So I have a meeting in Ann arbor and decide to stop by a local audio shop. I've been wanting to hear the rega DAC and I knew he carried rega so what the heck. I go in ask if he has it but tell him I am not buying yet. He says he has it and pulls it out but refuses to hook it up. Tells me that when I get more serious he'll let me take it home. So here I am in a store and the guy has an opportunity to stoke the fire by actually trying to sell me on something but just can't seem to get out the cable to hook it up. What the hell?
another brick and mortar tale
- Thread starter timm
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there in lies mistake #1 !! .....you were honest and he didn't ant to give you the time of day !!
Yeah Dave. I'm old and honest and can buy $hit... A good salesman gets past that and still tries to sell his product. Another question. Why is it that just about every one of these places u go into the sales guy acts like he is some superior intellect as if selling audio equipment requires some high IQ. I love audio equipment and I don't want to go there. Music direct / audio advisor / or audiogon feel like a much better experience.
I once was in a store, wanting to hear some high end equipment. (upgraditis).
There were a few salesmen talking and doing their best to avoid me.
Then a lady wearing a fur coat came in. They rushed to her, still not paying attention to me, the high end buyer.
No, I was not wearing a fur coat or a three pieces suit. I never went back to that store. That day, I needed to wear comfortable clothing for my teaching. , I spend my money on high end audio, not on suits, coats, shoes, purses...(not even beers, wines or drugs)
I never went back to that store and recommended some friends to stay away from that place. (It's in Quebec and start with a K)
I wonder how many thousand they lost from their attitude toward me.
There were a few salesmen talking and doing their best to avoid me.
Then a lady wearing a fur coat came in. They rushed to her, still not paying attention to me, the high end buyer.
No, I was not wearing a fur coat or a three pieces suit. I never went back to that store. That day, I needed to wear comfortable clothing for my teaching. , I spend my money on high end audio, not on suits, coats, shoes, purses...(not even beers, wines or drugs)
I never went back to that store and recommended some friends to stay away from that place. (It's in Quebec and start with a K)
I wonder how many thousand they lost from their attitude toward me.
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JordanD
Well-known member
Thats weird to me. I traveled to San Fransico this summer and stopped in at Future Sound. I called ahead because I wanted to listen to the CLX and I wanted to see if he had them. I told him (David) that I am a college student and I really cant afford those speakers, but I just wanted to stop in and take a listen if is wasn't too much trouble. He told me it was no trouble at all and told me to come on down. I got there and introduced myself he told me to wait for a little while because he had to bring the CLX into his main demo area. I also told him he didn't have to make so much fuss over someone who wasn't able to buy, but he insisted that it was fine. So he set up the room and we had a good listening session. We also just shot the sh!t for a good couple hours, and overall had a very good time just talking about just anything that had to do with money and the industry. It was an awesome experience and he admitted that in exchange all I had to do for him is write a good review for him on Yelp, and after that experience I was happy to. Word of mouth is half the battle!
MiTT
Super User
Not only will that Yelp review work to his benefit, but I'd bet that when the day comes that you do have the money to spend you know exactly where you'll be inclined to spend it. Not to mention the recommendation you gave to quite a few folks here.
There isn't a simpler expression in business than making you customer happy followed by keeping them coming back. Your salesman understood that not all sales are immediate.
There isn't a simpler expression in business than making you customer happy followed by keeping them coming back. Your salesman understood that not all sales are immediate.
tsv_1
Well-known member
Audio salesmen run the gamut from Andrew Singer types (“redefining condescension“) to guys like Galen Carol who totally get it - responsive, respectful, pleasant, etc. You know, someone who acts like they actually want to do business with you.
Weirdest retail store visit for me was “The Analog Room” in San Jose. If you’re near the Bay Area and you want to see some truly excellent gear, check this place out… but be forewarned - it’s trippy-weird there.
First off, no signage whatsoever. I drove by it three times with my friend Bill… both of us scanning buildings and address numbers like a pair of Terminators… and that was with GPS! We actually found it by process of elimination… couldn’t be the apartment complex just prior, and couldn’t be the convenience store just after. It had to be the curiously nondescript, dirt brown, one story building at the far end of a long narrow “parking lot”. If it weren’t for confirming the address number on the side of the building, you’d think you were walking into a meth lab or something (not that I have a lot of experience walking into meth labs). A poorly maintained structure, about as ambiguous and unwelcoming as any establishment ever, um, established.
However, if the brow-furrowing exterior wasn’t perplexing enough, walking into the joint was just plain bizarre. To start, it almost feels like you should knock on the door first because there are zero cues that this is a business… you feel like you’re about to unlawfully enter a private premises. But, stalwart and determined as we were, we pressed on… turning the knob, stepping across the threshold, and finding ourselves in the “lobby” - an oppressive, dim, smallish room. The first of the five overt senses to be thoroughly and unrelentingly assaulted was the sense of smell. The place WREAKED of stale smoke. And, as if the owner was terrified by the thought that it might somehow diminish in it‘s intensity, he and a half-dozen of his closest sanitarium-escapee buddies were issuing forth plenty of “fresh” smoke as well. A heady mix of cigarette, cigar, and pipe, and maybe even shisha as well (though I didn’t see any hookahs in plain site). Like an olfactory hit-squad, these guys seemed almost gleeful as they contributed to this semi-opaque cloud of stagnant toxicity hovering at just about head level, actually impacting visibility. Blech!
Bill and I reverted to Terminator scan mode, cutting through the particulate haze to try and identify the owner. And by the way, no one said a word. No “Hello”. No “Welcome”. No “Uh guys, can you wait till we wrap up this smuggled uranium auction before you start drooling over all the ultra-high end gear that’s haphazardly strewn around the joint?“. Seriously, it was as if we’d walked into the middle of an arms/drug/slave-trafficking deal and were immediately considered hostile (though Bill and I looked about as hostile as a couple of double-Es on a yogurt run). Finally, I spoke up: “Hey Guys, we’re just here to look at your audio equipment and maybe do a little listening, is that cool?”. The single syllable, artfully calculated for minimal SPL expenditure, in retort from the owner (I guess): “yep”. And that was it… so Bill and I, like wary deer in late November, lightly padded into one of the adjoining dungeons. Immediately, the rather stark unpleasantness of the place melted away as we found ourselves staring at Harbeth, Prima Luna, Linn, Voce Audio, Quad, Whest, Nottingham and more. Not to mention the immense vinyl collection. Wow… truly impressive. I think there were three rooms in total, though hard to tell in all that limited visibility.
While the effing stench of that place never really subsided, we did bull through long enough to convince our vocally efficient host to spin some wax for us. The TT was nice, maybe Nottingham, I don’t recall, nor do I recall the phono pre. The speakers were Quad 2905s, there was a sub in the room, but it wasn’t active. The amps were Wavestream tubes - amps that remain a bit of a mystery and were certainly not described in depth by the semi-mute proprietor, nor were the described at all. That said (by me, certainly not by him), the tonearm was lowered, the lights were dimmed (or maybe my vision was just dimming), the first telltale popping signs of life issued forth the strains of Sonny Rollins. The sound was quite forward like first row center. Excellent transients, great soundstage, the sax was etched, but in a pleasing way… very well defined. I could have listened for a very long time if it weren’t for the near-trauma respiratory situation. As it was, we listened for maybe 10min. I really wanted to hear the Harbeths in the other room, but one look at Bill’s rapidly waning life-signs and I knew we needed to plan our escape post haste. Of course there were no “thank yous” or “goodbyes” or God forbid “Come agains”… and none were expected. What was entirely unexpected though was the entering-into-Valhalla effect of just leaving that place. That’s right, standing in a sketchy parking lot in downtown San Jose was akin to being raptured into heaven… compared to being inside “The Analog Room” (insert twilight zone theme music here).
Let me know if any of you Bay Areans have either been there or plan to go… love to hear other impressions
Weirdest retail store visit for me was “The Analog Room” in San Jose. If you’re near the Bay Area and you want to see some truly excellent gear, check this place out… but be forewarned - it’s trippy-weird there.
First off, no signage whatsoever. I drove by it three times with my friend Bill… both of us scanning buildings and address numbers like a pair of Terminators… and that was with GPS! We actually found it by process of elimination… couldn’t be the apartment complex just prior, and couldn’t be the convenience store just after. It had to be the curiously nondescript, dirt brown, one story building at the far end of a long narrow “parking lot”. If it weren’t for confirming the address number on the side of the building, you’d think you were walking into a meth lab or something (not that I have a lot of experience walking into meth labs). A poorly maintained structure, about as ambiguous and unwelcoming as any establishment ever, um, established.
However, if the brow-furrowing exterior wasn’t perplexing enough, walking into the joint was just plain bizarre. To start, it almost feels like you should knock on the door first because there are zero cues that this is a business… you feel like you’re about to unlawfully enter a private premises. But, stalwart and determined as we were, we pressed on… turning the knob, stepping across the threshold, and finding ourselves in the “lobby” - an oppressive, dim, smallish room. The first of the five overt senses to be thoroughly and unrelentingly assaulted was the sense of smell. The place WREAKED of stale smoke. And, as if the owner was terrified by the thought that it might somehow diminish in it‘s intensity, he and a half-dozen of his closest sanitarium-escapee buddies were issuing forth plenty of “fresh” smoke as well. A heady mix of cigarette, cigar, and pipe, and maybe even shisha as well (though I didn’t see any hookahs in plain site). Like an olfactory hit-squad, these guys seemed almost gleeful as they contributed to this semi-opaque cloud of stagnant toxicity hovering at just about head level, actually impacting visibility. Blech!
Bill and I reverted to Terminator scan mode, cutting through the particulate haze to try and identify the owner. And by the way, no one said a word. No “Hello”. No “Welcome”. No “Uh guys, can you wait till we wrap up this smuggled uranium auction before you start drooling over all the ultra-high end gear that’s haphazardly strewn around the joint?“. Seriously, it was as if we’d walked into the middle of an arms/drug/slave-trafficking deal and were immediately considered hostile (though Bill and I looked about as hostile as a couple of double-Es on a yogurt run). Finally, I spoke up: “Hey Guys, we’re just here to look at your audio equipment and maybe do a little listening, is that cool?”. The single syllable, artfully calculated for minimal SPL expenditure, in retort from the owner (I guess): “yep”. And that was it… so Bill and I, like wary deer in late November, lightly padded into one of the adjoining dungeons. Immediately, the rather stark unpleasantness of the place melted away as we found ourselves staring at Harbeth, Prima Luna, Linn, Voce Audio, Quad, Whest, Nottingham and more. Not to mention the immense vinyl collection. Wow… truly impressive. I think there were three rooms in total, though hard to tell in all that limited visibility.
While the effing stench of that place never really subsided, we did bull through long enough to convince our vocally efficient host to spin some wax for us. The TT was nice, maybe Nottingham, I don’t recall, nor do I recall the phono pre. The speakers were Quad 2905s, there was a sub in the room, but it wasn’t active. The amps were Wavestream tubes - amps that remain a bit of a mystery and were certainly not described in depth by the semi-mute proprietor, nor were the described at all. That said (by me, certainly not by him), the tonearm was lowered, the lights were dimmed (or maybe my vision was just dimming), the first telltale popping signs of life issued forth the strains of Sonny Rollins. The sound was quite forward like first row center. Excellent transients, great soundstage, the sax was etched, but in a pleasing way… very well defined. I could have listened for a very long time if it weren’t for the near-trauma respiratory situation. As it was, we listened for maybe 10min. I really wanted to hear the Harbeths in the other room, but one look at Bill’s rapidly waning life-signs and I knew we needed to plan our escape post haste. Of course there were no “thank yous” or “goodbyes” or God forbid “Come agains”… and none were expected. What was entirely unexpected though was the entering-into-Valhalla effect of just leaving that place. That’s right, standing in a sketchy parking lot in downtown San Jose was akin to being raptured into heaven… compared to being inside “The Analog Room” (insert twilight zone theme music here).
Let me know if any of you Bay Areans have either been there or plan to go… love to hear other impressions
JordanD
Well-known member
Agreed, completely! Also one other glowing representation from that same trip was from the House of Music in the heart of SF. Walked in on a recommendation and us "kids" were treated like potential buyers, even though we announced ourselves as not. In general the trip was amazing, except for a few shops where I have never felt more invisible, but in general most shops I have visited I have been treated very well.
Bernard
Well-known member
There was a store I walked into in Berkeley, CA, many years ago (can't remember the name), where on entering a sound room filled with some tasty stuff, the salesman greeted me with, "Come on in. Want to play?". I had a great listening session and ended up buying a couple of VPI bricks from him.
Todd. That was freaking hilarious. But I see my other audio store has the summit x and ethos or theos. Last time their top end was vantage. And the shop down the street has the Maggie lineup. So maybe in the next several weeks with son in tow. While I'm there if I start getting treated like crap ill go off on them and make some comment about audiogon as I leave. Fug em.
Gordon Gray
Well-known member
Todd,
Great story. Never had an experience quite like that.
I do recall an incident at one of the past CES events.
Walked into this room and the "exhibitor" did not acknowledge my presence. No one else was in the room. He was slumped in a chair and was playing some solo acoustic bass. I listened for a bit and looked over at the man trying to make eye contact. Nada. Left the room. Oh well.
Unfortunately, seems to be a somewhat pervasive attitude amongst hi end dealers. And one wonders why hi end cannot get their message across. DUH.
Gordon
Great story. Never had an experience quite like that.
I do recall an incident at one of the past CES events.
Walked into this room and the "exhibitor" did not acknowledge my presence. No one else was in the room. He was slumped in a chair and was playing some solo acoustic bass. I listened for a bit and looked over at the man trying to make eye contact. Nada. Left the room. Oh well.
Unfortunately, seems to be a somewhat pervasive attitude amongst hi end dealers. And one wonders why hi end cannot get their message across. DUH.
Gordon
Agreed Gordon. Your choice is to be treated like dirt and like it so you can get in 'the secret club' or pay 30-60% less used or online. They do not EARN the business. I used to work w a sales guy and he would say 'How can I earn your business'. I always found that to be a very powerful line. The sad part is - is that I WANT them to survive but it seems like 80% of them are jackasses.
Gordon Gray
Well-known member
timm,
Then there's the Darwin theory. Just a different iteration.
Very sad.
Best,
Gordon
Then there's the Darwin theory. Just a different iteration.
Very sad.
Best,
Gordon
JordanD
Well-known member
Timm and Gordon,
I too have had similar experiences at audio shows. I am 23 years old but I do look a bit younger so most rooms I go into I get the cold shoulder, but the exhibitors that are enthusiastic and treat me like everyone else are the room I stick around for a while in. I realize that most room are playing music and are trying to be quiet, but at least acknowledge my or anyones existence hahaha.
I too have had similar experiences at audio shows. I am 23 years old but I do look a bit younger so most rooms I go into I get the cold shoulder, but the exhibitors that are enthusiastic and treat me like everyone else are the room I stick around for a while in. I realize that most room are playing music and are trying to be quiet, but at least acknowledge my or anyones existence hahaha.
amey01
Well-known member
Shame you can't remember the store name Bernard. What a rarity? I think Timm's story is more the norm. Retailers just don't get it. And that's not just high-end audio - is is every brick and mortar retailer. Crap service, high prices and then wonder why everyone goes online.
slowGEEZR
Well-known member
I think it is just up to the personality types. I've been to great dealers and poor dealers. They should be professional all the time, but they're only human. Personally, I don't allow the superior attitude types to get away with it. I engage them in conversation, whether it appears they want to or not. Many that were stand-offish at first, eventually came around. Some have been lost causes. I've found a little humor goes a long way. Same goes for a little complement now and then. Now, out and out rudeness, well that's another story.
Bernard
Well-known member
Adam, this was 1995, when I spent four weeks working in Berkeley. The store may well not exist anymore.
FoxMulder
Well-known member
Gordan Gray, do you remember Boulder Sound Gallery? I loved that place! The sales people were always very friendly and quite knowledgable. They carried, at the time, some wonderful gear. Many excellent memories from there...
Nutshell
Well-known member
The shop where I bought my Purity's here in Rotterdam is really great. More than a year later I got the opportunity to buy a second hand Depth from a private seller. I called the shop and said: I feel a little hesitated because you are not the ones I am buying this subwoofer from, but I need your advice... do you think the price they ask is right.
And the man at the shop said: yes! Do it, because this a good price for a good piece of art. He even said to call him back after I had it installed, so he could give me some help with it. And when I did, he even offered to drive by my house to help me. In the end I didn't need that, but I thought it was really nice. They have my support for the next few decades.
And the man at the shop said: yes! Do it, because this a good price for a good piece of art. He even said to call him back after I had it installed, so he could give me some help with it. And when I did, he even offered to drive by my house to help me. In the end I didn't need that, but I thought it was really nice. They have my support for the next few decades.
repman
Well-known member
Timm , I am not trying to make excuses for the guy but I will tell you that the REGA dac does not sound good out of the box and needs some time on the clock and be fully warm to sound its best. It can sound pretty harsh right out of the box. after it is warm and broken in it is a totally different animal quite nice actually. Perhaps that is why he wanted you to bring it home for an extended warm up/ break in period . He could have been more diplomatic and maybe explained that better but I find people all the time who are not good communicators although in sales you would think that is a prerequisite . I give the REGA dac a thumbs up BTW.
Larry
