Why are brick and mortar HiFi dealers so bad?

yes, Bert at Seattle HiFi for sure, he and Gorgon who sells gear for him BOTH have good ears and are excellent to deal with on many levels.

not sure if Connon at Tune is still engaged, I hope so as he is tech savvy in the ways of NAIM and also has a good ear and sensibility about him. He got my Unitiserve to backup when the factory support team failed for years !!!!!

Excel in Newport Beach is on my visit list, for sure. I only hear good things....

A lot of audiophiles on Long Island know that Sound  Insight has its main store in Huntington, New York and has a dedicated high-end showroom located in Massapequa New York where we feature our reference system from Pass Labs, Lampizator, GT Audio Works speakers, Synergistic Research, Triode Wire Labs, etc.-  Please contact Steve to arrange an audition. (516) 695-1798.
Please visit our Facebook page and feel free to like us.
https://www.facebook.com/sounderinsight/

I live in Atlanta where there are a good selection of Audio stores- HiFi Buys, Evolution, Georgia Home Theater, Magnolia. Liquid in Charlotte knows how to put good sound together as well.

I am near Winston-Salem, NC.  Ember Audio has just reopened and Chris is super knowledgeable and easy to deal with.  No pressure sales.  I was recently looking for an integrated.  He setup a shootout and the Naim Supernait 3 sounded best to my ears.  He let me take it home for a week on a handshake.  It was a little more than I wanted to spend and his Naim rep found me an unused Supernait 2 for a good price and I purchased that and a Bluesound Node 2i at a great price. 

Definitely worth the drive around the Triad area and maybe from Asheville if you are looking for something specific.

I live in a small state with no dealers and as such I have always had to buy my gear outside the state. I have a fairly high end system consisting of Rockport speakers, VTL amps, ARC pre and phono pre amp, VPI/Graham TT.  Over the years I have visited high end shops in NYC, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, LA, San Francisco to audition and buy new pieces.  Generally I got the snob approach and condescending attitude. However a few years ago I was in Omaha NE and visited The Sound Environment, a really high end shop.  At the time they were the dealer for the TechDas $90,000 Air Force 1 turntable.  I asked the salesperson, Todd, if I could hear it and also told him I simply could not afford it.  He was gracious and gave me a tour of the different rooms and to listen to various systems. Then he took me to their reference system room with the Air Force table. All in the system was over $500,000.  He asked me what I wanted to hear and for the next 90 minutes we had a great time listening to music. I even met the owner who is very friendly.  He invited me to come back whenever I was back in town.  I have steered my few audiophile friends to Sound Environment and would suggest others to visit them in Omaha or Kansas City. Or simply call them. And I have purchased from them

If NY has more audio stores per capital, which I doubt,  of if not, there must be good ones. 

If you go into an audio "salon" ready to complain about "outrageous prices" and suspicious of being "ripped off", they're not going to show you a lot of love. I used to actually buy equipment I liked from a store once I had enough money to make it happen, while my brother used to go into the same store to argue over what they had and how much they could lower the price to what he wanted. I drank the Kool-Aid- it's true. But I got to audition a lot of gear over the years so I could make educated choices. Another friend I had told me I was crazy to buy "wires that looked like garden hoses", but HIS system just played music which sounded "clean enough", but also utterly lifeless. I was diplomatic about his remarks but went on doing what made ME happy. The store wants to see if you will buy something they have- otherwise you can look around all you want as long as you don't take up their time with demo's and asking a lot of off-topic questions. They can be pretty snobby- it's true.
That is until you show that you're motivated. And the service after the sale is usually pretty good. 

I agree with nquery.  I go back a long ways in the Seattle area and have seen a number of stores come and go.  I have visited most in the Puget Sound area.  I'm rooting for Olsen's Hi-Fi.  They really like music, offer some great deals and continue to bring in interesting equipment.  They just need a larger space and I hope the support continues so they can expand. 

I guess that post struck a chord.  I've never gotten so many replies from a post.  I'd heard good things about Audio Connections.  I will take a trip out there one of these days as Seattle and some other recommendations are a bit far from Long Island.  

We at East End Hi-Fi are located in Long Island, and have an incredibly good attitude towards customers.  We offer the best customer service in the industry. We also have a money back return policy on any new equipment purchased.

Checkout our feedback here, as well as on Google.

Chris