Margin on speaker sales by high end dealer

I assume those of you throwing stones also refuse to use internet tools to find the dealer pricing on that new auto you are considering? Why are audio dealers a protected class?

Why would you assume that? It’s just a flat-out wrong assumption. There’s no fear, and audio dealers are not a “protected class.”  The OP was implying audio dealers make a lot of money most of the time for doing next to nothing, which is oversimplified and just not true — witness the ever-shrinking number of brick-and-mortar audio stores. And yes you could say the same thing about auto dealers and it would still be wrong for much the same reason. But that said, if anything auto dealers are the more protected class because almost all cars have to be bought from a dealership where they all have the same overhead costs to bear whereas audio components can frequently be purchased online from a site with next to no overhead. Apples and oranges in that regard.

So you spend 10k on a pair of speakers. Seems very simple to do by a high end dealer. And most often done without an Instore visit.

Why do you assume that? Where’s your evidence for saying “most often done without an in-store visit?” I’ve never bought an audio component from a dealer without listening to it, or at least some other stuff, in their store. What about the many customers who come in and listen, ask questions, and take up valuable time and resources and buy nothing and/or just buy the item online? Seems like you’re trying to imply dealers make a high margin for doing very little work. That may happen sometimes, but probably not nearly enough from a dealer’s perspective. If that was the case there’d be a lot more high-end audio dealers rather than them unfortunately being a dying breed. I’d invite you to open up an audio dealership and see just how easy it is these days.