Dealers hijacking the discussions

We have never complained to moderators or asked to have posts removed.

You guys need to realize there are many actual shills on these sites with direct links to manufacturers or dealers.

You guys also need to realize that dealers base their sales decisions on sometimes what they believe in or on what they think will sell.

We have always chosen products based on two principles sound quality and value.

What  you think of as shilling or trolling is trying to draw attention to prouducts that might also be an excellent fit for the OP. 

As mentioned before the chance to actually sell these products is low.

What is wrong with suggesting options that the OP wasnt thinking about?

I can assure you our mention would have been brief but then Gr4blu comes in and bam.

The forum is supposed to be an open exchange.

Lets say you were in the market for a new Dac $15k and some dealer suggested dac x and after you researched said hey this dac hits all my buttons and you get to hear it and it sounds better and costs less would you be better off or not?  
Information and opinions should all be considered valid.

How do you learn unless you are open?

I don't mind dealer participation in the least, AS LONG AS THEY DISCLOSE THEY ARE A DEALER.  Caps fully intended.  

For me personally, once I put 2+2 together and figure out a poster is a dealer subtly pushing an agenda, they've lost me.  I mentally and visually ignore their posts as if they're not even there, and they've lost me as a potential customer. 

And yes, I've also been solicited directly by dealers through the messaging system after posting in a thread.  

"As mentioned before the chance to actually sell these products is low."

I can easily believe that. Seems to me that very few actually take the advice that is offered here anymore, excepting fuses, DIY power cords, tweaks, and a certain brand of speakers and one of power conditioners.

audiotroy: Outside of the members that actually visit your store (it appears that the success rate is relatively high then), what would you say is the rate of success from your recommendations directly addressing a member’s gear-selection situation being followed by the subject member or even influencing their purchase decisions?

Dave

Due to the financial squeezes, the limited audience, the internet shift, the low level of sales and where to obtain said sales...it might be comparable to a shrinking well full of monkeys. And the well is getting deeper all the time, the surface (way out) is getting further away and the monkeys are being squeezed. Agitated. Crushed.

Sooner or later a few monkeys will be found to be standing on the rest, as the rest are crushed in the fray to try and get to clear and clean air, and maybe get out of the ever worsening well.

The ones who find compromise of some sort will get some form of success in standing on the rest. Ie, violation of morals and ethics in a well of monkeys being crushed.

Imagine that garbage compactor in the first star wars movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u3QInIMVME

Something like that. Except it’s not garbage, it’s people and their livelihoods. It’s moving into an act of standing on everyone else. At some point or another, ethics/morals gets tossed, or one dies. Simple equation.

Do they like it or do they even want to do it? Who does? And, who is violating the so called ethics? Are there even rules here? When the given culture has rules and those rules no longer hold -as the sytem if failing- who in that system survives or wins? What the heck is winning, anyway?

Sympathy for the devil, or just a wider understanding of the circumstance? Audio is changing, like all things do.

Where and what one is doing in the given individually related flow and change ---is up to them. If one finds a different way than what others ’know’ and can figure out, what does that mean?

A way out, or just a different way of standing on top of others? When does this change come for a business or business model, does it happen all at once or is it all mixed up and all over the place for a long transition period? (if such a transition period can even be recognized while in the moment)

You’ll find good dealers and manufacturers and bad ones, each seen differently by different people. I’m (we’re) charlatans and snake oil sellers to some. To others, we’re decent people selling decent wares to people who want those wares.

Eg, is the internet based ideas of a beats headphone company a good idea.... or just a more effective parasite that has found a doorway, a doorway which has excellent access to hosts?

When does a rising consensus stray from considered thought (if it ever was thought oriented) ....and become dogmatic ritual? Who and what preys on such evolved societal and cultural norms... is part of the package as that is the slick way in, the time honored way in, the backdoor of widespread acceptance and penetration.

Big money marketing (political or corporate, no difference) does it's best to be non-intrusive to what is so fondly called consciousness... as that is the path to being effective in dominance in a unconsciously maintained human collective phenomenon named as a "functional and cohesive society and culture". The human world is dominated by it's unconscious aspects of cohesion, no matter what the voice in your head tries to say or do.

Individuals (dealers, manufacturers, etc) on forums generally aren't that slick. Otherwise you'd never notice.

Can dealers on forums, named openly or clandestine... be all that complex? Yes. It is.

Dave, I'll add my two cents, as a newcomer. I've been here less than a year, look through the forum on a somewhat casual basis, and knew (or felt I knew) exactly who the OP was talking about. It's that obvious. Most everything of yours that I've read appears to have merit, but when the entire thread is hijacked, repeatedly, that's where the problem seems to be. If you're alienating potential customers, it's not in your best interest. Less is more.
Just my opinion, from the outside looking in,
L.