Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler I want my SACD, but NEED a cup of coffee...

Many in business today just don't get it............if you pay peanuts....you get monkeys.

Shouldn't that be elephants? I thought you got monkeys when you paid bananas.

No,......those getting paid peanuts would love to get bananas...............that would mean a raise!

I have never had the "blank look" experience but I have had the "I'm pulling this info out of my ass" experience.

Ever tried to buy anything from a CC/BB type store (they call them "Future Shop" or "Visions" where I come from)and knew that the salesperson was outright LYING to you? I was in the market for a new subwoofer for my car and the salesman told me that because a certain sub had dual voice coils it would be inherantly louder. Now I can understand if he had said it could handle more power (which is still untrue as far as I know but at least then it could have just been that he was mixed up) but he said that just because it had two voice coils that it was louder... obviously loudness has NOTHING at all to do with the amp at all... I actually argued with him saying that two voice coils merely add to the wiring options (changing the impedance)but he would not beleive me. I mean I knew more about his products than he did and the only "research" I had done was to look up topics on the internet for a totaly of about five minutes while he has been working at teh store for at least two years (I know because I have seen him there on several occasions). The thing that got me was that it wasn't like he was just using slick marketing gimmicks on me, I can understand those because companies actually train employees to use gimmicks to sell product... but he was just simply LYING... I mean what about the next kid that bought his lies and was disapointed with his audio system in the end? Or what about me or people like me that know a little bit about audio that go into stores and encounter the same type of ignorance? Do we deserve to have our intelligence insulted in that way?

This is why I am VERY glad that I found out about Axiom because I am frankly never going to talk to a salesman again. When I bought my receiver I researched it on the internet, went to the store and told the salesman to get me what I wanted. I think that salesmaen should be illegal and stores should simply have a wealth of knowledge about everything that they carry (written by an unbiased third party) so that consumers can make their own choices and avoid ignorance about the things they buy...

[/end rant]

Canadians 'should' be better off buying from A&B Sound than either Future Shop or BB. Though I've never been in a Tweeter, it sounds closer to the type of product carried @ A&B - slightly higher end than Best Buy/Circuit City/Future Shop. I've always found the staff to be reasonably knowledgeable and CDs/DVDs are quite often as cheap as anywhere. They also have a separate DVD-A/SACD section, and employees will know where to find it. I often find myself leaving the store with 5 or 10 cds at a time. Most other places I might find one bargain per visit.

Ever heard of Monster cable?

Mark, if you can bear to look at the RIAA site, here are the latest available mid-year 2004 sales figures. The abysmal DVD-A/SACD figures illustrate one reason for the lack of enthusiasm or even knowledge about them. Of course the lack of at least knowledge can't be justified and might be one reason for the abysmal figures.

Bigjohn, at least now anyone who happens to have a tampon question knows who to ask.

I don't doubt that a good part of it is a chicken and egg situation, but I DO lean towards your thought that the ignorance on the part of sales staff isn't helping.

I didn't bring this up in my original post this morning, but found myself rereading my post this afternoon and had another thought:

Getting back to the responsibility of managers and supervisors to enable their sales staff to have at least a passing knowledge of related technology, isn't it funny that in a store such as Circuit City, you have sales staff in one corner likely touting a player that is SACD and/or DVD-Audio capable and yet, a customer that hears of those features and walks over to the music department won't be able to find a disc... and possibly be told by a staff member over there that they've never even heard of them?

With the tiny margins some of these stores face, you'd think that if they set up a rack of some discs in the equipment section and energize a few buyers, a reasonable number of them would not only buy the $150 universal DVD player, but also $50 worth of discs to take home with it!

The left hand has no clue what the right hand is doing; yet they work alongside each other under the same management. That's just sloppy and scary!

I think they're probably more focused on selling high margin items (or expensive ones) such as Bose, Monster, or extremely large televisions. Who cares about a $500 disc player when you're trying to sell a $5000 plasma TV?

Everytime I walk into The Good Guys I get Monster products pushed on me. They really push that crap. Try to find a salesperson to help you look at speakers or a tv...good luck, but they won't let you out of the store with out a pair of Monster cables. Bizaare behavior.