New buy, no return policy

@gano  Well, if you wanna count Nissans as “French” vehicles then we’ll just agree to disagree.  Peace out. 

@gano Yeah, nothing says French cars like Nissan. 🙄  Relatively few Nissans are even made in France, and none of those are sold in the US so your argument is bogus.  Bugatti is registered, headquartered, and built in France regardless of who owns them and are the only cars built in France that sell in the US.  If French cars are so good why don’t they sell in the US, one of the largest car markets in the world???  What a great business decision BTW.  When French cars were here last they sucked and were a joke, which is why they had to leave — nobody would buy them they were so bad.  Regardless, you are wrong and there are more US made cars sold in France than French made cars sold in the US despite your import tariffs being 4x higher.

they still sold more than US sold American made cars in France.

@gano  No.  There are no French cars sold in the US except for a few Bugattis.  That’s it.  Renault, Citroen, and Peugeot are non existent in the US.  Then there’s that the EU slaps a 10% tariff on imported cars versus 2.5% on cars imported to the US although that’s changing as we speak.  Despite the tariffs I’m pretty sure Ford, GM, and Jeep sold more cars in France than Bugatti sold in the US. 

French don’t like to service even each other, to put it mildly, let alone foreigners.

This attitude coupled with poor reliability goes a long way toward explaining why France utterly failed at selling cars in the US. 

we should go back to the 20th. century and start doing things the right way again. Internet commerce is good for cables and used equipment. Stop buying new equipment on-line, no matter the price, just stop it.  I believe in the equality of dealer/customer relations regardless of how expensive or not the item is.  By the way, TMR appears to want to monopolize the Audiogon market. I don’t need them and won’t buy anything from them. Kind of Amazon for audiophiles.

@inna  Yeah that toothpaste ain’t going back in the tube on Earth One.  Online retailers have to figure out how to compete with brick & mortar stores and vice versa, and then there are some who do both.  There are costs and benefits to both businesses, but both have to continue to evolve in a 21st century business environment or they’ll suffer just like the dealer here did.  Equality of dealer/customer relations???  I don’t even know what that means. 🤪  And TMR has built a solid and reputable business by working hard and providing a quality service many people here think very highly of (including the OP), and they’re not monopolizing anything — that’s just ridiculous hyperbole.  They’ll do just fine without you buying anything from them because by all accounts they do a solid job and provide a valuable service (just as they did here BTW).  Do you not buy anything from Amazon either? 🙄

Ditch the customer, there are others.

@inna  Yeah, there are so many customers out there that brick and mortar dealers are flourishing and popping up all over. 🙄  Again, you’re living in opposite world and those relatively few remaining dealers (and still shrinking) now more than ever need to bend over backwards in service to set themselves apart and justify their existence or they will die at the hands of online upstarts like TMR as so many others have.  It’s not like the 70s or 80s anymore when B&M dealers were the only option, so every customer they can get is critical and need to be treated accordingly or they will learn that lesson the hard way just as this dealer did. 

The dealer was right and the buyer was wrong. Now he ended up with very expensive second hand stuff.

@inna  Ha!  The OP ended up with perfectly functioning speakers at a huge discount and the dealer lost around $20k in a potential sale.  Not sure in what universe the dealer was right and the OP was wrong, but that the dealer came back to offer more to try to get the sale pretty much confirms they knew they made a bad business decision here and the OP is really happy — pretty much the exact opposite of what you’re saying. 

But at some level this is another example of someone using a brick and mortar to audition and then buying elsewhere on the internet.

@onhwy61  I’m also put off by someone using a brick and mortar store to hear speakers and then buy online without even giving the store a chance, but that’s not at all what happened here.  The OP gave the store every opportunity to make the sale and would have purchased from them despite the much higher price, but they were just unwilling to match what TMR was willing to do for a far lower payday.  So they had the opportunity to get the business but in this case just chose not to compete.  TMR went the extra mile and earned the sale while the dealer did not, and they deserved exactly what they got in this case.  That they came back afterwards and offered to do more was an admission they screwed up but was too little too late.  IMO they learned an important $20k lesson that if you can’t even match much less surpass the service an online retailer provides you’re gonna lose, and rightly so. 

Congrats!  Can’t say I’m surprised given the reputation of the speakers you bought.  So now instead of processing guilt you and your wife can go on a nice guilt-free vacation complements of your lazy dealer. 😜

In this case apparently the dealer had a demo model on the floor that the OP was able to hear so there was no need to use new speakers for the OP to be able to hear them at home.  The dealer missed out on a $20k or so payday.  Good call. 🙄

I know the salespeople make their money from sales and I always feel for them when it doesn’t work out. 

Do not feel bad.  You more than did your part and they just refused to do theirs and got exactly what they deserved — nothing.  The arrogance of them in this day and age to not expend a little effort to sell a $48k pair of speakers for someone who was obviously a serious and likely buyer given you already loved the speakers is staggering to me.  Compare that to TMR who was willing to bring the speakers to you, help set them up, and take them back if they didn’t work out and all this while standing to make far less on the sale than your dealer would’ve made by selling you a new pair.  That’s just absurd and sad.  Hopefully the dealer learned a big lesson here and will rethink their archaic and lazy business policies going forward.  In any event, congrats on some great speakers and saving a bundle!

The TMR pair is a no brainer to me.  Much cheaper and you can return them and TMR is local?  Done.  And if your dealer isn’t offering you to borrow his demo pair at home for speakers at that price then they don’t deserve your business IMHO.