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"Chain Store" stories.....

If you have worked in or been a customer of Hi-Fi/Stereo stores, esp. in the Midwest, you may
remember some of the chains that existed at one time.

In my city we had a "mall" store named "Team Electronics". I worked at a competing independent store selling some of the best. Two things I remember best about that "Team" store are.

1. When demo’ing any speaker, one of the salesman would say: "like bass", then he would crank up the bass control....and other times he would use...."like treble"...with the same action following.
2. When the manager of this chain store would "visit" our store....."just to say Hi" what he was really saying was...
"damn, we’re dying, are you dying"?

I was lucky, the independent store I was at had some of the early best, Advent, Dahlquist, Magnepan, Yamaha,..and more...so it was not hard to make sales. It was amazing how many more expensive speakers the Advents would best.

Please add any of your "favorite" audio store stories. 

whatjd

Showing 1 response by whatjd

whatjd OP
1,139 posts
 
Yes, I love stories, but I need a drink, a cigar (just to do my best George Burns) and to wheeze and point off somewhere into the distance if I am to respond with a story...usually prefaced with "I remember when"...etc.

And yes, the store I was at did "cartridge clinics"...sold a lot of M-91ed, V15 Type-IIIIIII-Mk2+ and ADC XLM during those clinics.  All joking aside, Shure had a cartridge made for old timers with a collection of 78rpm records that were quite good and gave those customers a great deal of pleasure.  When delivering a system to a customer with a large 78 collection, I set up the table he played a few and I was surprised at how good they sounded...yes, surface noise but decent fidelity and to the point you could hear subtle sounds. 

 
  
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