Convincing your local dealer to let you try speakers at home

Our side gig, selling from his home, guy doesn't wait to be asked for home auditions, he volunteers them. "Hey Chris, are you busy this Saturday? I've got a beautiful pair of Magico S5 Mk II's that I'd like to bring over and set up. I can leave them for a few days. I'll bring a bunch of different cables to play with too." He delivers and sets up everything he sells unless you really insist on doing it.  Allows returns for full refunds as well. 

I didn't take him up on the offer-waiting for him to get his hands on another pair of S7's. Maybe then. Fun shoot-out between those and my Vandersteen 7s.

Home demos are such a conundrum.

Not for many companies. I guess the issue is that some audio companies are so small or cautious that they can’t take the risk. But The Music Room, Audio Advisor, Crutchfield. Fritz speakers, Salk Speakers, Ohm speakers, Joseph Audio, Magneplanar, Upscale Audio, and many others do it. In some cases, you pay the shipping fee if you return them. All require an outright purchase up front; that protect the seller.

@kevn

Your analogy of a person putting together a car… like choose an engine, a transmission, body and assemble them to be a great car. Excellent. There are so many variables, like weight distribution… it would be really hard for a hobbiest to put together in an optimal configuration. Choose the very best engine, best transmission, and best body… I bet a disaster.

Also interesting that after over fifty years of pursuing high end sound (constantly restricted on funds), and having heterogeneous components, that I find myself with an all Audio Research system… sounding better than anything I have heard before… to my ear.

@ghdprentice 

sounding better than anything I have heard before… to my ear.

May I ask why you appended "to my ear" as a qualifier to your last remark? I ask this out of respect for your experience in the hobby. It would seem that adding that qualifier is done to prevent the interpretation that you are asserting your gear sounds better objectively. But since the only way to judge it would be with your own ears, it seems odd to add that remark. Is there another reason? Do others you play your system for not hear the improvements you hear? Is there something idiosyncratic about how you hear your system as compared to how others hear it?

I'm interested in why there is seems to be a reflex defensiveness in this hobby about how things sound. But you might have been saying something else.

@rsf507

 curious if companies did home demos then why need a dealer network? Are you suggesting a company that is located in CA ship a speaker to someone in FL then fly out to do the setup? I would imagine this type of scenario would raise the price of the component by hundreds if not thousands of dollars

No of course I’m not suggesting such an extreme example. I’m only stating the fact that if you want to do a demo well, you have to be there. Room and placement are a huge part of the sound. Without that, people often end up buying a speaker that is the opposite of a room (room is bass light, so "demo winning" speaker is bass heavy; room is highly reflective with a lot of glass, the best demo speaker is dark with less top end ). This is the value of a local dealer, they can come to you. Or you can experiment with their facility and determine how the speakers you currently own sound in their demo spaces, then compare to other speakers.

@hilde45

Yes many companies do send loaners, including several of the dealers that sell ATC for us. All the folks you mention have significant sales and are later businesses. If you are smaller, independent, or your main focus is more expensive high end speakers (over 5K), it could be quite different. Typically these sellers do a home demo locally by doing it themselves.

How about this: Would a customer fly out to a demo room that is set up properly? This is not as difficult, RT airfare could be reasonable and controlled by the customer. If the customer buys the speaker you refund his airfare.

Brad