Would you pay to audition speakers

Would you buy a car without a test drive?

Over the last 8 years I've bought 4 new cars. Each of these cars I took for a test drive and never was I asked to put down some money.

I tried some cars and didn't like them, others were great. The BMW dealer I stick to let me test the drive cars, even some I couldn't afford. He knew I was gonna buy one of the cars. I bought them there because the service offered was good.

A fee of $500 is ridiculous in my opinion. If it was $20 I might do it, but $500 seems outrageous.

A local dealer here does the same thing like this:

You must buy them and audition for less than 2 weeks.
Return them if you don't like them for a refund
less 20% restocking fee.

Same song different day. I shop elsewhere.

If they are expensive speakers for in home audition, and they deliver the speakers to your home, unpack, set them up; than I think $500 is reasonable.

As a dealer I welcome people to come into my home and audition any and all of the speakers I have in stock.
If I have a good rapport with the client I would take a pair of speakers to the client's home to audition with his/her equipment IF the client showed me he was serious about purchase or had purchased other items from me.

IF it became a situation that I was investing a lot of time and trouble to bring speakers to the client's home and he was not buying anything then it would be proper for the client to pay for this service.

$500 to audition speakers sounds steep, but it could be a good value if one is considering a very high end speaker.

My last client who I took speakers to his home that he did not end up buying paid me $100 and I was fine with that. I asked him for $50 which did not even cover my time and/or gas, but he gave me $100 on his own goodwill.

I would never charge for demo in my showroom, but it is a lot of work to take a pair of speakers into a client's home and set them up for the client to demo.

It should boil down to the relationship with the dealer, and both dealer and client should act in a fair manner in my opinion.

This guy is taking a whole new and creative way of driving himself out of business. Wasting Time?? Just how long is the line out his door and down the sidewalk. Is it a nude model doing the demo? When nI bought my last speakers I narrowed it down to three model/brands and they were at three different store. I would have been out 1000.00 at 2 of the stores. I am not getting married I am just buying audio gear. Maybe this guy should come up with a toll fee for his web site as well. If he has a sign prescribing this policy he is a fool. If he doesn't maybe markphd has a point. I do know a few dealers that have told me they have had to "fire" a few customersbecause they are pests and never buy. Or the audition takes place in his store and the individual buys here on AudioGon or some other internet outlet. I can't blame him for putting a stop to that. I am in retail sales myself and on 100% commission, I jknow what is to make the sale for someone else. This maybe an isolated policy enforcement for certain people that frequent his shop. That being the case I would say hmmm maybe he has a motive. But if it general policy for everyone. He's a kook and will be soon free to do many things that don't require money.