Audiophile dealers talk to much

My dealer whom I've known for over 20 years told me one day what he really sells. He said "I sell Fun". People come in for music and movies and want entertainment. Hopefully I can give it to them.

 

In a way, I am glad there are no more audio shops near me. My money tended to march right out of the wallet with each visit. This is regardless of the level of "chatter".

 

you do make so great points and that is unfortunate the company didn’t last but here is the thing ... high end audio has changed, significantly, over the last 20 years ... maybe longer. the days of several brick and mortar stores in each town are gone. you can argue as to why for hours ... big box stores ... home theater ... an over saturated market ... whatever the cause(s) ... my point is the industry changed and manufactures, dealers, distributors, etc also have to change and adapt to serve the client. i am not saying it is right nor wrong ... it just is.

 

Unsure, sometimes, they try to sell something you know is junk.
I was a stereo salesman in orland Park at Barrett’s for a couple years, they sold some junk years back, Fischer, etc, I would direct them to another dealer in orland, simply stereo (now defunct)
They had carver, adcom, klipsch, onkyo (when they were good)
McCormack, and other goodies, so ide send them there, did I care, yes, I would rather have a buyer buy a klipsch, or McCormack, carver, and be happy for 20 years, than a late 90’s Fischer, or other junk.

I was honest.
Bets job I ever had, didn’t open til 9 am and 10 on sundays, I came from construction background, so I was used to being up at 4am daily,
So those 9 am starts was like a dream, bars, booze til 2am, sleep from 3 til 8, ghetto shower in stereo shops bathroom, work 6-8 hrs go one, was a dream come true, lowest paying job I’ve ever had, but it was fun.
I miss it.
Too bad selling stereos didn’t pay union wages, or ide still b there.

 

That's a good point that can make or break a sales situation. A lot of sales people really try to sell the 'experience'. If' they're good at it, it works out great.
Like "This system will be very pleasant and will fill your home with sound when you are entertaining guests" vs. "Do you want to be kicked in the face with sound? This system will liquefy your innards!"

My favorite approach is "I'm not trying to sell you something you want, I just want to help you buy what you need."

 

In a previous lifetime, I was a salesman at a dealer. Since it was only for 4 months and I was not on commission, it was mostly for the fun of being exposed to gear and talking gear. Because of this, I had no interest in expressively selling anything per se and enjoyed interacting with folks.

Bottom line is everyone is different. Some love to chat. For those, they rarely interact with anyone who's interested in any way in that stuff. Back then, there were no online communities on which people discussed this stuff in length as the Internet as we know it now was in its infancy. The discussion was an outlet for their enthusiasm, the need to share with *someone* who is interested about their passion.

Others wanted to be left alone. Usually, that group is comprised of mostly tire-kickers. They enjoy the sights and sounds but not enough to engage anyone or make a purchase.

Then, there's the odd duck, the type that falls in the middle. Wants to be talked to but only a little and only on their say-so. That group is quite difficult to please and can be unpredictable in how they'll react to how long it may take for a salesperson to be summoned over, the types of answers their given, the tone with which they're responded to, etc. I've seen delightful colleagues with a smile on their face matched with temperamental customers who'd be silent one minute and explode the next, then storm out... for no reason.

It's best not to take it personally. There's just no pleasing everyone. If you try to find the logic in following each and every individual's reasoning, you'll drive yourself crazy. One member recently posted he was considering leaving neutral feedback for 2 eBay transactions because the seller dared to combine the 2 single LPs in a single package. You just got to learn to roll your eyes and go about your day with the same smile you had before having these experiences.

 

In 1986, we lived in Leavenworth; still have a lift-top walnut audio cabinet with leaded glass doors & a brass plaque which reads Custom Made for Beatty Electronics by Bigger Woodworks.

 

Every dealer I've tried here in Portland has just put me in a room with the equipment and let me listen. When I was seriously auditioning speakers, one even set up a room for me. So I have no complaints with

• Fred's Sound of Music
• Stereotypes
• Echo Audio
• Chelsea A/V

I've done business with all and would do so again. And if I've left one out, my apologies to them!

Further back in life, in Miami, Virginia, and North Carolina, the sales people did not intrude. But all would provide opinions and information if asked. Some I took with a grain of salt.

The salesmen I really wish would be quieter are the ones at AXPONA. After a while, I started avoiding rooms with salespeople and listeners talking loudly. I was really perturbed when a young salesman switched the Harbeth 40.2 demo I was listening to, to something like techno music, then started talking at the top of his lungs. Needless to say, I made a hasty exit.

 

Of course they talk too much. They are hawking wares at a roadside carnival. There’s so much hyperbole and fairytale to hi-fi audio, they just can’t let the music do the talking for them.
If one doesn’t hear it, it’s not there.

 

I haven't been to an audio dealer in a while, but my past experience is just the opposite--they tend to just ignore people who walk in the door. Kind of like they don't want to make a sale. Maybe now that I have some gray in my hair, they'll pay attention--if I could actually find any audio dealers in my neck of the woods. They are becoming a rare breed indeed.

 

that of "talking a lot" is a common mistake of many sellers.
A good seller, if he sells HiFi, underwear, jewelry or candy, he MUST KNOW and UNDERSTAND what his "probable" buyer wants to...
He needs to hear funny stories?
He wants to be helped in the choice or he wants confirmations that his impressions are right?
I really don't think a salesman should allways shut up, as I don't think he allways should talk.
It depends on the customer, rather than the seller.
Of course ... if he is good, he will understand better what kind of customer he has in his shop, and he will succeed in selling what the "perhaps customer" wanted to buy.

 

Having worked in four dealers, two of which had multi outlets, unfortunately this occasionally has been the case.

Some days you could have people regularly queuing to see a salesman, to the height of the recession in the nineties where you may literally see one, or two enter the shop all day. If working in a small shop on your own, a few exceptionally quiet days are not good good. Luckily being on a busy road, there were sites (the foreign language college was nearby), that helped make the day more enjoyable!

Although those days were by far the minority, I shudder to think what it would be like in a remote location, where the postman bringing bills was the only contact with the human race...

 

I worked part-time for a Linn/Naim dealer in the mid 80s and a dem would frequently last 2-3 hours. Our philosophy was trying to make the whole thing laid back, a bit like visiting a friend chill out with a coffee and listen to music.

The staff there had eclectic tastes in music, so we'd do the one's which corresponded to the customers musical tastes. So talk was about have you heard the latest album, usually the customer's got it the the carrier bag.

So it was talk music, listen to music, hardly any hardware stuff, apart from what do you like and do you want to take the risk of hearing the next step up. You avoided giving any opinion about the equipment unless it was asked for, certainly no hard sell, the gear did that for you, 1st priority, happy buyer.

In the 80s lots of people were buying very good systems and the shop 'experience' would be spread by word of mouth, hence more customers.

 

Was speaking to a dealer the other week, and they were saying that many customers stream tracks for demos these days and a number of interactions are via email.

Time marches on!

 

People have been playing and streaming demos for many years now.

It makes sense that people want to here what their music sounds like before they make a purchase, instead of listening to the music that the store might demo.

 

I don't mind dealers talking. They end up telling me everything I need to know, and I have to say almost nothing.

 

Very true and very convenient: I have been handed a tablet a few times myself this century at dealers! I'm old fashioned and take my own USB stick

My point was although auditioning multi-thousand pound systems, they mostly seemed totally unconcerned about the quality of the source material and if they are the masterings with which they are familiar. Most the shops I know always encouraged people to bring in their own music.

 

People want to be in their comfort zone and that means listening to their own music.

If you take the Wayback Machine, back to a stereo store in 1969, more likely than not, they will not be demoing Rock music, but classical, or what ever the store feels will showcase the magnificence of the gear they are selling.

Not that I cared anything about their demo music. I wanted to hear the Rock music that I listened to.

I have an analog extension cord with a 3.5mm phone plug on one end, with the other end plugged into an analog input on my system preamp. When guests are over, I let them plug their phones into my system, so they can listen to how their music really sounds on a high end system.

You would be surprised how far compressed music has come along with the DAC's that are in even $100 smartphones.

Music that is recorded and mastered properly can sound quite good and even impressive played from today's inexpensive smartphone through a quality system.

Nothing at all wrong with demoing a system this way.

 

Couldn't agree more, and in fact my brother after having a play with my Squeezebox Touch bought himself one yesterday. With a good mastering, through a good system the quality belies the price, but with a poor mastering...

Obviously with a better DAC the sound improves again, but as you say the base level of phones, even with compressed files can be very good. True to this forum, it is the original music source that can make, or break the sound, but it is my belief that a better system makes any recording, however poor, musically better.

 

I've been told CD-Rs burnt from mp3, 192 bit rate, is the way to go, shaking of heads ensue.

 

I my system's early day's, my goal was to make compressed digital music sound good. With that in mind, I went with a Peachtree integrated Nova, then an iNova.

My system just started out with the objective that i wanted something nice sounding, that I could listen to.

Years pass by and the system is vastly improved. But my position today, is still the same. If you take music that was properly engineered and recorded in the first place and well mastered, then it will sound good on almost any system.

I have a CD player, which I use as a transport and a couple of turntables, one modern and one vintage. Past the system DAC my main system is all tube and I used to listen to my Pandora stations through a little $49 Sony streaming box every day.

People do fail to realize, that on a better system, streaming music can sound far better than people tend to give it credit for.

If I didn't care for the way it sounds, I would just listen to records and CD's.

 

It's fine during the get-to-know-you phase - after that, not so much. If you hit the same shop - as I do - they get to know you and dispense with the bs. Same with any shop.

 

ECHO Audio is fantastic!! My wife was shopping around in Portland and I went into Echo to look around. Very nice, invited me to stay as long as I wanted to look around and play with equipment. I ended up buying headphones for my studio based on sales person's (could have been owner) recommendation. The headphones he recommended were not expensive as well. Great all around experience.

 

IME they are all over the map. Some are talkers. Some are quiet. Some are opinionated or even pushy. Some let the demo speak for itself. My biggest complaint about audio dealers is something they really cannot help, namely that there is an unavoidable problem in setting up a room to demo multiple items like speakers. They get set up in a row and all run through the same system. They can try to take into account that speakers have unique positioning criteria, but if two sets have the same sweet spot, only one gets to be there and that may unfairly disadvantage the other. But that’s life. There is just no way that each pair of speakers can be optimally positioned and fed by optimally suited electronics. So most places use the approach that if we just run everything with an awesome amp, they’ll all sound good. Maybe, but that disregards factors that might be important, like whether those Maggies need more power than the K-horns. That’s when the salesperson’s chatter or lack thereof could be helpful or harmful, pointing those things out. I also note that for vinylistas the modern salespersons disproportionately chatter about the superiority and easy of the digital approach but the way they chatter assumes I know how it all works, which I don’t, thereby just pissing me off. If a salesperson wants to go there with an old fart like me, they need to start from an assumption of no knowledge and patiently go from there. It’s never happened so far, so regardless of what else I buy, I’ll keep spinning my Thorens.