Will Internet Distroy High End ?

Retail is tough and high end audio is no exception. Every merchant, and every salesman has been taken advantage of by tire kicking customers that soak up your time but ultimately buy from the cheapest possible source. The internet provides a wider market but it is not responsible for that type of behavior. It can happen just as easily with other dealers in your local market. It is a shame that good conscientious dealers like longplate are driven out of business because I have been taken advantage of more then once by dealers with the same set of values.

The bigest threat to most dealers is not the tire kicking customer but the manufacturer who decides he doesn't need dealers at all and sell direct to the consumer. When and if that happens we will all lose. They will set the prices and we will be forced to pay the toll. Sony is already selling direct and I'm sure others will follow.

For 5yrs now, i have been friendy with the manager of a local hi-end shop that been in business for 20-30?yrs. 3 yrs ago i said to my friend, "the web is going to kill you guys", he replied "no way the shops is always going to cater to the main public". This was a shop where you could always walk in and droll over the expensive exotic gear on display in the back 2 rooms. Couple weeks ago, i stopped in to say hi and see whats being displayed. I asked "hows the retail doing". He responded with "retail is dead, we mostly do custom installs now (HT)". As i walked the rooms i noticed no real hi-end, some Classe pieces, all mid fi HT gear, and some nice big screen front projectors filling the walls, where once was a nice beautiful rack with expensive exotic gear and some huge tube mono's and a pair of Wilsons or Egglestons or like. I don't know, did the internet kill the high-end dealer? or did the internet and HT together kill the high-end dealer. Times, they are a changin!! Have changed!!

One way do avoid a scam or a bad experience on a high end purchase is to buy from a local dealer.

Mikec your description could be my old dealer who closed up shop 5 years ago after finally burning out on the HT crowd. His hi-end business esentially ended 3-4 years previous to that. Then again this area isn't the 2-channel capital of the world. My take is that mult-channel will eventually be the hi-end of tomorrow incorporating movies and music. Two channel will die like the dinosaur probably did, one by one until the last one looks around to find he is alone and the last of his kind. I really don't see a long term future in 2 channel audio.

The volume of people who purchase hi-end on the net is less than one tenth of one persent of buyers.It will have no effect on legit dealers.The dealers who exclusively operate around the net will suffer the pains of the one tenth.