With all those purchases, have you made any good friends in your local stores? Is there anyone whose opinion you trust? Maybe someone else with a good ear will come over to give you some opinions and suggestions. I recently had a guy from one of the local shops come to my house. He helped fine tune my speaker placement, made suggestions on what would be the next logical upgrades and tweaks, and even opened up my preamp and helped me compile a list of capacitors to upgrade. I have spent enough time and money in his shop, and enough time cultivating our friendship, that he did this for free and did not try to sell me anything from his store.
I realize that this type of service is rare, and that finding a trustworthy and truly knowledgeable salesperson is even harder, but it's worth the effort to search out these people. It's taken me a couple of years of talking with Mike to learn that he really knows his stuff, and that he's not always in "sales mode".
There are three decent high-end stores in my town, and I try to visit them often and spend enough time with the various employees to determine who is a good resource. I also try to spread my purchases around to avoid getting a reputation as a window shopper. It's been well worth the effort.
JD
I realize that this type of service is rare, and that finding a trustworthy and truly knowledgeable salesperson is even harder, but it's worth the effort to search out these people. It's taken me a couple of years of talking with Mike to learn that he really knows his stuff, and that he's not always in "sales mode".
There are three decent high-end stores in my town, and I try to visit them often and spend enough time with the various employees to determine who is a good resource. I also try to spread my purchases around to avoid getting a reputation as a window shopper. It's been well worth the effort.
JD