Would You Pay to Listen?

A really good reason to pay would be to audition equipment you're interested in, but don't necessarily want to buy from that dealer. I got so sick of being ripped off by buying new equipment at retail, then having to sell it at wholesale when I wanted to upgrade, that I have stopped going to regular audio dealers and buy almost everything here on the used market. But, that means I don't get to hear new equipment as much. To avoid the bad karma of listening to a dealer's equipment without intending to buy, I would be willing to pay something.

I would pay quite a bit actually. The refuge part sounds particularly inviting.

I'm with seth. I would pay for a no-pressure listening session with gear I'm interested in. A corollary to this: I would pay for in-home evaluation, if a dealer wanted to offer, say, rental units.

Several months back I wrestled with this very same idea, thinking that the majority of folks will pass through life never having heard an ultra high-end system. So why not invest in the necessary acoustical space and requisite equipment and open it to the public for a "modest" fee. One could offer different time slots from a one cd session to a full length movie. Even considered structured affairs with limo, dinner, etc. Although such an establishment may well entice a lot of one-time visitors, I suspect repeat business would be virtually nil. I surmised that the general populace, although probably impressed, would not feel the need to incorporate such an experience into their lifestyles. So I wrote it off as a somewhat deranged excuse to get my hands on the killer stuff. But you never know...

I probably would not. We have an audiophile society and rotate through listening to each other's systems. All the systems are high end--some very high end. All the systems sound excellent, none of them sound perfect. Some do certain things better than others--it's really an education to hear the different systems and the pros and cons of each. The only way I would pay for listening is it would have to be higher end than what we typically listen to and for me to go back as a repeat customer they would have to change the equipment on a regular basis, so that I could hear the differences of really top notch systems. That said, it's unlikely it would be very affordable, because it would have to support a limited number of groups for probably $150k worth of equipment and $70k worth of room. It takes a lot of listening sessions and high prices to pay off that kind of investment. I once figured out that watching a movie in our home theater was the most expensive showing of a movie I had ever seen--$10 for seeing a movie is a bargain.