Ok guys...let me clear something up. I have only borrowed one piece of equipment from a dealer, and only after spending two months salary on some speakers and new cables that he was kind enough to give me a 10% discount on. He was a very nice guy who I still go and talk to when I visit my home town...as for where I live now, I have very little good to say about the "primary" high end dealer here. Last time I went to his shop, I went with a buddy who had a number of thousands of dollars burning a hole in his pocket and wanted my input on some equipment that he was interested in (note, I had helped him with some other purchases and he found me more knowledgeable than any dealer he had ever visited). He and I were totally put off by the dealer when he began arguing with me about something that I was obviously better schooled in than he. You would figure if a dealer wanted to make a sale (which my buddy was READY to do) he would have been much more collegial in his ability to make conversation with other people...That seems to not be the case with all but a few of the best dealers I know. One of my favorite dealers is based in my home town (different from the one I spoke of above) and has been operating throughout the region (and I am talking a number of states in the middle of this country). He has always been great to talk to and very into all the newest trends and pieces of equipment (which is neat for a old guy)...However the last time I went into his store one of his new helpers was working the floor and I was reminded again about how stuck up most of the people in this business are...He criticized my system and then he criticized me...but worst of all he criticized the music with which I wanted to demo some equipment. WHAT? This is my music which I like and I find to really show weakness or strength in a system. Perhaps it revealed too many of the obvious defects.
Personally, I don't consider myself to know very much about this hobby when I look at some of the others who have been doing this a long time, but I like to consider myself as being among the new generation of audiophile. I have never owned a record player (with the exception of the playschool one I had when I was a kid). And I can pretty much guarantee that I am at least 20 years younger than the median age of people interested in audio reproduction and equipment. As being such, I find myself much more at home in the digital realm than in the analogue. It is probably the product of being born around the same time that computers began their surge into peoples homes and being taught to use a computer at school.
As for my idea of having people come into my home or me go into their homes and listen
Brimac, I take offence to the idea that you would even suggest that I would steal equipment from a fellow audiophile. I have opened my home up to many people to come and take a listen and have had the favor returned to me by few. I do really think that one should hear equipment before one starts to spend money in the extreme amounts, but if you are planning on spending $10000 on a CD Player, or a pair of speakers or, or, or
what would be $300 on airfare to go hear and see it live. Additionally what would in the same case, shipping from a equipment lender and a rental fee much like the cable company be for a piece of equipment
Perhaps I should start an equipment library. It just seems to me that there would be the potential to get more exposure to much more equipment if there were something like this. (and have you ever looked at their used cable list
.they are still making a profit on that price too, as well as the money they have made off of their rentals)
As for me now, I just look for good deals on a number of different brands of equipment, and purchase what ever I am interested in
.If I like it great, if not, off it goes to some other interested party.
I guess that for some I do see the interest of having dealers around
.and if it were not for a great dealer I would have never known what is capable from an audio system. But there is another part of me that wishes that my local dealers understood my appetite for different equipment and would do something to appease me. If I were able to purchase equipment somewhere from a dealer at a deep discount (lets say they get a 10% commission over dealer price) I would be happy to continue to spend upwards of $10,000 a year (which is about my current yearly rotating equipment budget, and will only increase as I get my career going) on equipment that they carry, but there is probably not a dealer out there that would allow this, and it is not even worth my time to try and do this when I have the possibility of purchasing things here on the GoN...
Finally because of the lack of quality customer service, the ability to do research on my own, and my own equipment fund for auditioning equipment, I will probably never set foot in any but the highest end dealers
but I still cant see myself purchasing anything from one of them when there is perfectly good equipment available here and fractions of the cost.
Ben
