Adventures in Table Shopping


At nearby Goodwin's High End recently I was turntable shopping (My Linn Basik/Akito is getting a little old but still works great) and the "Turntable Expert" there (older, distinguished looking dude) who was assisting me first utterly ignored my query about a Pro-Ject "The Classic" table I was thinking about (really…like I was speaking Mandarin), and was only interested in pushing a Rega P3 with a Funk Firm arm and a Hana cart. Sends the unused Rega arms to Sota he said. Fine. He gets a Funk arm for me to look at and doesn't notice it's just a Rega and not the Funk arm and fumbles it back into the box, noting he doesn't have the Funk arm. Oh well…he lopes  off to help somebody with a speaker (no biggie)…at some point notes that he is a huge Linn user, has 3 modded and "special" ones, loves MC cartridges, and says you shouldn't use them with metal platters (Linn freak…aluminum isn't magnetic…weird again). He's busy to some degree (and there's literally 3 customers there) and I ask him to write down the model of the Funk Firm arm and I'll look it up later…he writes it on his card and off I go (although I had wandered around the store for a while to look at the exotica…sweet…). I get home and when I try to find the arm, the model number for the arm doesn't exist anywhere including the Funk Firm site, and realized this person is the poster boy for what's wrong with high end audio. I now doubt that Goodwin's will ever see any of my cash, and, hopefully I'll never see that dude again. Lame, but not totally unexpected. I had a better experience there a couple of years ago, but they didn't have a Linn belt to sell me and weren't very interested in getting me one, so, again, meh...
wolf_garcia
I have had similar experiences at Goodwins as well although not for a turntable.  I just bought my turntable, a VPI Prime from John Rutan at Audio Connection in Verona, NJ.  It was a 3 1/2 hour drive from my home in northern Rhode Island.  Well worth the trip.  Johnny is a wealth of knowledge in audio and music.  He will get all my business from now on.
Yeah…they're more or less nice as advertised ("no pressure"), but I would like a little more professionalism from supposed professionals…when I'm hired to run the sound for a serious show I don't think…meh…I'll just do an "ok" job. 
If you want more professionalism Wolf, just visit a Best Buy/Magnolia and talked to their sales people.  You'll be running back to Goodwins to see that guy.
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Wolf - I think everyone has experienced this type of service - it seems to be the norm rather than the exception

If you know the owner, then take them aside and let them know - they seldom want to employ people with this type of attitude.

If they don't see anything wrong - don't shop there.

CLUE - High staff turnover may indicate the owner is not really bothered about "customer satisfaction"

I've even experienced the same attitude from owners - after speaking with friends in the industry - they said the store probably had to move a certain volume of product to stay with a distributor.

In this scenario the customer is just a pawn in the game of sales

However -  there are ways to achieve that goal without alienating the customer. Good sales people know this.

He was just a poor salesperson. Don't let it put you off the store.

Regards...