One thing I haven't seen mentioned is have you made any contacts with manufacturers yet? If there are exisiting dealers in your area for desirable lines you will likely not get those lines. You may be stuck with less desirable lines that are harder to move. Opening a brick and mortar store has a lot of up front costs that you stand a good chance of losing if you don't make it. Additionally, the business will become a time hole, you have to be there when the store is open then you have to take care of all the other things like installations, stroking the good customers, accounting, local politics, etc. I don't recall the number, but there is a very high percentage of small businesses that fail in the first year, and many of those are selling much more popular items. High end audio is such a small sliver of the overall electronics market that it will be an uphill battle. I would definitely go with the recommendation of sticking with your current job and doing this on the side. I think many of the small time folks run the business on the side and use it to feed their hobby. I think the bottom line is, how much can you stand to lose? That will determine how deep you should get into this!
