Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Audition From Hell have you had one?

Just got back today from just that. I'm not "new" to audio, been around it for around 28 years. Seems i've been gone for to long. Pretty bad when you have to chase a salesman down. Talking higher end audio, not Best Buy or Circuit City kinda place. Wanted to audition some Paradigm and B&W's... naw, they were to busy doing nothing over at the desk i walked by. Guess you could call this "venting".... So go ahead and vent ~ i want to hear it...!!!! I'll tell more later, right now i need a beer to simmer down..(maybe the beer thread?)

it just depends on what kind of dealers you got. Ive been to one place that was at the top of the heap, the guy played a bunch of systems and stuff for me i didnt ask or anything.

And then.. i went to another place and as soon as i walked in was up aginsh 2 or 3 guys that didnt take me seriously at all. And was kindof snooty asking what my system was etc. so it just depends on what kind of place it is.

I would have to say the most annoying audition i've had to date came from a very patronizing salesman, an older gent at that.
He's "been in the business for 20 years" he tells us, in a very similar tone that my grandfather used to call us young whippersnappers.
Forget the fact that we were two 30+ men, both with rather advanced educational degrees and both well informed with home electronics, we were still treated as if we knew NOTHING. The guy actually started explaining to us what a preamp does, then the amp then the processor, and later on, how biwiring really works beginning with how you have to remove the clips on the binding posts first.
{rolling eyes}
He never asked what our background was or what our level of understanding could be. Heck, we could have been electricians and talked circles around him about impedances, loads, circuits, etc., but i still think he would have explained things to us like little kids.
I can honestly say that i think his level of patronizing was about equivalent to an adult teaching some kid at about the grade 9 or 10 level.

Now that was truly annoying. I can only wonder how many customers he offends by treating them that way. Now that i think about it, maybe he doesn't get that many intellectual types in his store but rather more the yuppie types looking for the fanciest most powerful thing they can afford for home theatre. Heaven forbid you only buy speakers for HT though. He also told us the speakers we were looking at would be wasted on just HT.
Oooh the aggravation of the ignorant.

It was a long day of auditioning, a cram session you might say. The whole day was a ruin due to incompetent people. Drove 60 miles to the big city to hear what the new speakers out there were all about. Needless to say i came home frustrated, stressed, and "T'ed" off.. 2 channel was all i was after and "Skippy" couldn't pull it off. I do HT too, but 2 channel is more important to me.More to come, and thanks for your reply.

Anyone named after peanut butter is bound to be a stick in the mud.

"Skippy" is just a fictious name i use when people don't introduce themselves. It's petty bad when you know the "basics" of home audio, and you know more then them. This hasn't helped much in my quest for a new speaker system. Axiom is one of my choices for inter net speakers, as they fit my price point. Trying to do my home work while the party is going on....

Oh good I get to vent

Last summer an employee was retiring and wanted a Yamaha receiver as a good bye gift. I went to Fairview HiFi in Burlington and was treated as if I was royalty. The salesman took the time to explain everything and go over various options. What I thought would take about 30 minutes turned out to take about 90. It was really well worth my time to go there. I bought the receiver from them at a very good price.

Now we'll go to the 'other store' I won't give you the name unless you are buying something in the Hamilton/Burlington area and then I'll be glad to share it with you. It's been in town for a very long time and every year gets voted the number one Home Theatre store by readers of a local paper.

I've walked around there for over twenty minutes and nobody would come up to talk to me. The staff huddle around the front counter and go specialise in avoiding eye contact.

Unles you grab them by the lapels (yes they are all suit wearing salesmeisters) and scream I WANT TO BUY SOMETHING that can't be bothered to answer any questions with more than one word. if you are lucky it's more than one syllable.

They are now carrying Bose, ......perhaps that explains everything.

Have I had ONE? Oy! If only I'd had just one.

After driving 60 miles, and then being treated like that, no wonder you were in a snit. Perfectly reasonable. I'm an "old" guy, and believe me, with rare exception, customer service in this country has gone to h*ll in a handbag. That's one of the reasons we Axiomites are as loyal as we are. Most of us have been very impressed, and pleased, with the company's service policies, and the way they treat their customers.

I think sales people have some sort of faulty radar that feeds them the wrong information. It seems that when I want someone to help, I can't find a salesperson ANYWHERE. And when I wish to be left alone to explore and examine on my own, every two minutes one is jumping at me. Oh, I could go on incessantly, but I'd be wasting your time.

Thanks guys, keep it going.. Thats why i started this thread. Let's hear some more horror stories, i'm starting to feel better. As soon as i cool down, i'll ask for some help towards my quest....

There's one in every town Ford.
I was living in Stoney Creek for a little while working at the CCIW under the bridge.
Can't say i ever remember going to an audio store there though.

I find it interesting how so many have reported they had trouble getting a salesman to even speak to them.
You should try heading into a Future Shop store sometime. You can't get rid of the salesmen. They hang around pestering (literally) like flies to the crap wagon.

I was at Ultimate Electronics searching for a cheap $200 home theater receiver for my dad. I *hunted* down a sales guy and he did not look very enthused to help me. In fact, he showed absolutely no emotion at all.

Anyway, I told him it was a Christmas present for my dad and that I only had $200 to spend. Since I did not know about the quality of the cheaper receivers (no Denon, Yamaha, or Onkyo, in this price range), he said they are all about the same. Then I asked if it was up to him, what one he would pick in that range of receivers. Knowing how much I had to spend, he told me that he doesn't disclose his personal opinions because people never take his advice and end up buying the cheap stuff anyway. Obviously, I was looking for the cheap stuff! I said I understood that these receivers were not what I would choose for myself, but it was for my 72 year old dad who just wanted something to use to enjoy his DVD's.

Well, without his help, I narrowed it down to a JVC and a Pioneer. I asked whether or not the Pioneer had a digital coax input since that would be the only way it would work with my dad's DVD player. He looked in the back of the receiver and said it did not. He said that most of the time, that option only comes with higher priced receivers. For some reason, I didn't believe him. So, when he left the room to see if the receivers were in stock, I picked up the Pioneer myself to have a look. Lo and behold, there was a digital coax input! When he came back, I told him about it. I showed him where it was and then he said that he didn't look in that spot because the are normally located at the bottom.

The audition of the receivers was interesting as well they sounded entirely different. It was clear that the Pioneer had more bass, but I couldn't figure out why the two receivers could sound sooo different. So, we wasted a lot of time swithching back and forth between the two when it occured to me that the receivers where probably set to different DSP's. Of course that was the case...the JVC was on direct mode and the Pioneer was on stereo mode with the loudness button turned on! So, when I put the JVC in stereo mode and turned the loudness off on the Pioneer, there was a definite difference. I should have thought about that earlier, but if the sales guy was doing his job, he should have known.

Basically, I decided on the JVC without his help. Sometimes, some of these sales guys (not all) treat me like I'm a stupid female (granted, not a lot of females I know are into audio) and then get easily intimidated when I start to display some actual knowledge of the products. On the other hand, some of them have actually been impressed. Most of the time, I research the products myself before I buy so the sales guy doesn't have to teach me things I already know. It makes it nice for both of us...no BS from the sales guy and a quick & easy sale for him!

Nothing like judging a book by it's cover...!!!! I've had it both ways when auditioning and just looking.. Damn if you do, damn if you don't.

I thank "all" who have looked or posted and look forward to when i post for help.

Keep the stories comming.

just to follow up on my post, the first place i was talking about.. the good place. well i had never been to a hifi shop before in my life. but since we were off the islands i made it a point to go to a couple. well we went in, the guy behind the desk asks me if i need any help with anything and i told him right off the bat i had never been to a hifi shop before and that i was just there to look at all the gear and stuff. and me and my mom just walked around going into the rooms and looking at stuff and then i walked into their high end stereo room. of course im standing there jaw dropped at the gear id never be able to afford. He comes in and asks if i wanna hear their best system and he puts on something and tells us to move the chairs back to the sweet spot and plays a song and im blown away and he knows we arent buying anything and treats us like we went in there to buy that system which was over 30 grand. Then he played a couple more systems and we went into their high end theater room and he asked if we wanted to watch the beginning of ice age, we sat down he started the movie and we watched like the first 10 mins or so. (whoa btw) we were there for i think over and hour. he was real nice and stuff. showed us the titanic memorabilia they have and he didnt care what my system was or didnt try to explain anything or nothing. real good.

Ok next place, i walked in there with the intention of maybe buying a cdp, the NAD 541i... this second place was about the size of one of the rooms in the other place. they had my cdp i wanted right in the front by the door, the guy was talking to one of his coworkers and then hes like can i help you? i told him what i was looking at and he walks over there and yada yada, asks me what my amp and speakers and stuff are. i could tell he was surprised when i told him what my amp was. as if he was expecting me to say an aiwa boombox. i asked how much.. because of course if im thinking of buying it i wanna know how much it is. he said it was the MSRP of 500 bucks so i just said i would look around, i looked at the gear that they had for about a min and he goes. you got another place with a cheaper price? yada yada and i told him maybe and stuff and that id think about it and stuff. by now im pretty uncomfortable with the situation and i just left. total time in the store? 3-5 mins. lol.

I was at the higher end shop and ask them to play a pair of paradigm's for me. Told them to set it flat, with no sub. It wasn't a sec or two before i realizied that there was a sub still in the mix. He argued with me till i took him over to the some what hidden sub. This is the kind of s**t that most people don't realize is happening. It's sad that "some" audio places do this just to make a sale......