Have you ever wondered why speaker manufactures do not consign speakers to dealers?

Name one other store based product where the manufacture offers demo equipment on a regular basis to all/any stores not owned by the manufacturer?? I know of none. Car dealers buy the cars, Actually the car dealer is the manufacturers customer. not the final buyer. Same thing with audio. Same with any consumer products with a middleman. The guy in the middle holds the bag. Importers buy the product from the foreign country, they do not get it 'on loan..'
(however many companies do allow 90 days etc.. to great credit businesses) and folks whine that the distributor takes a big chunk.. (they took a big risk too)

teo_audio, where do you get the notion that the dealer makes more profit than the manufacturer??? I used to be a dealer for Wisdom, Talon, Electrocompaniet, Spendor, Sim Audio, Sim2Seleco, TacT, Myryad and a number of other manufacturers. What do you think my margins were before rent, medicare, FICA, insurance, CC fees, utilities, forget paying anyone for any labor? What percentage do you think would make a break-even? Do you know how manufacturers price their products? Especially the more high-end, extremely limited edition ones? I didn't mention cabling and other accessories which are all over the map from mass produced to handmade with exotic materials and expensive equipment required to produce them within a specific range of tolerances.

Elizabeth, 90-day on paper terms are extremely rare even for demo gear, but they do exist and sometimes more.You are correct otherwise. And distributors do not get a big chunk. They get a relatively small piece--they only provide a service including sometimes warehousing and shipping.

If the retailer makes more than the manufacturer then that is truly upside down. 

Retailers make the money, not manufacturers - especially big box stores. I work for a manufacturing company. We once petitioned Home Depot for a $1 price increase due to proven legitimate raw goods increases (steel, corrugated, EPS). Home Depot raised the price in their stores $15 as a result. That was on a $114 item - became $129. Took us 3 months of negotiation to break even, while THD increased profit by $14 each.