life without audio dealers

Shockingly enough, I tend to agree with Mrtennis. I do find the one true value of a dealer is in-home demo. If the dealer doesn't offer this, he has no value whatsoever to me. Listening in a unfamiliar room, to a bunch of unfamiliar components may be enjoyable, but fruitless. Listening to a dealer's expertise (re: forced agenda) provides even less.

As for Audiooracle, who by the way is a dealer, hence the defense, comparsion of an experienced dealer to a craftsmen, I disagree. Audio tends to be a opinion/taste or subjective field, whereas the trades tend to be objective fields. A dealer will certainly have his opinions, but often there are hidden agendas (re: sales) behind his opinions. I actually find more useful opinions on-line from experienced amatuer reviewers can relate experiences, usually without the agendas. A licensed tradesman (electrician, plumber, etc.) opinion will carry a lot more weight, to me anyway. That doesn't mean I wouldn't get a second opinion, or estimate, but it does carry more weight.

Sorry Audiooracle, and more importanly Audiofeil (a classy dealer), but I also would prefer to buy direct from the manufacturer. I'm fully able to form my own opinion, and it would save me some dough. I have, and will continue to support dealers who let me have free in-home demo's, as I find this to be the one useful tool for a dealer. However, these guys are few and far between. Most dealers I know are simply willing to dispense their 'knowledge' (sic), in exchange for their handsome fee.

Cheers,
John

when you compare speakers at an audio dealer, will that comparison hold up in one's own stereo system ? maybe.

it is possible that while you might prefer speaker a over speaker b during a dealer demo, you might prefer speaker b over speaker a with your own components.

i don't believe you can extrapolate the results of a dealer demo to your own stereo systems, regardless of the component comparison. if cable performance is syetm dependent, why wouldn't speaker performance be as well ?

thanks john, for your support.

As far as I'm concerned the only real value of a B&M dealer is the serevice they provide. I'd rather take a piece of electronics to their service department, even if they have to ship it to the manufacturer, for repairs. Makes my life easier.

I appreciate the B&M dealers letting me take home stuff to listen to in my system/room without a lot of hassle.

A dealer who doesn't provide both, is in MHO, worthless.

And yes Mr T, in store demos are, basically, worthless. I'm amazed at how much emphasis is placed on them, as well as the value of hearing components at trade shows. Even more worthless except for manufacturers, retailers, and reviewers who make their living from sales and reviews as a result of their promotion of products that 'impressed' them at the show.

I do feel sorry however for the beginning audiophile who has to get educated over the internet without the ability to lay hands on or hear what quality products can actually sound like.

But thats life without a B&M dealer. Too bad, but then I guess if you've never experienced great audio properly set up, you can fanticize to your hearts content re the quality of what you have and the effectiveness of your set up. Conversely I guess its possible, one might visit a high end store, hear how crappy their set up sounds, and go home all happy about how great their set up sounds. Its a crap shoot either way............

There are a few products that I have been interested in where there was no way to see anywhere...either they have no dealer or they are really rare. In these cases I have contacted the manufacture about hearing the product. Most always when I told them where I live they said that they had a few people in the region that would be able to see their product. Most of the time these are other audiophiles who then contact me about hearing said product. I was even able to make a few friends this way by people coming over with said product and hooking it up and having some beers.

I will admit that I have done the borrow "product" from my local hifi shop just to purchase it cheaper online, and I would probably do it again. No reason to pay retail plus tax when you can purchase at a fraction of retail, right?

Anyhow, it is in communities like this that we can all get exposed to products and others who own those products. It seems to me that if we banded together we would be able to audition almost anything you could think of and never have to travel much more than a few hundred miles, but this would require people to open their homes to others, and in today’s society this seems to be difficult for most…hell we could even rent gears to each other or create a loaner society where people can pay shipping to borrow gear to other audiophiles….kind of like the cable company or something.

What really needs to happen is that most manufactures need to sell directly to the public. If they did they would probably make more sales because the factory direct costs would be much lower than the dealer markups. I saw a dealer price list for a few different brands, and we are talking like 50-70% markups on some of these things...Imagine what kind of systems we could have if you could get high $$$$$ items from the manufacture at cost!

Ben

I think that many knowledgable audiophiles could do without dealers, especially with resources like Audiogon available. But I also think that there are many "discriminating non-enthuisiasts", i.e. people who like good quality musical reproduction but don't want the bother of the techie side of the hobby. For them, a good dealer is a valuable source of information, advice and demonstrable products, as well as someone who can help with the design and installation of a system, particularly home theatres which might involve some home renovations. Besides, if you bypass the local dealer and deal directly with the distributor/manufacturer, would the latter not, in effect, become a retailer to you? In the end, you just replace one retailer with another, and it would be one that is physically farther removed and perhaps less responsive to your needs because of that distance.