life without audio dealers

There are a few products that I have been interested in where there was no way to see anywhere...either they have no dealer or they are really rare. In these cases I have contacted the manufacture about hearing the product. Most always when I told them where I live they said that they had a few people in the region that would be able to see their product. Most of the time these are other audiophiles who then contact me about hearing said product. I was even able to make a few friends this way by people coming over with said product and hooking it up and having some beers.

I will admit that I have done the borrow "product" from my local hifi shop just to purchase it cheaper online, and I would probably do it again. No reason to pay retail plus tax when you can purchase at a fraction of retail, right?

Anyhow, it is in communities like this that we can all get exposed to products and others who own those products. It seems to me that if we banded together we would be able to audition almost anything you could think of and never have to travel much more than a few hundred miles, but this would require people to open their homes to others, and in today’s society this seems to be difficult for most…hell we could even rent gears to each other or create a loaner society where people can pay shipping to borrow gear to other audiophiles….kind of like the cable company or something.

What really needs to happen is that most manufactures need to sell directly to the public. If they did they would probably make more sales because the factory direct costs would be much lower than the dealer markups. I saw a dealer price list for a few different brands, and we are talking like 50-70% markups on some of these things...Imagine what kind of systems we could have if you could get high $$$$$ items from the manufacture at cost!

Ben

I think that many knowledgable audiophiles could do without dealers, especially with resources like Audiogon available. But I also think that there are many "discriminating non-enthuisiasts", i.e. people who like good quality musical reproduction but don't want the bother of the techie side of the hobby. For them, a good dealer is a valuable source of information, advice and demonstrable products, as well as someone who can help with the design and installation of a system, particularly home theatres which might involve some home renovations. Besides, if you bypass the local dealer and deal directly with the distributor/manufacturer, would the latter not, in effect, become a retailer to you? In the end, you just replace one retailer with another, and it would be one that is physically farther removed and perhaps less responsive to your needs because of that distance.

I am in the same camp as Mrtennis and Jmcgrogan2. I live in a somewhat isolated area where I must drive at a minimum 300 miles to audition a piece of equipment. My experience with dealers has been nothing short of trying to protect myself from a hurricane by seeking shelter in a thatch hut. I quit walking into the eye of that storm! I will research the gear find it on this site buy, demo, and if I like it then keep it. If not, try to turn it over. On the other hand, I would think the margins would be more attractive by omitting the middle man.

when you compare speakers at an audio dealer, will that comparison hold up in one's own stereo system ? maybe.

it is possible that while you might prefer speaker a over speaker b during a dealer demo, you might prefer speaker b over speaker a with your own components.

Let's get practical for a moment. I took a quick look over at AudioAsylum. There were roughly 1,200 models of speakers by around 300 different manufacturers. Using your logic, I would have to drag each of them home (or at least those in my price range) before I could reliably dismiss them from consideration.

Lets say you're looking for a pair of speakers in the $3000 range. There's a ton of 'em.

By your way of thinking, I will have done myself a great disservice unless I bring each and every candidate into my own listening room and give it a trial of weeks or more.

That, my friend, is impossible. I dare say that precious few full time audio reviewers have heard more than a fraction of the available speakers on the market in their own listening room.

As a practical matter, we all have to make judgment calls regarding which of the many available speakers will make the cut for our final selection process. At best, if a person gets two or three speakers into his home for an evaluation, he's done pretty good.

To think that I'm going to bring home 100 different pairs of $3,000 speakers for audition isn't going to happen. And I'm not going to look down my nose at anyone who winnows down the field with judgment calls at a dealer's showroom. I also certainly don't blame any dealer who restricts home trials to serious candidates.

It would be interesting to see how your selection process works. How do you eliminate the non-serious contenders? I find a dealer showroom demo gives me more useful information than advertising copy or a flowery review, whether professionally done or from an online contributor.

I don't buy that you're bringing "every" possible candidate, so you're eliminating them somehow. If you haven't heard them yourself, that leaves appearance, published specs, reviews, reputation and not a whole lot more.

Just to be ornery with Mrtennis ;o) I'll suggest from my experience that you _can_ "extrapolate" a dealer's demo to your own system successfully. It worked for me when I chose the monitors for my bedroom system, using none of the same upstream components. A comparison with other speakers of similar size helped, but the choice was ultimately very easy.

That's not to say that the decision can't possibly be difficult and ultimately require a home demo, but gee whiz, it worked for me that time. So perhaps it depends on what system characteristics you're trying to reinforce, or quell.

Just joking about being ornery, Mrtennis, and Happy New Year!