Took me a very long time to trust dealers again. The second brick n mortar the salesman pushed for a budget then tried to hard sell me a meh sounding system. Luckily the first store had GoldenEar Tritons with Parasound electronics so I knew what a decent system sounds like. Spent many years on my own researching online/magazines and demoing gear at brink n mortar/audio shows to build my analog+digital chains. Only recently that I found a dealer I can trust aka meet my needs vs making the sale - a shout out to Chris Thornton at Artisan Fidelity
Enough is Enough
I've been looking at changing my DAC. I was considering Lampizator, Playback Designs, and Ideon. Recently a dealer basically told me(with the exception of my subwoofer and music server) my system sucks. He went on to say, I should sell my amps, preamp, DAC, speakers, and start all over! I've owned several different speakers, amplifiers, and DACs. I've attended shows and several different dealers show rooms. In fact, I directly compared one of the amplifiers the dealer recommended to a Rowland 625 S2 amplifier and preferred the 625 S2. I didn't build my system in a vacuum. I determined what I wanted to spend, listened and purchase what I preferred. I've been in sales and submit it would have been better to recommend a DAC that would improve my system. So now I say, maybe enough is enough; because no matter what I have some dealer will tell me it's crap and I have to start over.