What is the MOST audiophile friendly city ???

its sure not Bradenton Fla.!

I'm with Mike on this. LA and NY, and other cities, offer a wealth of dealerships in some very upscale venues but the Puget Sound region offers almost as much (and the drives to those dealers are generally more enjoyable than a commute into LA or NY). I really haven't had a bad experience with any of our local audio dealers, though I have my favorites. BTW, there's no work here, the economy sucks, it rains nonstop and the locals are so nice it makes your skin crawl - so don't think about moving out here...;-}

I second Singapore. I know it's a little far from most of us, but when I lived there, I visited Adelphi building almost daily. The building is 5 or 6 stories tall and about 80% is filled with high-end authorized dealerships. I'm talking Krell, Canton, Levinson, Revel, Tannoy, Martin Logan, Totem, Lexicon, Triangle, and EVERYTHING ELSE.

I've traveled a lot and Singapore is by far the best place for an audiophile. Since all of these stores are so close together (any store to store walking distance is less than 5 minutes) it is perfect for audiotioning speakers. You can make a list of all the speakers you want to audiotion and then hear them yourself all in one day!

Many of the dealers I've talked to have a background in engineering and have a very good knowledge of their products and audio in general. If you have a chance to visit Singapore, do NOT miss the Adelphi building.

There are other high-end companies such as McIntosh and Thiel, who are located outside of the Adelphi building. But when the country is a tiny tiny little island, who cares? Everything is within 30 min drive away. As a bonus, the weather is fantastic (if you like sunny) all year round.

Berkeley,CA. My experience in Berkeley leads me to believe that a person could live a full audiophile experience with lots of validation. This is not to say there would not be those people who would be critical. Some might feel that stereo systems are just big old toys and that responsible people have more important concerns and better and more responsible ways to spend their money. But, even with this, I am betting that these same sort of people would be open minded enough to consider many audiophile considerations and discuss aspects of this to a very satisfying degree. Open minded enough, I think, to take such a discussion seriously. Over all I found berkeley a place where people were very respectful of peoples interests, regardless.

But isn't the sound from equipment purchased in Berkeley Louder on the Left channel than the right???? ;)