The Risks of Buying Demo Gear

Good observations and advise. :-) From many ads I seen 'demo' has lasted for years in place - no one suggested otherwise, they just hope you assume its like near new.

I purchased a demo Parasound Halo hint from a dealer never a problem and usually you get the full warranty on the purchase.

I guess Innuos doesn’t provide full warranties on demo gear…. I could probably argue with them and get the repair free but the cost is minimal.

I’m sure it works out sometimes.  And to be honest I’m sure many would never have noticed the loose connections as I did with my Innuos.  But it speaks to how roughly the device was treated before I bought it.  Just can’t tell if the unit was dropped, how many in home demos it’s been in, etc…. 
 

Maybe I’m paranoid when it comes to my gear, and I want to be certain it is performing optimally.  Which my Innuos was, it’s just there was some extra play with the connections.  And, I just know for certain that owners take better care of gear than dealers, from what I’ve witnessed first hand.
 

Interesting experience. I guess it depends on the dealer. 
 

No question this would never happen at my dealers shop. They are as careful as I am… actually more. They handle a lot of +$30 K stuff. They also would never sell anything with anything iffy. They would get it fixed and then sell it. 
 

that's great.

That’s a good point. Dealers vary for sure. This particular dealer has the largest, flashiest showroom of anyone within an extremely large radius, and they have by far the most demo gear to try. I think they likely have about $8M worth of demo and stock, on site.  Yes, they have massive security. Sometimes I’ve no other choice based on many, many brands they offer that the numerous other dealers in my region do not carry. I do get a weird and very uncomfortable vibe there too. The sales guy there has said some pretty weird things to me, unsolicited, making the whole experience uncomfortable and extraordinarily awkward (groaning and complaining about customers, their “crazy” bosses, how they are going through hell.. I won’t go into it there is so much). They like to portray that they cater to elite, rich, upper class society who also drive exotic sports cars, and the owner has a reputation for being a hothead (heard this from other dealers in the region and I witnessed this too). And because of their fancy showroom and all the demo gear they have on hand, they can’t offer deals that can be had elsewhere. But they carry such great brands with demos that sometimes I grit my teeth and shop there when there is no other choice. Doesn’t make me feel good supporting them, like I do when I shop at other stores.

So yeah, that’s where I ran into the issues. Would have been fine had I bought new.

Benefits of demo are purchasing current model gear with full warranty at a discount.  It is not wrong to expect that demo gear has been used harder than similar aged used gear.  I would be most concerned with demo speakers.

Bricks and Mortar dealers are such a rare entity that I guess we have to put up with foibles.  I recently went to MusicDirect in Chicago, since I live a few miles away and didn’t want porch pirates to make off with my new purchase.  Hadn’t been there for 8 years.  They have moved to a really inaccessible location.  You have to call a number to be let in and then the guy opening the door has a large, snarling Doberman on a leash.  The old place used to be more inviting and had some foot traffic .

  I bought a Bluesound Node2 from another dealer that was going out of business, their demo unit, for 50% off.  They probably had used if for years.  It just died on me this week but after 5 years of use.  When I bought it I was already having problems with previously purchased Bluesound products so I wasn’t expecting a lifetime usage.  It worked out to about $40/year of service 

I buy store demos whenever possible, and I only had a problem once, when a pair of headphones looked a lot more like 'very used' than a 'store demo', but I contacted the dealer and said this should be selling as 'used', not 'demo', and I sent them back, they replaced the headband strap and the ear cups (which were the worn-out parts), no charge, and sent them back to me, and now they're great, and I saved big bux. 

Depends on the dealer. If you frequent the store, you probably have a pretty good idea of how much use a particular component gets. Can be a steal with full warranty for barely used components. Yeah be more careful with speakers for sure. People still like to press the tweeter or drivers on demo speakers, haha -- amps, more likely to pull trigger on these

There are always trade offs in dealers. I have had my best experience with smaller dealers where a fanatic audiophile has opened a shop. I typically become friends and we work together to carefully craft a system to my liking. In the first thirty years I was always learning from my dealer. (20 year or longer relationships are typical for me). Now, my dealer and I have a more collaborative relationship. We learn from each other… but he knows more than I do… we have shared values on what high quality sound is.

Life is a risk.

Risk & Life are both board games.