This is for Georgehifi especially but others can chime in.

@audiotroy I've experienced more than my share of overbearing, overly pushy, opinionated, hard sell hi-fi salespeople in the course of several decades of this hobby--our little world seems to abound in them, and I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to experience any more.  My comment was intended in the same spirit as a few others here, that is, that there are different ways a dealer can post on here, and some will be productive and others counter-productive.  In making decisions as to whom to visit and forming opinions as to what to audition one goes on the basis of available data.  Auditioning new equipment in a dealer showroom (even if it is a private house) is never really what I would call a relaxing experience, and one doesn't need the salesperson tipping the scales further, whether it be just by hovering or something worse.

The **partial** solution is to short out the speaker terminals of the unused speakers, so their drivers can't move. This really helps.

This is correct Ralph, and does work to a degree, and only if the bass unit is not cap coupled. 
But I was waiting for the light to come on from Audiotroy to tell us he does this, which never happened.
So his knowledge of this and having multiple speakers in the room to demo to the detriment of the sound is limited.

Cheers George 

George a demo in a shop is just that, our shop does not use a switch board, all gear is in power conditioners and the rooms sound good and yes we know about the shorting out trick that is very old audio news. We never claim that you are going to get 100% out of a speaker on demo at our shop, we tell our clients that the speakers will sound better in their homes. 

Wolf as per pushy you are totally wrong, we are not pushy on the contrary
look at people who have been to the shop and worked with us.

As per pushy, you may mistake enthusiasim for pushiness, and no sales guy no matter who good they are can make you want to purchase anything, if you came to the shop and we were demoing a particular product and you didn’t like it, after maybe changing cables or other things and we then switched to something else is how we generally work.

A few weeks ago, a forum poster came to our shop and listened to two systems both didn’t sound right and we argeed with them. Didn’t try to ram down our opinion as fact, turned out a number of things led the systems to sound bad from a new digital cable, a new dac, furniture was moved and lastly found out yestereday someone turned on the preamps’s loudness and cranked up the bass, as this particular preamp has a bybass and room correction eq functions. Now that one reference system is starting to make magic again.

We don’t demand that if you don’t like a particular product that you are wrong or don’t know what sounds good. Funny thing, that exact same thing happened to me when I went to a store many years ago CSA audio in Monclair Dale the owner said I was totally wrong, and I didn’t know what sounded good.


Looking at audio equipment can be a painful experience, sort of like looking at new (or used cars) or a trip to the dentist. I spent 4.5 hours at Audio Doctor in New Jersey. It was a great experience. Dave left a meeting early to see me. He knew that I was not looking at his very high end stuff, but he spent the whole day with me. No pressure, changing speakers many times and going back to a couple of them repeatedly. I have it narrowed down to two speakers, Vivid 1.5 or Janszen Valentia with air motion. Leaning toward the Vivids (pending wife approval). The shop is full of lots of incredible audioequipment at all price ranges. Clearly this is a business that is run out of appreciation of sound rather than maximizing profits.I am hesitant to go to small intimate shops like this out of concerns or pressure. This was just the opposite. Highly recommended.crwindy

Last but not least, Dave and his wife prepared a wonderful dinner for me while I was speaker-auditioning- the tastiest Mexican Tacos I have ever had! I spent a total of 4 hours at the store, and Dave even gave me a lift back to the PATH train station (I live in NYC)... so without a doubt, I would rate the customer service at this place as the best I have ever seen in my years of visiting audio stores on both coasts.

So for the NY/NJ area audiophile crowd, Audio Doctor merits an in-person visit and comes HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!ph2

At this point in my audio journey I was still trying to figure out what sounds were pleasing to me. I was very much in an information gathering mode. Even though my budget was small, at no point did I feel that I was being rushed. Dave listened to what my needs were and made appropriate recommendations and imparted a ton of information to me which was invaluable in my audio search.

He was very hospitable and offered to make me tea a few times. The showroom is very comfortable. And the selection/variety of gear is second to none.

audionoobie

Does’t seem that these guys thought we were pushy, how many stores give you four hour demos?

Wolf you are invited and more then welcome to see if we live up to the hype of not and you can see for yourself if we are pushy in person.

We sell alot of brands that are really excellent that are not seen in many stores,if you had heard some of them you might realize that some of these products may be better than a lot of the well advertised brands that many people on these forums talk about.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ