What happened to all the highend stereo shops


What happened to high end stereo shops I mean real high-end stereo shops. I am 78, my father bought me my first stereo when I was 12, I have been hooked ever since. I remember the days when you can go to a nice audio store and not just audition what they had in the store but if you saw a couple of tuners, preamps or some cables that you liked, you could give them a blank check and take the equipment home to audition on your system. Bring one or both back Pay for what you want to keep or get your check back. I don’t understand how someone can buy an expensive piece of audio equipment and not audition it in their system first. Many places today, you buy it and your stuck with it. OH yes you can sell it on Audiogon or eBay. Reviewers are nice and give good reviews but the problem I have is the equipment they are auditioning  is on their system in their treated music room which is going to be different than what you have. 
 

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Showing 1 response by brewerslaw

I’m experiencing issues with this right now.  Posted a bit ago looking for speaker suggestions and received lots of great feedback.  Fast forward a couple of weeks and I’ve gone to several relatively local (within 100 miles) dealers hoping to audition some of the suggested speakers and I keep hearing that they don’t move enough speakers of that caliber to keep any on the floor to audition. I understand not wanting to tie up 25k+ in a set of speakers they might not sell but I’m not sure who’s dropping that kind of money without being able to hear them. It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy.