Originally Posted By MatManhasgone
I went to BayBloor Radio that at the time was really well advertised as being a higher-end store..compared to the other big chain stores at the time. I went into a big room that was much wider than deep that had a row of speakers all setup in a row. Not like a listening room you'd get now, but individual pairs of speakers with its own stereo connected, one after another. So there was ZERO consideration for acoustics. The two units at either end sounded worse than the ones in the middle. It clearly was buying on what looked nice and didn't cost more than I could afford.

I don't know that much has changed, as the "higher end" stores still have these types of rooms. Some have more focused rooms, and will accommodate making changes...if you look serious about purchasing.

An interestingly different approach has been Linn. They pride themselves on having a single set of speakers in any room that is actively demonstrating speakers. Their rationale is that any other speakers in the room will colour the demonstration.