What's your experience with snooty HiFi salesmen?

I started my audio journey back in the early 70s. Myself with wife and another couple also interested in exploring good audio, would travel about 90 miles to a college town, new audio store that sold audio gear quite above anything that was available in our area. We found the small staff to be true audiophiles who were generous with their time and sharing of their knowledge and experience in audio.

We sometimes would have to schedule our listening sessions for the evenings, as after a day of work and a 90 mile trip it would put us there after closing time. They were always very accommodating, pleasant and helpful. through them we purchased some very nice gear but were never pushed to buy something just to make a more expensive or profitable sale. we also were always treated very fair when trading equipment for an upgrade. I have memories of nothing but great experiences with that audio boutique and its fine staff.

Over the years I’ve had mostly positive experiences with audio boutiques and sales people, but I did have one particularly bad experience while traveling through Southern CA. when I stopper at a very fancy looking audio store in San Diego. Having an interest in picking up a particular piece of equipment needed for a second system, I went into the store where I was met by a smug acting sales person who, not so politely, ask if I had an appointment. When I tried to explain that I was passing through the area and what I was looking for, he dismissed me, saying there wouldn’t be an appointment available until the following week. Oh well, a mer $1K or $2K sale probably wasn’t worth their time anyway. The laughable thing was that, except for a few smug looking sales people, mostly doing nothing and a couple of sound rooms set up with mediocre looking audio gear, the store was empty.

Jim

I knew a  snooty salesman that used  the ploy of asking customers how much they wanted to spend then demonstrating a well matched system that was much more expensive before saying -But of course you can't afford that -before moving to a bad sounding poorly matched system .It was surprising how many people fell for having their ego challenged and ended up buying the expensive products or system.

I knew a  snooty salesman that used  the ploy of asking customers how much they wanted to spend then demonstrating a well matched system that was much more expensive before saying -But of course you can't afford that -before moving to a bad sounding poorly matched system .It was surprising how many people fell for having their ego challenged and ended up buying the expensive products or system.

😂 I mean I can't hate that guy. I admire the hustle. And if those customers are so easily led - ending up with a rockin hifi is one of their better possible outcomes. 

My issue is when I want to purchase they many times try to go for retail price plus tax ,I feel you should get a minimum of15% off  and many times I have to buy online because a specific brand maynot be in my area.

Many are def strongly opinionated/full of themselves- to their detriment imo. I stopped in a well known store on Park ave in NYC recently to specifically hear a 10k DAC streamer. The solo sales guy spent an hour talking about every other DAC he could think of, all of his high end systems he'd sold, watches, cars etc. and never walked me over to see or hear the DAC. He monopolized the conversation and had an opinion on everything- other than stopping to actually listen to me and demo a couple products. I was only there to hear that one DAC and was completely serious about buying it. It was as if he had to talk the entire time and thought I'd buy without hearing or even seeing the DAC- bizarre.