What's your experience with snooty HiFi salesmen?

@ghdprentice I understand the reaction of "moving on" if there is an attitude problem in a store. But given (a) the scarcity of audio stores and (b) the importance of hearing a system in person, many people don’t have the luxury of moving on, right? This does not justify the salesperson being snooty or rude, but they have leverage in the situation.

I live in Denver. I have found the folks here pretty friendly, open. That’s partly a Western state thing; friendly is expected a lot of the time. Still, if they weren’t, and I wanted to hear Devore or Wilson or Dynaudio or Acora or whatever, I would have to try to get a slightly tougher skin. Otherwise, I'd have to travel a long way to hear them. Beyond that, what do I do -- buy these speakers on the internet and pay $$$ for shipping to return them? That's not going to give me a lot of experience before buying. Hence, the leverage.

@esarhaddon 

We have different experiences of Metro Denver. The folks at Crescendo Audio were easy to deal with and have great gear (Ayre, Dynaudio, Elac, Wilson, Chord, Octave) as were the folks at Aural HiFi (Devore, Quicksilver, and lots of great vintage gear). As were the folks at Soundings (Rose Hifi, Acoro, Rockport, Boulder, Kef), and there are other stores, too — with ProAc, Harbeth, Legacy, Apertura, Goldmund, and more. So…what are you talking about? A single bad experience? 

As for this comment — +1:

Not to sound snobby here, but I'm going to present the premise that most of you contributors here have reached a level of success in life a bit higher than the "average" sales guy they you're going to encounter at an audio store.  Instead of looking down on them, we have skiills and talent (and, motivation) to try to navigate our way through to a good outcome.  

@esarhaddon 

You're right. Not all my experiences have been good and a couple stores you didn't mention were problematic.

But -- whatever the gear -- I had good experiences at:

Crescendo Audio

Aural HiFi

Gold Sound

Soundings

Salespeople change and sometimes stores get feedback that helps them get better. 

When people on this forum swear, "I'm never going back" they may have hit a wall. That's unfortunate.

They may also be admitting, tacitly, that they don't know how to help the sales people help them. They don't know how to relate to people. Because, we're all people in this thing, I take it.

@deone 

They were super nice: said there were no customers in store so there was no problem if I even listened to a system.  They took me to a room (Ayre amplification; don't remember speakers) and played for me and also chatted for a while.  Super nice people, nice equipment, and great attitude. 

Being super nice with a great attitude just seems like a better way to live, let alone make a sale. There seem to be two possible prompts for a sales person being a jerk -- they're in the wrong business or the customers and/or environment of the store have made them jerks. Not many here are admitting to be part of the problem, and maybe we have 100% sweethearts on this thread, but I bet those in sales could spin a tale of the Customer from Hell.

@esarhaddon If you join the CAS, you can visit the stores in Denver. Not only does the group visit private homes, they just went to Soundings, Aural HiFi, and most recently to another new store at 1431 Ogden specializing in tubes and efficient speakers. This group has a wealth of knowledge and some members learn more about gear by visiting one another's homes. 

@esarhaddon I'm in Denver if you ever feel like listening. Rough talk completely ok, but if you do too much of it, I'm going to stick a beer in your hand. ;-)

@esarhaddon  This is a very relaxed group of people. Just tell them you want to join and will bring your membership dues to the first event. Or work something out. They're not in it for the money.