Speaking as one who has friends who work in high-end retail, it's definitely been a slow summer. There a lot of bargain-hunters (bottom feeders) who price shop everyone to death.. it can be a real PITA to deal with chiselers like that. They (friends at stores) tell me that the Audiophile types are the worst customers: listening to everything, buying nothing, then buying used/demo on the net... have to admit to being guilty of this a touch myself.
The demos and such blown out at 1/2 retail only serve to erode the market worse than it is, which is sort of good for buyers in the short term, but has bad long-term implications of not growing the retail market for new equipment...more stores close... less used stuff for sale...harder to audition things locally... etc. There's several threads on this with many viewpoints, suggest searching the archives for better discussions on it than I can provide.
-Ed
The demos and such blown out at 1/2 retail only serve to erode the market worse than it is, which is sort of good for buyers in the short term, but has bad long-term implications of not growing the retail market for new equipment...more stores close... less used stuff for sale...harder to audition things locally... etc. There's several threads on this with many viewpoints, suggest searching the archives for better discussions on it than I can provide.
-Ed