life without audio dealers

i see no evidence that trial and error without a dealer's assistance is any less effective than getting an opinion from an audio dealer.

only the consumer can decide his or her preferences. how does one learn? through listening. from a position of ignorance, one listens and then decides that a certain presentation is what he or she likes.

there are enought manufactureres who sell direct who can provide many of the services of the non-manufactryrer audio dealer.

if you must rely on a dealer, who would you trust, the manufacturer/retailer, or the retailer, regarding a product.
in addition, most direct sellers will allow you to return the component within a period of time.

even when dealers are present, consumers still end up with equipment they don't like. just look at audiogon.

so, until there is some evidence supporting the value of a dealer, i am not convinced that dealers are necessary.

when you think of the products that people buy, there are so many instances where all that is needed is the facts, rather than opinions. an example like wine buying comes to mind. if i am buying my first bottle of wine, and i want to buy a sweet wine, i can look on the internet and then order a sweet wine. i don't need any suggestions. after i have sampled enough wine, i will figure out what i need to do the next time i want to buy a bottle of wine.

why is it that in this hobby, the conventional wisdom suggests that consumers cannot educate themselves just by listening ?

That's well put, Duke. But my experience says that most people will never hear or care about "the difference" no matter how much exposure they get. It just isn't there for most people.

The Viet-Nam era, driven by drugs and the youth movement of the day, propelled widespread purchase of component audio. Later, during the 1980s, when tech stocks were causing widespread consumption of all things luxury, high end audio evolved as a separate category and money flowed. We are the sad remnant of those glory days.
Today, component audio and high end pretensions are passe. Many of us are in denial about this but those people are like Goethe's drunk on horseback. No matter how much they wave and yell and curse and gesticulate, the horse plods undeterred in whatever direction it chooses. And the current direction involves computer music servers and personal audio. New and better versions of the same old componentry will not redirect the horse. Dealers, graphs, reviewers -- all will struggle in vain. The die is cast and the end is in sight. It will probably never go away entirely but high end audio is in an irreversible decline. It's still fun though, if you are given to this sot of fun -- but too few are.

With regard to recommendations, there's simply no point to a review if it's completely subjective and no recommendation is made. Recommendations (particularly best of listings) are an invaluable tool in assisting purchasers in whittling down available products to demo. Recommendations also permit a consumer to determine the credibility they assign a reviewer in the case of future purchases. If Reviewer A likes x and y products and I try such products and find them not to my liking and/or poor performing I then know to give very little weight to any other reviews from such reviewer and vice versa. So while your ears are the ultimate arbiters, recommendations are an invaluable part of the audition process.

With regard to conflict of interest, in an ideal world, that may be the case, but in the real world no store carries all products/all people are biased, so to single out audio dealers regarding conflict of interest is a peculiar argument to make. There is simply no substitute for a consumer doing some research prior to a purchase; particularly with the wealth of information available on the internet. A knowledgeable consumer is his own best friend and can much more easily gauge the validity of a salesperson's comments.

mrtennis said:

this hobby needs more small manufacturers who offer in-home audition and less audio dealers. ket [sic] the consumer decide for him/herself without influence from a person who has a vested interest in selling something. how can such a person be objective about a product he/she doesn't sell ?

and...

the best an audio retailer can do is lend gear at the request of the consumer, perhaps for a small fee. then the consumer can buy it direct from the manufacturer.

First... the small manufacturer is going to be, if anything, less objective in comparing his/her products against products he/she does not make. If potential audio buyers do not need the advisory-type of hand-holding, then they do not need it and the existing brick-and-mortar plus internet plus direct-from-mfr plus audiogon plus whatever model allows them to do so. Others want that help (it's called 'service') and I bet there are many people on this forum who once used a b&m dealer and got something out of it, even if they have 'graduated' to a new level now.

Second... there is not 'just one' true audio system for any given person. There are lots of appropriately put together and matched systems out there at any given budget level. Dealers should not be expected to carry all possible systems, just some - acting as a filter for what is out there in the world. And if people don't like what the dealer carries, too bad for the dealer.

Third... any number of threads here have produced screaming hordes who were upset that a dealer wanted to charge for a demo. Dealers are not Blockbuster. If the whole dealer system moved to something like an "interior designer" type of economic model, where the "stereo design consultant" (not "dealer") could provide anything, and do so at a 20% discount to retail (while still taking a 10% spread), then the 'SDC' could be objective (until the 10% creeped to 15-20%?) but that would require something like equipment libraries where SDCs borrowed the equipment from their regional library and then set something up in the home of the potential buyer.... then because it's a big world, there would have to be a bunch of these depots, and then, well, rather than schlepping 5-8 different pairs of speakers over to a customer's house to have him listen, he could listen in a listening room in that regional equipment-lending depot, or there might be several listening rooms. Oops, this is beginning to sound like a brick & mortar dealer. FWIW, I think the idea is interesting, but who pays for the hundreds of little lending depots around the country? Is there something like a CostCo warehouse of audio equipment outside of every medium-sized city in the USA?

There are lots of people who do not have access to years of experience of going to shows, or time to spend hours or days at the next one, the experience which would allow one to filter down to the top 5 systems of a given price that one would want to audition at one's home. If I wanted to buy that experience, what would that cost me in hours? in dollars? If I wanted to bypass that with a dealer I trusted, would it be worthwhile to pay cash for the dealer's service to instantly get some ways up a ladder? Lots of people would say yes. But those people might not 'waste' their time here on Audiogon...

I tend to agree with MrTennis on this topic. As an analogy, consider digital photography. Look at dpreviews . com and study the style of the "reviwers". They patently will not tell you what they would buy, but how the products perform; both measurement and subjective viewing experience. Digital photography has no real dealers per se and you can buy direct from many makers. While they offer a unique service that the internet can not, dealers bias the transaction. An audiophile needs to audition at home with as little stress as possible. Must sleep now...