to determine their preference and then fine tune from there. When I sit down with clients to design a system around their lifestyle - I design it with them in mind - not me.

I do not have to sell what I have in inventory - this is old school thinking. When you deal with the very best in hifi - special orders are a must. I cannot stock every custom finish that Verity offers for every model in their line-up. I stock one finish and if the customer likes what they hear from my demo pair then I special order a pair in their preferred finish. I never understood why some dealers went to the trouble to open a speaker, dial it in, break it in, and then just sell it at a discount to then have to unbox another and start the process over. We keep our demos on hand and view that inventory as the cost of doing business.

Please understand that from my point of view, based on years of experience, there is no hard sell to high-end AV. A-B-C doesn't apply (always be closing). The equipment sells itself. I make a recommendation and demo a system or I bring an individual item over to the client's home - we listen to a few tracks prior to installing the new item and both the client and I know if we have a winner. It doesn't matter how much or how little the component retails for - I was making house calls with $500 dacs and USB to S/PDIF converters.

Finally, many of my clients are close friends and they are welcome to spend many, many hours chit-chatting about hifi with me but we do it outide of the shop - as friends should. We talk during hikes, over a game of chess, fishing on the lakes or rivers of Washington, during long lunches, or weekend dinners, etc.

I own the company so I am, in essence, a commissioned salesperson, right? However, I do not see the dealer to client relationship as one vs. the other.

Mr. Tennis:

I'm quite fond of ARC though I do not represent the line. ARC is not available to me in this market. But it's great stuff as is Nagra which I do represent.

If you had called me and said, "hey Burt, I've got this ARC amplifier that I absolutely love - what should I mate it to as far as a preamplifier?" You would have heard me respond, "ARC."

There is absolutely nothing wrong with sticking to a single brand of electronics in order to achieve great results if you are happy with the sound.

Best,
Burt

Burt, sadly I am not aware of a Burt/Seattlehifi shops in the Philly area. Nor do I have "friends in the business" with whom I can shoot the breeze in the off hours.

So I do what I can to cobble together a nice system, which has evolved over the years. The main reason I went with ARC is because it was the cutting-edge SOTA, or at least described as such, by the super hi-end store I hung out at as a kid back in the early 70s. Whether it really was SOTA back then is irrelevant. I thought it was.

My speaker choice, Paradigm Sig 8s (v2 w/ Be tweeter) was a pure chance decision. Nothing informed about it. As it turns out, by shear dumb luck, it is actually an incredible performer that compares with many other big name brands at multiples of its price point -- or at least so I've read.

As I said, too bad I'm not aware of a Burt/Seattlehifi store where I live. But again, even if there is (or was), I will not sit in the shop and shoot the breeze about audio while a paying customer is around ready and willing to dop major bucks on a system. That's just not right.

Thanks for the comments Burt. It sounds like you like what you do and have found a way to make it work for you. All the best.

hi seattlehifi:

you have not answered my question:

do you think you can configure a stereo system that i prefer, as opposed to a stereo system that i configured for myself ?

if you can't, the basic flaw in dealer effectiveness, is that the customer knows what he likes and he is a better judge of what that is than any dealer.

for those customers who have no idea what type of sound they like, a dealer can be of help.

this is true of food, film, wine and other aesthetic pursuits.

the more one becomes educated the less one is dependent upon opinions to gain satisfaction or enjoyment from some activity.

the more ignorant you are, the more you are likely to be swayed by the opinion of others.