Taters, I think your dealer meant to say the internet has killed *HIS* high end sales. The internet has allowed for a more democratic high end, where consumers have choices beyond the retailers carried lines. The internet has helped chip away at the collusion that promoted price fixing. If more dealers actually provided the service they purport to, they would have little to worry about. Brick and mortar retailers should have an advantage. One can simply walk into a shop (preferably with an appointment) and hear quite a few carefully set up systems in a realively short period of time to determine their preferences and make their individual value judgements. To rotate online merchandise til one finds an appropriate "system" could be exhaustive and indirectly expensive. Of course the dealer needs to understand that his listening room is not the customers and be willing to make adjustments on the customers behalf as needed. Customers of course have to respect the inherent cost of this service and support the dealers. If at any point one realizes that one is definitley not going to do the business at hand with a dealer, that individual should have the courtsey to excuse themselves. Customers who waste the time of dealers only to purchase elsewhere are just wrong.
