Fee for home audition


I am in the market for a music server/streamer. I was discussing with one of the authorized dealers for a streamer. He had a demo unit and was willing to bring to my home for an hour and let me try. He is located around 10-15 minutes from my home. He wants to charge 5% for home demo. Is this the industry standard? I am not meaning to disparage anyone so not going to name the dealer. I am just trying to see what the standard practice is. 

svenjosh

In my 30 yrs plus audiophile samureyex? In Illinois there are only 2 dealers that I be friended and trust , Mick from Quintessence and John from Van L Speakers.and also Rob from music direct.

@ghasley, i am lucky to have a direct fiber optic outlet in my audio room. I am connecting my router to Intel NUC server and to my Grimm Mu1. I also have local music on Grimm. All Ethernet cables are Sablon 2020. Grimm mu1 is connected to Holo May using Shunyata Omega AES/EBU. Holo May to preamp. All upstream cables from May are Nordost Odin. 

so far everything is working great! One of the best tips you gave was to disable PLL. It got rid of the annoying locking time but also greatly improved SQ. Yesterday I updated the Holo May. After the update everything sounded worse than before. I was not sure what went wrong and started checking everything. I finally realized that the update turned on PLL. I turned it off and everything is back to amazing again. Never thought that PLL was making such a big difference. Not sure why they even have this setting as default. 

 

 

That's disgraceful.  My dealer in the UK drove an hour and a half to drop off demo speakers (ATC SCM40), despite me being a new customer to him.

Not only that.  Once I'd placed my order for them, he loaned me a pair of SCM19s to tide me over for the entire 3 month lead time.

@svenjosh glad to have been of assistance (ie:PLL lock). With some streamer/servers where great care hasn’t been taken (like most most computers and consumer grade products) the PLL lock can be a useful feature. In your case, it is detrimental and based upon your observations, quite audible.

 

I assume at some point in this process you are going to share the dealer’s name from whom you purchased? Others on this forum could benefit.

 

Happy listening.

@ghasley As I said earlier I don’t want to disparage anyone. I don’t think he deserves a very negative review because of this one interaction. He otherwise has good reviews. Moreover he is not here to share his reasons on why he did it. I achieved my goal of auditioning and purchasing the Grimm Mu1. I am very satisfied with the outcome