What happened to all the highend stereo shops
What happened to high end stereo shops I mean real high-end stereo shops. I am 78, my father bought me my first stereo when I was 12, I have been hooked ever since. I remember the days when you can go to a nice audio store and not just audition what they had in the store but if you saw a couple of tuners, preamps or some cables that you liked, you could give them a blank check and take the equipment home to audition on your system. Bring one or both back Pay for what you want to keep or get your check back. I don’t understand how someone can buy an expensive piece of audio equipment and not audition it in their system first. Many places today, you buy it and your stuck with it. OH yes you can sell it on Audiogon or eBay. Reviewers are nice and give good reviews but the problem I have is the equipment they are auditioning is on their system in their treated music room which is going to be different than what you have.
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When I was young there was a HiFi store on every block in Boston..... maybe not every block but there were a number of great dealers. Now only a few survive. Goodwins High-end, Natural Sound , Audio Studio, and Q Audio is all thats left A new dealer called BlinkHigh End is open in Boston , need to check them out. Also want to check out Holt Hill Audio in Lawrence MA. Nice collection of used gear and they make speakers also.
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Agreed, at 67 I remember the small city I live in back when it was about 50000 population. At that time it had 3 shops that carried at least 3-4 higher end brands and a few lower priced. They had passion for music and wanted to help the customers understand equipment and the increased reproduction of music. Now that same city exceeds 100000 and no shops exist. I have to drive 50 miles to Denver to try the same number of hifi shops. Blame the internet and the customer that goes to the brick and mortar shop to audition and decide then buy on the internet. But along with hifi shops so has the same fate befallen the corner grocer, local hardware store etc. |
@thefile Salient points....all. I would add the disposable world. It permeates everything and drives a cheapness and impermanence. A side product can be a caustic customer bereft of civility. I've owned certain audio pieces for decades because they were/are simply that well engineered and built. They were also expensive initially. But then, not really when calculating their cost divided by service years. Who does that today? I've a friend who runs a B&M audio shop for over 20 years and has experienced customers in the store listening to equipment and ordering it off the internet by cellphone before exiting. That's healthy. So these customers do not want a longterm business relationship as it's too taxing, beyond their capacities and skill levels of interaction and go for the nickel bag fix. It's sad, but seems to have irreversible momentum until extinction of that species many of us have known and loved; the consumption of great music with knowledgeable purveyors of stunning equipment and media to excite our senses. Soon enough we'll be left with Taylor Swift and Apple as our only choices and in the vernacular of middle schoolers "that sucks man".
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If I still lived in L.A. I'd still be frequenting high end shops and actual record stores & musical instrument shops. I made myself a nuisance in them, and so did my dad. In any event, now that I've moved to a small town in the middle of nowhere, with the closest high end shop at least an airplane flight away, I've been obliged to take to the aether when component shopping rears its ugly head. But hey, thank goodness for streaming! The world of music at my fingertips... |
