"High end" store snobbery


Our county lies in a fairly remote part of the country.Our major city of 100,000 has one "high end" shop so to speak.

I visited them yesterday.The store has limited selection of decent  stuff-a few McIntosh amps.Marantz.Paradigm ,Focal,Sonus faber etc.No Wilsons or Bel Canto category.

I asked then if they take trade ins-I want to upgrade my one year old Yamaha RX4 AVR,worth $500 retail.

They said they only take high end components for trade i.e.McIntosh etc.

After that conversation, the 3 store employees pretty will ignored my presence and I continued browsing their meagre inventory.

 

Lo and behold!

In a corner I spotted about 30 items-old Pioneer,Yamaha amps and even an equalizer from the 1970s.Prices ranged from $75 to $500.

 

I asked :"what are these"

response from employee:"oh, those are items we are familiar with as they were swapped out for upgraded gear by our customers."

 

Thanks for tolerating my rant...

 

Gabe

 

 

gabor2525

czarivey

Therefore dealers try to void selling vehicles for cash today.

A real dealer, a franchised dealer, is happy to sell for cash. Easy-peasy. It sounds like you’ve been to one of those "Buy Here, Pay Here" places. Those are rip-offs.

If you must finance a car, you're most likely to get a better rate by dealing with the bank directly. That way you avoid the kickbacks you mention.

@cleeds

I could not get better rate, because I’ve never had credit card. Even despite my clear and sound mortgage history, the bank doesn’t give me good rate. Many sleeky dealers start to explain about different pricing bs and different "dealer fees" etc...

You must understand me that hitting one dealership like that I dialed Mercedes Benz customer service to file a complaint and the rep herself advised me to call factory direct and shared her personal experience.

A call to factory direct sales got me a free airfare ticket and hotel stay for a week for the starters just to feel the difference instead of hustle here in our beloved USA.

Back in the day if a salesperson was a jerk I didn't buy from them, that simple. For me the internet replaced Salons years ago.  I have never had a product sound the same in my home as it did in a store.  I was a member here for years and quit.  I re-upped last year.  The people in this forum help is assemble all my system since 2001.  User reviews for me were the way to go, professional reviewers are in it for the money and freebees.

years ago, at a local shop by me, had same experience, rude, arrogant people, like pulling up in a pickup at a Caddy dealer, they just don't care.

 

 Brought my ol trusty Sunfire 300 *at the time"

hooked up to snell, B and W, klipsch, etc, brought a few cds ( i had already been to the shop, and felt the ice on my baBrought a Exit 13 CD with me "ethos music"

played a few songs, asked for some volume , next song was "An Electronic Fugue For The Imminent Demise of Planet Earth" which is a full pure max volume of just noise (do not play loud) search it, and imagine the open jaw when this tune started with a high volume on their speakers.

 

 

Based on 40 years of experience, Hi Fi dealers often tend to be kind of rude, but once you make friends with them, things often change.

I live in Milan, Italy, and I must say that the old Hi Fi dealers in my city (this was in the Eighties and Nineties - they have all closed since), where terribly rude, with very few exceptions.

I remember parking a brand new Porsche in front of a well-known dealer downtown Milan and, when I asked them if I could audtion a specific product, which I knew they had on display, they told mw to come back another day (the store was empty).

They lost a good sale.