Retail Buying - Reality Check

If there is one thing that we have learned from the past few years on the internet, it is that some things can be sold this way, some cannot. Remember the dot com bubble?

Audio on the internet is a by-product of the established 2-channel dealer-based market, and dealers can use it to their advantage by setting up a good brick-and-mortar based website. However, high end audio *systems* cannot exist on the exclusive basis of internet distribution. Word of mouth is nowhere near good enough to convince an entire new generation of buyers to get into something they've never heard. I would think this is completely self-evident. There is no sensible internet-based business model for high end systems.

Dealerships offer numerous advantages: a place to audition combinations of equipment that you want to hear together ( I have traveled 2000 miles in order to hear specific equipment together in one place), warranty and repair service (often free even beyond the warranty), trade-ins/ups, advice (find the right people and its good), good contact with the manufacturer (often), and increasingly excellent sound rooms for listening, with experience on sound room building and optimization.

You can get pieces of this information, in greater depth, from entrepeneurs and internet forums, and that is good. Education serves everyone's best interests, though much of what is in forums is just opinion.

As far as jacuzzis vs. audio, Judit you're in the wrong forum.

I am awed by the innate insights of Zaikesman into the depths of my psyche. I no longer feel the need to pay my analyst to help me figure out why I like cigars - I'm sure he already knows.

I laugh at the suggestion of insincere, gratuitous ratinalizations. Tell me forum - I don't know this- Is burn in BS or not? The only place I ever heard about this concept is on this site. ">>>>XXXX brand sounded so much better after burn in." Do I believe it? I don't know. I haven't ever bought any equipment that offered burn in as a concept. But, I do know a lot of people on this site swear buy it. I tend think it may be a bit of fine hair splitting - but I don't know. Does it matter in this context? Of course not.

Zaikesman - Have you ever bought a new car on the internet? With your ethics and integrity I'm sure you didn't test drive it at a dealer before you did. You just bought it via the web because you read some neat review from car buffs on Cardiogon.com. And your E&I must also cause you to only buy used equipment on the web that you have never heard or that you heard at a friend's house. Because if you heard it at a store and spent time with the dealer, you would you been wasting his time and I know you're not that kind of person. You know the difference in price between buying a new car at a dealer and buying one through the web or some purchasing company is only a thousand or so dollars. The pricing differential between the web and these stores was many times more than that- new to new, apples to apples. I didn't even consider used as an alterative until they sent me into sticker shock. Is a saleperson's time spent with me (3-4 hours total at the very most - I spent somewhere near that much time on each individual item I bought here on Audiogon.) worth $30,000 on a $85,000 purchase? If you think so Zaikesman, then you're either more naive or disengenuos then me. I would love to quote a price on my products that was based on huge profits to me, but I've come to learn that real prospects are tough to come buy and I'd reather give them a great price and leave a few $$ of my profit on the table so they don't go looking somewhere else.

Did I mislead the stores into believing I'd be delighted to full MSRP. No. I told them up front that I was new to the hobby, talking to a few places and ready to do something.

I asked this question not to brag or seek penance, but to stretch me to consider perspectives other than my own. As I said in earlier posts, I appreciate the thoughtful responses, even the ones that sought more information as to my motives. Personal attacks, on the other hand without recognotion of today's global marketplace, sound like the sour grapes from an out of touch MSRP salesman to me.

Learning about a new expensive hobby is just that - A learning experience. I don't have many and I don't do new ones very often. Thanks for the continuing education one and all - even Zaikesman.

Rogocop,

"Personal attacks without recognition of today's global marketplace, sound like sour grapes from an out of touch MSRP salesman to me".

Thankyou. Amen.

Flex,

I think you incorrectly profile the average internet customer. Robocop has hit the nail on the head in a very objective way. We are dealing with a global marketplace, and there is no going back.

I also think that my original post is flawed. It betrays my own frustration at being caught in the middle of the shifting business paradigm.

I bought every single piece of gear I own on the internet. Not once did I ever even go into any high end dealer to audition or see any of the equipment. I don't go into those places. I'd rather go to the dentist, than into a high end audio store. And I don't ever even pick up an audio magazine, although I have been known to read excerpts of reviews on websites. I get all my reviews from "word of mouth", directly from actual users who also have alot of experience. Even on this website, there is alot of valuable information, if you have the insight to be able to sift out the gems from the coal.

Many might ask,"How do you know what will sound best?" That's an interesting question. Isn't it? The answer is I've had many years of experience to show me what is a good audio design, and system concept, and what isn't. If I make a wrong purchase, I can re-sell it, if I don't like it. That has only happened to me once, and I went against my better judgment in the optimistic hope that buying a good digital player could compete with analog. I have now sold that item, and all my other choices were right in the bull's eye. I have enough experience to tell pretty close what a piece of gear will sound like before it is even turned on. I don't need a salesman. I just need a venue to purchase the equipment I know that I want to buy.

What I find really interesting about this, is that by using this method, I ended up with an extraordinarily musical system, which has virtually no well-known products in it. Some of the products I do have that are now well-known, like the Teres and Shelter 501, were virtually unknown to most audiophiles when I got them, and alot of the visibility that has arisen about them on this website, is from my activity in telling you all about them. I found out about them through other means, and tried them out, and was delighted, because the recommendations came from people that were deep into this hobby, and knew of things that most don't. So now I have one of the most unusual systems on this website, and it is a very capable one, to my ears.

And none of it came from a dealer, and most of it cannot even be gotten from a dealer. Some of it, I had to build myself, or have it custom built. It all came from internet sales. And that is the way I will continue to operate.

It's funny when I read the posts about the concerns of people wasting the dealer's time, and buying on the internet to save money. I think that going to a dealer is a waste of MY time. I don't buy on the internet to save money. I do it to get a higher level of performance that the dealers don't even know about. When I go to a dealer, I feel like I'm in Best Buy or Circuit City. They don't even have anything I'd want.

As far as warranty service, that's a joke. The service they provide is that they will box it up and send it off to the manufacturer, instead of you boxing it up and sending it. Big deal. And just FYI, none of my equipment has needed boxing up and sending back. So that means nothing to me. I don't need their set up advice, because I already know how to set my stuff up fine, thank you very much. So all they are to me is an annoyance, and a money pit for 25% to 50% of what I have to spend.

And I agree with in-home auditions, like has been stated by others, and this can be done by internet sellers as well as dealers. I have gotten product to audition from internet vendors, and sent it back unpurchased, just like anyone else would do from a dealer. Primarily cables. And I have gotten stuff sent to me from audiophile friends who wanted me to hear something that they thought I might like in my system. And I have done the same for them. These people are not interested in selling me anything, or telling me that I should trade in my custom 45 SE ZOTL for the latest gear on the glossy brochure. They want to help me to achieve MY goals with MY system. Not exchange my gear for the latest products of the month, that will put money in their pockets, with little or no concern that my system performance may suffer as a result. As soon as they can make that cash register go "Ka-ching", they are ready to go on to the next victim.

I understand that my circumstances are different than many others', but this is the way I choose to operate. Other people may need/want dealers to sell them things. I don't. I just want my system to work the way I want it to, and dealers are not part of that process for me.

Rogocop, your admission that you are new to this hobby, had I known, would have caused me to somewhat temper my criticism (and I never said the dealers were blameless in your case). But neither that fact nor your further attempts at excusing yourself fundamentally change anything though - I stand by what I said, but find your actions maybe a little more understandable as a neophyte. You did what you did, and my guess is you've learned from it already. You might not be back to the dealers regardless, which is fine, but if you do return someday to the one you said you liked, why not give him a fair shot at earning you patronage, instead of just using him and splitting? Just so you know, my own system has been assembled as a mix of new, demo, and used gear, roughly in equal proportions. I do not spend any time in dealers' shops unless I am there to buy something (in other words, as rarely as I can manage), and have never auditioned anything in a store that I later purchased used on the net or anywhere else. I have gone to audiophiles' homes to audition stuff they were selling that I didn't ultimately buy because I didn't prefer it, and will occasionally indulge in listening to something or other at a dealers' if I am in there to purchase something else anyway, but that's about it. If there ever comes a time where I have used a dealer's resources to aid in choosing a piece of gear that I might buy used, I would certainly give the dealer every opportunity to compete for my business, but I really plan on basically avoiding this conflict of interests to begin with. I'm not "out of touch" or an "MSRP salesman", whatever that means (did you skip over all my posts refering to price negotiation, something which is part and parcel of my job?), and neither do I see myself as some kind of saint, I simply have a strong aversion to wasting either a store's time (and being in sales undoubtedly has a lot to do with that fact), or as Twl says, my own.

One of the main advantages of Audiogon for me has been the ability to buy gear used, bring into my system for a long-term evaluation, and then sell it again at basically no loss if I don't want to keep it. This has many advantages when it comes to really getting to know about a piece of gear, but it's a hit-and-miss way to go about building a system, and is definitely not for everyone, especially newbies who desire to assemble everything at once. It's a process that can take years and be in effect ongoing, but is an activity which can be enjoyed in its own right for someone who just likes playing around with gear from time to time. On the other hand, if I had any interest in purchasing a complete HT system and installation, I think I'd just find a dealer I liked and let them handle everything, and I say that as someone who sold new HT systems back in its simpler days. (Oh, and BTW, I've never bought a new car period [total waste of money], and don't go 'test driving' at dealerships for fun or otherwise, though I've assisted others in the process.) 'Psychoanalyzing' a customer, be it you, me, or anyone, really isn't hard when you've dealt with thousands over the years - the same (few in number) basic motivations and behaviors apply universally, and are known to any competent salesperson, so neither my 'insights' nor your reactions are reason to be 'awed' (even sarcastically), and there's no need for either of us to take them personally (which I commend you for seeming not to have done). Anyway, you said you felt guilty right at the top, and have de facto bragged on how much you saved - it doesn't exactly take a rocket scientist to catch your drift in making this thread, and you know it too. It's not a crime, and you haven't done me wrong, you only (as you say) sought my perspective, and you got it. After you've been at this for a while, it just might become your perspective too. And welcome to the Audiogon forum!