Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler An Encounter With "Audio Snake Oil"

Chess,

If you do a search on hometheaterforum.com, you'll find a few threads about Nuance, with people from all across the country sharing stories. You may have luck finding a dealer near you.

And yes, I believe the pitch is EXACTLY the same from store to store, with the same Q-encoded songs.

What is Q encoding?

Ken,
it's a special audio format that produces fairly realistic surround sound using only 2 speakers. This is the website, and they've got some cool demos on it.

Q Sound

That is pretty shady.
I had never heard that about any speaker sales before. I've heard many stories about the salespeople themselves though.
Seems there is alot of ignorant retorts being reported when asked about the cost of the speakers. What salesman wouldn't tell you the cost of a speaker?
That just doesn't make any sense.

What happens first in the pitch is the demo by a Nuance tech who "just happens to be there for the day". After he shows the speakers off (you have to interrupt pretty aggressively to get any meaningful questions answered), he immediately hands off to the salesperson.

The salesperson tells you the MSRP (say, $2200/pr for the top model), then brags about how little he'll let the speakers go for. Some online folks have reported giving lowball offers in the realm of 6-700 dollars and having the sale okayed.

You can see why the stores aren't in a rush to get rid of the line, with an astronomical markup. It's an issue of most shoppers being "rubes", and those of us who would catch on shop at high-end/specialty stores anyway.

Here's a pretty lengthy post at HT Forum that rants about the Nuisance speakers.

Got another one right here! Yes, it's green. Now do y'all trust Stereophile?

In reply to:

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Audioprism has officially closed its doors and ceased production on all their products.

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Geez...I wonder why?

Heh. I missed that. Maybe because no one sane was willing to pay $20 for a $.50 pen?