certin speaker makers harder to get dissounts fro

There are, I think certain rules to follow in dealing with dealers.
1) No requests for dems if you have no intention of buying from the shop. A dealer friend says that there is a special place in hell for guys spending hours deming an item, then driving 50miles to a discount store to save 5 bucks.
2) A dem does'nt mean you will buy, you may want to look elsewhere too, but you should have the intention of buying at a retail price, at some point.
3) If you make a decision, bargaining over a discount is fair, if your expectation is fair. If you have taken 30 minutes of his time, it may be more than a 3 hour trawl through different gear. He has to make a living, but your cash did'nt grow on trees, its what is known as a free market.
4) Be open about what you are after, he can't advise if he does'nt know. Many dealers I know are frustrated by guys bringing in a HiFi mag demanding product X, not interested or suspicious of advise. assume these guys know a bit about HiFi and have your interests at heart. A happy customer will come back. If in doubt about this or you feel pressured to a product or price that is not for you, walk away.
Following these rules is a problem for me. most of my gear is 2nd user, so I don't feel I can seek dealer dems, I feel you must follow the rule to be fair. Unless you have a relationship with a dealer and are upfront about the reason for the dem, he may accomodate you to build up a relationship with you.
This seems common sense to me

It was difficult to wade through all of what has been said, but there are different philosophies that store owners employ. They do on average getabout 40% mark up on High end speakers take from that the operating which is extremely variable depending on the size of the store their inventory debt etc. and they obviously don't have a lot of room to move. That said if you can manage to find a small operation that carries or can order them for you it's still a considerable chunk of change approx 5000 bucks I am sure that a quick $2000 profit would work, they can manage with that.
In response to the general retail question of course if your selling $20 shirts you only make $10. You can't pay the rent with $3. The store can either hope to keep volumes high enough and importantly customer loyalty so you keep going back to the guy who will give you the dscount or try and make a single killing on those who don't care.

Forget markup, forget profit margin. Just ask yourself this

"Do these speakers give me the best possible sound for the money ?

Am I prepared to spend this much on a pair of speakers ?"

If you answer yes to both then buy them. If no to either then don't buy them.

In summary buy the best speakers you hear within a budget that is acceptable to you.

In all lines of business you can ask for a discount and the retailer or manufacturer can offer a discount. There's no point getting upset if the offered discount isn't what you expect. Just walk away and explore other avenues.

In response to Macrojack, could people chime in with their knowledge of which manufacturers offer direct home trial? So far, I'm only aware of Soundlabs and CAT. In each case, freight is the responsibility of the customer of course. I believe CAT also asks a 4% restocking charge in the event of return. I'm sure there are others I don't know about.

There are a number of them, Ubglub. On the speaker front: Tyler Acoustics, Ohm, Decware, Zu Audio, and I'm sure others still. As far as other components are concerned, there are MANY companies who offer a trial period, some with (and some without) a restocking fee. Decware, Wright Sound, Portal, Channel Islands, and so on. Most of the cable companies offer a trial period of 15-45 days. In addition, there are often dealers who themselves offer trial periods with no restocking fees.