Have you ever wondered why speaker manufactures do not consign speakers to dealers?

Steve59 everyone has a different persepective and I am hardly a rich guy all of my money made in the last 15 years is sitting in my audio store.

The reality of what you think are naueasting markups don't tell you half the story, if all of us brick and mortar guys were making so much money don't you think there would be lots of audio stores not less?

The reality is that what you take home after you have paid all of your expenses is actually very little. 

Our shop is run out of our 4,000 sq foot Victorian Home we turned 4 room s into showrooms and stocked the place with many exciting product lines from top manufacturers.

When you factor in rent $6k a month, electricity $900 a month, internet, saleries, insurance, and all the rest you have a monthly expense of $10-15k a month, how much gear do you have to sell to clear that, a lot more then you think. 

Factor in shipping costs, credit card costs, the invariable discount many of your clients want and what you are left with isn't that great.

Then factor in the cost of purchasing new demo gear which has to be paid for and you can see why this is a very difficult business.

If it wasn't for our custom installation business which is much more profitable in general we wouldn't be here either.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

Stevecham, you are absolutely right about your above feelings.

We just boxed up a pair of Paradigm Persona 3F and a Naim amp and preamp/dac streamer and drove 40 mins to a guys house to home demo.

If you offered to put the gear on your credit card, help box and unbox the speakers the dealer was being difficult. 

There has to be an elastic relationship, as long as a key piece of demo gear is not out ouf our shop for more than a day we have no problems with lending out test gear. 

As per quality gear you can get from the above list, sorry most of them have restocking fees of 15% and without having a whole host of products to compare them with which is what a store offers you, it is hard to make a real judgement. We have had at one time JL audio, Paradigm, Kef subs all in the $1,500-2,000k price range for our clients to demo. 

If someone was considering PS Audio and didn't need a 250 watts, the new Krell amplifiers are freaking amazing sounding as well as the new Coda amps. 

Dave amd Troy 
Audio Doctor NJ