Jaf and Pet:
The place is in Bellingham WA.
One shop for "X" product is the norm here.No competition.
Anyway,I'll check out Seattle,seems like there are some very decent shop shop there.
"High end" store snobbery
Our county lies in a fairly remote part of the country.Our major city of 100,000 has one "high end" shop so to speak.
I visited them yesterday.The store has limited selection of decent stuff-a few McIntosh amps.Marantz.Paradigm ,Focal,Sonus faber etc.No Wilsons or Bel Canto category.
I asked then if they take trade ins-I want to upgrade my one year old Yamaha RX4 AVR,worth $500 retail.
They said they only take high end components for trade i.e.McIntosh etc.
After that conversation, the 3 store employees pretty will ignored my presence and I continued browsing their meagre inventory.
Lo and behold!
In a corner I spotted about 30 items-old Pioneer,Yamaha amps and even an equalizer from the 1970s.Prices ranged from $75 to $500.
I asked :"what are these"
response from employee:"oh, those are items we are familiar with as they were swapped out for upgraded gear by our customers."
Thanks for tolerating my rant...
Gabe