Jtinn, it has been brought to the attention of more than a few folks that you have a tendency to post & recommend brand names of products that you sell in your store. We've also noticed that YOU have never mentioned that you are indeed an "audio professional". As such, we think that most audiophiles and consumers would consider this offensive and self serving. The fact that you've used the Audiogon discussion forums as an advertising campaign without making your affiliations clear says more about your ethics ( or lack of them ) than we ever could.
The fact that you've been a "cheerleader" for a few other brands that you carry on a somewhat regular basis can only help you and your store. We state this in terms of increasing public awareness of those products and the increased demand for them due to brand name recognition and the amount of recommendations that they get. The funny thing is that you yourself are doing the recommendations, putting those product names in the limelight and creating the increased demand for them. We can see how one would find this type of "free advertising" quite convenient even it it lacked both tact and ethics.
Potential customers and forum readers should be made aware that Jtinn is indeed involved in selling / marketing / representing specific products and as such, might be construed as biased towards these products. At the same time, Jtinn might also tend to steer folks from another make / model that he doesn't sell in his stores. While many view his input as being "fair" yet "unbiased", you need to better understand where he is coming from. That is, you might have thought that they were "fair" until you knew about his "bias" and affiliations. That could put a whole different slant on how his recommendations are / were received.
We consider it a shame that someone that could have been considered a very friendly and helpful dealer might now be considered a "manipulative rat" with something to hide. Rather than be up-front about one's affiliations to begin with, they might now come across as someone that was trying to manipulate the market to their advantage. Too bad they didn't do the right thing to begin with as all of this would have been avoided. Sean
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PS... You and your partner were given fair warning in the thread regarding "ethics" and business professionals.
