Struggling to spend 13k with three dealers

a month of endless emails and conversations

With three dealers and still nothing, despite this back and forth emails and conversations.

This is how you know about the shipping charges, pick up charges and them being reticent to set up.

My advice - stay focused.  Accept any terms they make.  Just take delivery and you'll figure out how to set up.  They are speakers, not something complicated like running a retail audio chain.

Then report back.

My thoughts are that a lot of dealers are plenty busy catering to the 1% ers.

They aren’t going to give the rest of us a lot of time when they are busy installing complete AV/Security and whole home networking and music systems. That’s who gets their prime dealer attention.

It's also worth thinking about how they are going to make money on this deal, at least a little.  If these are trade-ins, they probably need to recoup 100% of the trade in value so have no desire to negotiate or need to charge more to make up for a prior deal.  Another thing to consider is, among their customers are you going to be in the middle or low end of spenders?   Not saying you shouldn't be treated well, but that dealing with a vendor who thinks of you as their prime customer makes a difference.

As others have suggested, I would call them.  You can hash out the deal within a couple of minutes that way and get the ball rolling.

Call John Rutan at Audio Connection in New Jersey.....he'll be responsive and make you smile.

Seriously, just checked a site that does only pre owned and they say they need two weeks to respond to provide a trade in quote...ridiculous- you can trade car in and drive out in two hours; you can buy a house in a day but our audio dealers can't return calls, can't develop quotes and need weeks to respond.