High End Audio Dealers

Well this thread went down hill while I was away. So back to high end audio dealers. I only have one close to me and he has always been super nice and accommodating. He just doesn’t sell anything I want.
 
Apologies everyone for the distraction this morning. Now back on track with civil discussion.

I’ll try to provide some more insight if everyone is interested. If you have any specific questions, I’ll try my best to answer.


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Mike if you are referring to the mild disturbance no questions here. Forums are very fluid with people coming and going. Sometimes what we see in responses by people is a reflection of maybe a person in the midst of a bad time in their life. Everyone has their own way of dealing with issues. Anonymity is a great shield to stand behind and let things vent. I wish him well.


Apologies everyone for the distraction this morning. Now back on track with civil discussion.

I’ll try to provide some more insight if everyone is interested. If you have any specific questions, I’ll try my best to answer.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro[/QUOTE]
 
Mike, I thank you and the moderators for keeping a civil and inviting discussion forum going.

So, unfortunately, there are no dealers even close to me. To look at any gear it takes a 4-5 hour drive. :(.
 
Randy that must be frustrating after being in the business for so many years.


Randy Myers said:
Mike, I thank you and the moderators for keeping a civil and inviting discussion forum going.

So, unfortunately, there are no dealers even close to me. To look at any gear it takes a 4-5 hour drive. :(.
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nc42acc said:
Randy that must be frustrating after being in the business for so many years.
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I guess things changed dramatically in the few years I was out of the hobby :). Even where I grew up... I know Audio Classics is in Binghamton (Vestal), but not sure if there are any others? A good place for McIntosh, especially used, but can't really call them high end. In Syracuse (my second home) there are no high end stores. I assume you could go to the Benchmark facilities and purchase their gear :).
 
Mike said:
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting some incredible people in this business. The folks on this forum, may only represent 5% of customers I’ve worked with (yes, it’s about 5%), but for the most part, all have been excellent and very professional.

The challenge for most dealers are not the genuine members here, it’s the time wasters. The guy who asks you for 35 quotes because he changes his mind like the wind and then buys nothing. The calls that start out, “uhhh….what’s your best price on a Hegel 390?” Or those who are not genuine. They call and talk like they are genuine and sincere, waste lots of your time talking about the same nonsense, “oh, so you would say that the Pass is the most natural sounding of the two amps, but what about how it does with strings?” Meanwhile, you’re thinking, “we’ve had this same conversation 900 times.” Then he buys nothing. Ever.

Don’t call from Canada to a US dealer and expect they will sell you anything or waste time.

Don’t call a dealer if you’re just looking for the best price. Most today won’t play that game. Work with your local dealer or one you trust and pay them for their expertise and time. Remember, this is a journey, not a sprint and building a long term relationship with a dealer is key.

Dealers love to work with people as consultants, not clerks. We love calls like “I’m downsizing my system and thinking about going with an integrated. What do you recommend?” We can then engage about their room, speakers, budget, etc. Much better than picking up the phone and the guy says “yeah, what’s your best price on a Hegel 390?”

Don’t block your number and call a dealer. We won’t answer. We know what you’re doing.

I could write a novel on the time wasters (NONE HERE). We had one guy who called and said “I have an Emotiva amp and if I bring it to your store and one of your amps beats it, I will buy it.” So, he brought it, we put it up against the 2160 and him and his buddy couldn’t believe how the Boulder crushed the Emotiva. He then reneged on buying it and left with his tail between the legs. I lost an hour and a half.

If you spend time with a dealer and they recommend a particular product, don’t call them back 3 months later and tell them you bought it from someone else thinking that it’s a win because all dealers are on the same team right? No. We aren’t.

Be honest, if you’re not buying and just want to listen, THAT’S OK!!! JUST TELL US!! Come on in, let’s have a coffee, listen and talk about music. We love the hobby too! Then if I need to attend to something else, I can hand you the iPad and you can keep rocking.

Don’t borrow something unless you’re 100% sincere in purchasing it. Too many times, it’s been a bored person who just wants to play. We have banned two people from the store for doing just this over and over and over again. One was a young man in Orlando who kept borrowing stuff, so he could act like Mr. Big Shot on the Audiogon forums and he had no intent on buying anything. The other was a friend of a dear friend of mine (who has passed away), that acted like he knew everything about audio because he was a roadie in the 70’s for some band. He lives here in Sarasota, borrowed so much stuff from us, I lost track and then one day, borrows and MSB DAC from us and then tried to buy it from another dealer in Texas. That dealer called me and right then, he was banned. He lost the ability to borrow anything else in the future.

As the folks who live here locally will tell you, I will happily loan anything to any of our customers - as long as they sincerely are interested in trying and maybe buying something. I’m willing to accept the opportunity cost (not having that product on the floor while someone else is using it) - if they are sincere. GOOD NEWS: MOST ARE SINCERE! Even if they don’t buy it, as long as they were sincere in their actions, I’m ok with it!

I won’t give you the hard sell, because these are big ticket items. In return, I want people to just be honest, from “not buying, just looking” to “maybe next year” to “I’m ready to buy now, just need to decide on A vs B.” We can handle the truth! Don’t get a dealers hopes up, waste their time, waste their time doing 97 quotes and then buy nothing.

It would shock people to realize how busy we are during the day. We aren’t sitting around listening. We are returning calls, emails, following up on orders, talking to manufacturers, meeting with customers, doing installs, doing marketing, dealing with problems/product issues and so much more. So for us, time is a precious commodity. We love to invest it with folks, but just let us know what your intentions are, even if they are subject to change. [emoji6]

Once again, the folks I’ve met and worked with on this forum have, for the most part, been exceptionally great and I would consider most of those and others to be friends. I really believe that most of the folks on this forum are the good guys and not the tire kickers/time wasters.

In closing, I love what I’m doing now. After 22 years, I was burned out in Large Enterprise IT Projects. The industry had gone from Mainframes to Client/Server to the Y2K craze to system integration to BW/BI to the cloud. I was exhausted. B2B is not as much fun as B2C. I’m staying super busy and having fun at it. I still love the hobby and enjoy meeting people and hearing about their successes every day.


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Great post Mike!

A far better take on the overall subject than (IMHO) the article in PTA which in some ways (again IMHO) could have been written differently.
 
There is another side to the Audio Dealer - Customer coin as it were that also bears discussing. This may strike some as controversial and it is not my intent to inflame or offend anyone so please read this in the spirit that it is intended.

The vast majority of write-ups on this topic, and certainly the latest article PTA, focus on the negative customer behavior angle to things. The fact is, there are myriad examples of good, mediocre and bad on both sides of the aisle, both dealer and customer. Also the article in PTA calling out the fact that a dealer will be our "best friend" is a bizarre use of the term. True friendship, by its definition, at least to me, includes mutual interest of both parties in the other however it does NOT include one party deriving financial profit from the other. That at least IMHO tends to skew the relationship one way or the other and that is certainly not friendship. I think though that the author was using the phrase loosely and to make a slightly different point so I'll leave it there and hope to avoid spawning philosophical debates on the subject!

More to the point...

The money that gets spent on high-end audio is for most of us, like our cars, automobiles (above and beyond the basic need to have a car for conveyance), hard-earned money that often must be saved after life's priorities are paid for, over the course of months and sometimes years.

High-end audio is one of the few and possibly, the only luxury item market, where dealers expect manufacturers to protect territories and in many cases, expect customers to adhere to them no matter what "just because" and where a few dealers out there think that just because they operate in a region and have a given logo to sell that they are now "your dealer". I have experienced this first hand 3 times and will explain in more detail why I'm calling out this aspect.

Consumers who spend their hard-earned money have the right in any markets to spend where they get the best combination of;

  • product including availability of product at the level we are interested in; that product is often people & their knowledge as well
  • true hands-on knowledge of those products
  • price, warranty, support (after all, business is competitive)
  • service
  • respect as a customer and overall customer care and decent treatment from a human point of view

No one thinks twice about going to multiple automobile dealerships in various cities and towns and sometimes even nearby states to seek out and drive cars we are interested in and to shop for the "best combination of the above points" relative to our personal priorities. It's the same for boats, motorcycles, jewelry, art work, furniture or anything else. "Best" is relative to our personal priorities and is often a mix as for example, many of us may elect to pay a few percent more if that auto dealership is closer to our home or has a better service rating or treated us better or has the actual model of car we are interested in and is hands-on knowledgeable about that model, not just the model 2 or 3 levels lower with the sales pitch "the upper model is simply better, you should buy it from me as I'm your dealer" being their only response.

In my line of work, the same thing holds; I am either selling the best combination of (superior people, knowledge, hands-on experience, service, results and price) or my firm may lose the deal! It's a balancing act where higher price may be positioned as a "value-sell" in terms of superior track record and proven results, more experienced people, knowledge level, customer care, etc...but rest assured, customers don't buy "just because" we offer something to them and are close by.

It's mystifying to me that high end audio, as a market, has dealers with the EXPECTATION that just because we move to a zip code that is reasonably nearby or we've called them to ask questions about a specific product in a manufacturer's line that they offer that when they only have the unit 2, 3, 4 levels below that and cannot answer even the most basic questions about the more advanced unit or speaker I am interested in, why they think I "must" buy from them or that somehow they are now "my dealer" and I owe them my purchase.

If a seller of anything, audio, cars, jewelry, furniture, whatever.....can provide the product, knowledge, service, price and overall treatment as a customer, etc...and add value to my life, then and only then do they get the sale. It's really that simple. Why in high-end audio for some reason people seek to enforce different rules than for any other area of Seller - Consumer relations is quite honestly beyond me.

I've run into the negative side of these behaviors 3 times and the posts above reflect that I'm sure.

All this stated, there are many audio dealers who definitely provide all the points above, present company (the forum owner) included :-) Those rare and good people in this industry don't deserve the tire kickers and purely price mongers who will use and abuse them either.

FWIW...
 
There is no “Mike” near me. At the level of money I am now spending a home demo would be nice. Hellofa drive to borrow something from northern NC to southern FL.
 
SCAudiophile said:
There is another side to the Audio Dealer - Customer coin as it were that also bears discussing. This may strike some as controversial and it is not my intent to inflame or offend anyone so please read this in the spirit that it is intended.

The vast majority of write-ups on this topic, and certainly the latest article PTA, focus on the negative customer behavior angle to things. The fact is, there are myriad examples of good, mediocre and bad on both sides of the aisle, both dealer and customer. Also the article in PTA calling out the fact that a dealer will be our "best friend" is a bizarre use of the term. True friendship, by its definition, at least to me, includes mutual interest of both parties in the other however it does NOT include one party deriving financial profit from the other. That at least IMHO tends to skew the relationship one way or the other and that is certainly not friendship. I think though that the author was using the phrase loosely and to make a slightly different point so I'll leave it there and hope to avoid spawning philosophical debates on the subject!

More to the point...

The money that gets spent on high-end audio is for most of us, like our cars, automobiles (above and beyond the basic need to have a car for conveyance), hard-earned money that often must be saved after life's priorities are paid for, over the course of months and sometimes years.

High-end audio is one of the few and possibly, the only luxury item market, where dealers expect manufacturers to protect territories and in many cases, expect customers to adhere to them no matter what "just because" and where a few dealers out there think that just because they operate in a region and have a given logo to sell that they are now "your dealer". I have experienced this first hand 3 times and will explain in more detail why I'm calling out this aspect.

Consumers who spend their hard-earned money have the right in any markets to spend where they get the best combination of;

  • product including availability of product at the level we are interested in; that product is often people & their knowledge as well
  • true hands-on knowledge of those products
  • price, warranty, support (after all, business is competitive)
  • service
  • respect as a customer and overall customer care and decent treatment from a human point of view

No one thinks twice about going to multiple automobile dealerships in various cities and towns and sometimes even nearby states to seek out and drive cars we are interested in and to shop for the "best combination of the above points" relative to our personal priorities. It's the same for boats, motorcycles, jewelry, art work, furniture or anything else. "Best" is relative to our personal priorities and is often a mix as for example, many of us may elect to pay a few percent more if that auto dealership is closer to our home or has a better service rating or treated us better or has the actual model of car we are interested in and is hands-on knowledgeable about that model, not just the model 2 or 3 levels lower with the sales pitch "the upper model is simply better, you should buy it from me as I'm your dealer" being their only response.

In my line of work, the same thing holds; I am either selling the best combination of (superior people, knowledge, hands-on experience, service, results and price) or my firm may lose the deal! It's a balancing act where higher price may be positioned as a "value-sell" in terms of superior track record and proven results, more experienced people, knowledge level, customer care, etc...but rest assured, customers don't buy "just because" we offer something to them and are close by.

It's mystifying to me that high end audio, as a market, has dealers with the EXPECTATION that just because we move to a zip code that is reasonably nearby or we've called them to ask questions about a specific product in a manufacturer's line that they offer that when they only have the unit 2, 3, 4 levels below that and cannot answer even the most basic questions about the more advanced unit or speaker I am interested in, why they think I "must" buy from them or that somehow they are now "my dealer" and I owe them my purchase.

If a seller of anything, audio, cars, jewelry, furniture, whatever.....can provide the product, knowledge, service, price and overall treatment as a customer, etc...and add value to my life, then and only then do they get the sale. It's really that simple. Why in high-end audio for some reason people seek to enforce different rules than for any other area of Seller - Consumer relations is quite honestly beyond me.

I've run into the negative side of these behaviors 3 times and the posts above reflect that I'm sure.

All this stated, there are many audio dealers who definitely provide all the points above, present company (the forum owner) included :-) Those rare and good people in this industry don't deserve the tire kickers and purely price mongers who will use and abuse them either.

FWIW...
Click to expand...

I totally agree with you, 100%. This has been a major bone of contention for me too. If I can buy a new Corvette from Boston, a new Porsche from California, why can’t I buy a McIntosh amp from those same areas?

I purposely seek out brands which do not have such archaic rules. At this point, I really only have one that still thinks this way. It’s quite silly: I sell a pair of speakers to a fellow in Illinois and now you want me to point him to the local dealer for the amp and preamp he wants just because of some archaic rule? I think not. What happens in this situation? We will discuss all the brands I can sell him and none of the ones I can’t. Your brand loses out.

It reminds me of a story about Audio Research. I have a very good customer in Dublin, IL, quite a trek from Chicago. He called me one day and said, “I want to try tubes!”. OK then, we began talking about amps, preamps, etc. I placed a call to my rep Aldo at ARC and asked if I could sell to him and they said, “no, you have to send him to the dealer in Chicago.” I advised the customer of their reactions, he was more pissed off than I was!! (I think annoyed that he couldn’t spend HIS money where HE wanted to) and he also added that he didn’t like the dealer in Chicago, so guess what? We went with VAC. They were very happy to get the big order. ARC lost out big time. Pure stupidity.

When I first got into the business, territories and that way of thinking were still strong in manufacturers minds. Today, that’s gone out the window for the most part. Under Darryl, I have heard Wilson has done a 180 on territories as well. They’ve come into line with modern thinking around relationships vs zip codes.

I want to give credit where credit is due. Alon at Magico was really a leader in this new thinking. I remember years ago, he stood up in front of all the dealers at Magico HQ and said, “stop asking me about territories. I don’t believe in territories. Whoever owns the relationship with the customer, owns the deal. End of story.” Music to my ears!

But you have to understand, there are a LOT of dealers who do not like the new world order. They bitch that manufacturers don’t send them leads (I’ve always said, it’s not their job to send me leads, it’s my job!). They complain about not having territories any more. They are struggling to operate in the new world order. Territories are what I believe, created some arrogant, poor customer service experiences (think: the old, grumpy rude New York dealer).

What was the thinking around this old way of thinking? “The dealer invested money in our brand, we need to ‘protect’ them.” or “Our product is so amazing, the customer will buy from where we advise them to buy from.” Totally archaic.

The investment doesn’t stop at the purchase of the demo gear, that’s just the beginning. Thankfully today, we are seeing, for the most part, the modernizing of the industry in how we engage with customers. I think Amazon and how people buy today is really what fueled this change.


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Mike, after I flew out to audition the Fyne Audio speakers and you opened up your shop for me on the weekend, I would certainly buy the speakers from you even if there was a dealer here in the Twin Cities. Unfortunately, covid hit and despite being a physician, I had to take week furloughs when we went from seeing 100 patients per day to 15. Also my wife decided to do some remodeling and my son decided to go back to college so he can become a nurse practioner. So speakers are on hold for at least another year.

My point is that you were gracious with your time and that was very important to me.
 
Mechnutt said:
Mike, after I flew out to audition the Fyne Audio speakers and you opened up your shop for me on the weekend, I would certainly buy the speakers from you even if there was a dealer here in the Twin Cities. Unfortunately, covid hit and despite being a physician, I had to take week furloughs when we went from seeing 100 patients per day to 15. Also my wife decided to do some remodeling and my son decided to go back to college so he can become a nurse practioner. So speakers are on hold for at least another year.

My point is that you were gracious with your time and that was very important to me.
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Thank you and thank you for all you do. The past two years have been super challenging for our healthcare providers. My wife often leaves at 5:30am and doesn’t return until 1:30am the next day, then up again at 5:30am and gone for another 18 hour day. I KNOW I couldn’t do that. It takes a special kind of person to do what you guys do.

As a side, my wife just resigned from the hospital to become a nurse at a special needs school. WIll offer her much better work/life balance. She wanted to stay until the worst of Covid was over (and fingers crossed it is). I figure if she can care for me, she can take care of anyone. The struggles related to the man cold are real.


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BlueFox said:
Wow Mike. That's two long posts in two days. Has all that Halloween candy wound you up? :)
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Nah…I don’t touch the stuff. My wife has been working all weekend. Nobody around to tell me what to do and you see what happens?


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Thanks Mike! I have been off work since the 3rd week of July due to being involved in a very serious bicycle accident (thank god for disability insurance). I go back to work in 3 days and I am not fully recovered but we are very busy with unvaccinated COVID patients. Your wife was smart to get out. Nurses are so overworked and under paid. We lost at least a dozen great nurses as they were tired of dealing with covid.
 
Mechnutt said:
Thanks Mike! I have been off work since the 3rd week of July due to being involved in a very serious bicycle accident (thank god for disability insurance). I go back to work in 3 days and I am not fully recovered but we are very busy with unvaccinated COVID patients. Your wife was smart to get out. Nurses are so overworked and under paid.
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Oh no! Were you wearing a helmet? Glad you’re ok.


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Mike said:
Oh no! Were you wearing a helmet? Glad you’re ok.


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I sure was but I hit a concrete post at 15 mph just below my right knee. It threw me 12 feet onto the pavement. I fractured ribs, fractured my knee, tore the post cruciate ligament, separated my shoulder, tore cartilage in it along with a torn labrum, tore trapezius and subscapularis muscles. I had shoulder surgery in August and next March I undergo knee replacement. I was in the hospital for a few days.
 
Mike said:
I think Amazon and how people buy today is really what fueled this change.
Click to expand...

Yes, but. Yes buying "long-distance" and waiting for Fed Ex to arrive feels normal for me now, whether it's a carton of dog pee pads or a high-end interconnect or a new amp. For me the "but" is that for hi fi I need, and want, that relationship with the dealer. I want their advice (may not take 100% of it) and I DEFINITELY want to feel appreciated. And I want them to be happy to take my stuff back on trade towards something new. It's a "relationship" (doesn't have to be "friendship"). A relationship I can lean on if something goes wrong.

I'm pretty fortunate to be working for many years with one dealer who's long-distance from me but will ship me ANYTHING to try at home. And with another dealer, with a national reputation, who will also let me borrow anything to try at home, and is only 7 miles away.

The good news is that long-distance is not a problem for some dealers now. They are the future IMHO; they can provide personal service even over long distances. And some of them are wracking up quite the frequent flier miles visiting customers' homes!
 
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