Audio Research LS/Ref or Primaluna EVO Preamp

ref 3 > evo 400
all day long
esp into arc ref amp

retail is a tough business, retail for high end hifi is especially tough... so much education to do, so many naive/idiotic questions (just look at this forum), so many tire kickers just taking advantage, not respecting retailers’ time and energy - when you have done it as long as kevin has, one can see how he can become short and impatient sometimes

in his case with primaluna it is especially complicated as he is importer/national distributor (and part owner too, as i understand it) for the brand as well having his historic upscale audio as a southern california based retail store - so it creates a lot of channel conflict with other dealers whom sell the line...

...how this is typically handled is for each retailer to have their own designated geographic territory - but just like people and covid, borders are artificial and porous, product and customers don’t stay in their lanes, actively cross over, so defined territories really cannot be enforced... for example,i bought my primaluna amp from a dealer in florida who posted an ad on one of the internet equipment sites, i do not live in that state, in fact, nowhere close to it...  

if i were kevin’s shoes, i would think the profit from the importer/distributor level handling all the USA unit sales is much greater than his retailer’s profit for the few units sold through his store, so i too would say ’no discount’ from upscale, in order to protect his total margins earned from products sold through all other retailers... and this sounds like that is exactly the position he is taking at retail...