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

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......