life without audio dealers

As far as I'm concerned the only real value of a B&M dealer is the serevice they provide. I'd rather take a piece of electronics to their service department, even if they have to ship it to the manufacturer, for repairs. Makes my life easier.

I appreciate the B&M dealers letting me take home stuff to listen to in my system/room without a lot of hassle.

A dealer who doesn't provide both, is in MHO, worthless.

And yes Mr T, in store demos are, basically, worthless. I'm amazed at how much emphasis is placed on them, as well as the value of hearing components at trade shows. Even more worthless except for manufacturers, retailers, and reviewers who make their living from sales and reviews as a result of their promotion of products that 'impressed' them at the show.

I do feel sorry however for the beginning audiophile who has to get educated over the internet without the ability to lay hands on or hear what quality products can actually sound like.

But thats life without a B&M dealer. Too bad, but then I guess if you've never experienced great audio properly set up, you can fanticize to your hearts content re the quality of what you have and the effectiveness of your set up. Conversely I guess its possible, one might visit a high end store, hear how crappy their set up sounds, and go home all happy about how great their set up sounds. Its a crap shoot either way............

T-bone & Bar81,

The reason behind my statement is that most often, to the point of being a near universal, complaint of folks who buy speakers (only) on the basis of a dealers demo and then take them home to discover that their room is too small, too large, has the wrong dimensions, that their rooms configuration doesn't allow for optimum set up, that thier electronics either don't have synergy or that the amp/speakers don't match., etc, and they then post here wanting to know what electronis they should get, how to set up their stuff to make it work, and how to treat their rooms, what kind of wires, cords, and IC's, they can buy to justify their decision they made in their speaker purchase.

If a person is well versed in audiophelia and knows all of the possibilities then perhaps he would have an excellent chance of succeeding with a purchase based on a showroom listening session. I just did that! Successfully!. But I knew what I was listening for and I knew the demo components strengths and failures sufficiently to make good judgments. I also knew how the speakers would set up in my room.

But FWIW, in the mid 80's I bought a pair of Thiels based on a showroom demo and its reputation. It had thunderous and tight bass, great imaging, etc, etc, etc and I had no meaningful point of comparison in the show room where the set up and electronics had been optomized to match with the music being demo'ed.

I got them home - all pumped up! In my room I found that my room did not support the bass very well, and it was bright beyond bearing. We didn't have the internet then, only the rags (Cordesman loved my speakers) and dealers and I had trusted them.

Since I couldn't take them back I tried to make them work. Mod'd the cross over (as per Thiels rec's) went thru some amps til I 'found' the amp Thiel used in the speakers design process, got a new pre-amp (tubes) and over hauled my sources. Two years later when I had these speakers up to par, so to speak, I was so worn out by it all that I was happy to sell them to another eager novice who bought based on the same reviews and general reputation.

I think at that time my experience level was not all that different from the folks who post threads here asking for help and opinions about potential selections.

So I don't really care what all of the experienced audiophiles (you guys) can do, I'm far more interested in what will work out better for the beginning audiophiles and what will help them avoid some of the traps.

FWIW. BTW, how is that for an extremely narrow point of view?

I like Kthomas's post. I think we could all benefit from the presence of a high end B&M dealer who is capable of providing a service consistent with the needs of his customer and price his service accordingly. I would certainly welcome one. I have always hated buying over the internet unheard products and rarely ever buy anything used.
Unfortunately all of those that have existed in my area went broke some years ago or converted to AV and only support AV type products.

Now what would really be helpful, especially from all of those knowlegable proponents of B&M stores, would be to help assemble a list of such merchants so those of us who appreciate their services can find one. I live in a metropolitan area with a population excess of 1 million and have no shop I can recommend. Saddly, I have to travel over a hundred miles to even find a high end store, let alone one with which I could enjoy a good business relationship, with interesting (to me) product so I'm left with little alternative but to work with the internet, and I hate it!

I suspect that outside of LA, Chicago, Atlanta, and the Tri-State area on the East coast, the list will be veeery short.

Oh well.....

Somebody comes along and outdoes Duke! Consider, Duke, that many feel you are incapable of being a jerk! Now if you want some instruction..............:-)