Store auditioning and then buying on-line from others. How do you feel about it ?

+1 dill. Though I can understand madavid0's sentiment.
When I recall the pretentious attitudes that more than a few dealers in Manhattan gave me, I too, wished them an eternal residence in a fiery pit.
Thankfully, not all of them deserve such a fate.

B

I was in a local high end store today to purchase some records and it was a thoroughly pleasant experience.  They had some nice speaker playing so I sat to listen.  A salesman asked if he could help me at all.  I explained I wasn't currently in the market even though I really like the brand of speaker playing.  Told him I don't wish to bother him especially if he has another customer who is in buying mode.  But since the speaker was already playing thought I'd listen for a moment.  He was completely pleasant, said they completely encourage sitting, relaxing and listening to anything, and no problem about not being in buying mode.  He'd play any system I'd like.

Good move.  That's the way to treat customers if you can do it.  I know that a number of times over the years I've been in a similar "I'm in the market at this time" mode (and made sure the proprietor knew it), but when the proprietor played me a system or two I was like "Hey, that was pretty damned nice."  It put the bug in me which later turned into my purchasing the item later on from his store.

If I get the itch for yet another speaker, e.g. for a second system, now I have what I heard at the store in the back of my mind. 

Guess inna maybe you should simply ask yourself how you'd feel if you were the dealer and people did it to you. Or, just consider in general , do you like getting jerked around

I would never go to a dealer that I hadn’t done any business with to listen to something with the sole purpose of buying it online.  At a minimum I would give them a chance to make a deal. 

If if it was more of a big box store where I wasn’t requiring any special effort by a salesman then I wouldn’t feel as strongly about it. 

I dont think it is necessary to overpay by a large margin just to support a local store but sometimes giving them something for their time can easily equate to paying a little more for the product. 

One of my local shops led me to my Yaqin tube amplifier and not only sold it for me at the online price they set it up for me.  I don’t think they made anything on the deal beyond good will which they are very good at.  I have purchased a few things from them since and recommend them a lot.  I would pay more from them. 

One gets what one pays for.

Just don’t plan to request warranty work from that dealer whom you screwed over by auditioning gear with them and then ended up buying the same gear elsewhere or online.  

What comes around goes around. Karma screws those who screws others.