I was a retail owner for many years, now retired. We offered personal service and hired [and fired] many salespeople over the years. Some of them, you could tell would thrive at this and others were pretty obvious that this was not their calling. Sounds like you got one of those.
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.
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Dealers will always route you to something they sell. It isn’t even that dishonest, IMHO, call it a grey area. So basicly, you have to pretty much ignore whatever a dealer says. I know some people have dealers they trust. Still those dealers cannot be perfectly objective. Owners can’t be fully trusted either. they are going to have confirmation bias toward whatever they spent much money on. and they often just repeat what the dealer told them. Reviewers never give a bad review. they are playing the game. Best bet is to: 1. understand the technology behind it to figure out what is likely to sound better. 2. listen with your own ears. A physics degee helps with item 1. OP: if you're in socal, stop by and listen to my Lampi. I haven't gotten around to selling DAVE yet so we could do an A/B. Jerry |
My take: two-fold on your dealer salesman’s uber-crass and uber-insulting response, (1) I would only have one thing to say your dealer salesman: it is the slang profane pejorative embodied in GENESIS 9:7. (2) Furthermore, I would not even call him the slang term for a protologist’s subject matter, because an a****le actually serves a useful function . |
I have been into audio for over 40 years and member of or part of audio clubs ion the east coast ,making recommendations , fine tune your Audio you don’t have to start from scratch.I can say yes maybe upgrade as I mentioned before a digital cable upgrade ,I just recently found a Gem in Tubulus Audio cables ,their Digital cables and a couple power cords ,truly kicked my very respectable system up a notch . I truly think the front end is slightly more important then the Loudspeaker ,Why for it is the first part of the Audio chain , once the signal goes down stream you Cannot make up the clarity or resolution , the Loudspeaker is second , everything counts though . I sell Denafrips Audio and their latest philosophy in their New Gen-15 series ,such as moving the Pontus to the previous Venus 12 th which was just upgraded last year for Pontus money is a first , the same holds true for the new Venus 15 ,last years Terminator12, The New Terminator15 was the Upgraded Terminator plus , without charging Any increase in $$ in fact your saving well over $1k per product .and all were tuned even more so ..it’s a great strategy ,for each model can compete very well with the competition in their respective price categories. |
Once upon a time of mine, long ago and at the west end of this country.... I was in the market for a new Toyota p/u.... Living in Oakland at the time, I visited a local dealer and got what I felt was a reasonable ask, but wanted to push the point and see if I could improve on a deal. Visited a different dealer or three, who all came up with a number that was generally higher, the last claiming in it's ads they'd beat any other dealers' price. "Those n*****s will do that just to make a sale and screw you over anyway.." I excused self to visit the restroom shortly, and sought the sales manager, and repeated the comment...."You ought to have fired that assh*le yesterday".. and left. Yes, the local salesman was black, stayed on the quote, and the Toy was a 'runner' for our 10-ish years, sold to a buddy who, last seen, was still driving it. Some salesfolk of the time should have been riding the trash trucks of the time on the back of it. What I hope for in sales personnel is rationality and couth...If I dare 'waste one's time' it's to pay attention to the attitude of the F2F encounter v. the entity I've encountered.... Since then, I describe self as 'beige', not white....to the point of adding it on a form. To quote Frank: "I'm not black, but sometimes I wish I wasn't white...." The truly white have to wear protection from the sun....and the condition is exhibited in all races.... Any audio sales shmuck that would imply that I ought to dump my happy collection of audio odd would and will get the same rough route from me. Life is short enough as it is...and I'm closing in on the stub of it. ....and "heaven is in your mind..." Know yours. 👍 Good luck, J |
20 years ago when I was just getting into high-end audio and had money to burn, my audio dealer talked me out of buying a new preamp." The world does not need a new preamplifier company, and you don't need a new pre-amplifier." He had not sold me my preamp and could have sold me a brand new one for more but he knew that I didn't need it. His son still carries on his business in Maryland years after he died and I'm always going to remember what an honest and thoughtful guy he was. So any dealer who tells me that I would have to start over is simply asking for money and not for trust. |
@ricred1 I got your PM but audiogon won't let me reply unless I give them a credit card. with all the hacks going on, I don't put my credit card on servers just to sit there and be hacked, so I can't reply. I found the Lampi bigger and fuller and extremely detailed. the soundstage is indeed excellent on the DAVE but loved the sound of the GG3. I can't compare to the Atlantic since I went right for the DHT. However, Lampi's flagship, the Horizon is a Pentode based output. I recently spent a weekend listening to it with Lukas and a few others using the Taiko XDMI and it was spectacular, but way above the price range you're shopping in. Best of luck, Jerry
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Your dealer is probably a moron, and probably desperate to hit your wallet after throwing you in a rabbit hole. It looks like you have some good gear. Why do you even need a new dac? What’s wrong with your dac? Looks to me like you don’t need a new dac. The only issue seems to be that your single sub is most probably in the wrong location and very poorly integrated.If you have 24ft, speakers are say 4 or 5 ft from the wall and you are sitting 10 ft away from speakers, you have ample space to put that sub behind you....That’s where it most probably should be. Sub placed up for aesthetic reasons is most probably a fail. Do you have a mic/REW? Ever measure anything? You could also put something diffusive at the ipsilateral/contralateral reflection points. |
Well, if they told you, "Oh man, your system is fine. You don't need to help me send my kids to college by buying anything from me!", they might be telling the truth. But that isn't likely to happen. |
@ricred1, I suggest you ignore your retailer and maybe find a new one. BTW, my retailer also said negative things about my components. Listen to your ears and what sounds great to you. |