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. 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 as per the points in the PTA article.
FWIW...
