Normally the staff are deeply unhappy to see you. They expect that you are wasting their time, just like you did the last 17 times you went in… They grumble about changing an amp, try to sell you unicorn oube cables, and generally get the huff with you even considering using them for their one purpose. Then, you say, “OK, I’ll take it”, and they are completely fucked. They have no idea what to do next… There’s some confusion over how the till works, as they dust it off. Somone has to go rummaging in a store cupboard for the actual product, then the awkard directions to get your car close enough to the back doors to actually get the thing home safely.
As you wave goodbye, they all stand and look at each other as if to say “what the fuck just happened there”.
Haha!! Yeah I have no ethical or personal reason for not having done so, other than budget always leads me to secondhand, and what I’ve bought new, has always been via word-of-mouth on the forums (e.g my Jolida DAC). One day I hope to walk into a shop and buy all the Sugden Masterclass kit…
Grahams Hi Fi. Bought my first proper hi fi :- Rega Planer 2 c/w Stanton 680EE cart., A & R Cambridge amp. and Mordaunt Short Pageant speakers. Then a Linn Sondek, Mission 774 arm and Asak cart. Naim 12s Pre/160 Power amp. ATR Studio Monitors all one year later.
As the custodian of the HiFi Choice Dealer Visit article for a decade, I’m pleased to say that for most* of the dealers I’ve visited, there is a steady stream of actual customers going there and buying stuff. Standard caveats of anecdotes not being data but a dealer who loaned me a room to listen to some bigly speakers last week has just come off the best six months he’s had in 25 years of trading…
*Some visits have clearly been to dealers who’ve stopped getting new intake through the door and who exist only to sell more expensive things in smaller quantities to a declining circle of people and hoping that they die before the clientele does. I don’t enjoy those visits very much.
Hang on. This might be wrong. I got my RB300 + 2M Black from Audio T in Reading. I’d already heard them at Whittlebury and I think I pre-ordered and paid online. But I did actually travel to the shop to pick them up, just for the instant gratification.
I bought an M7 from Definitive recently but not brand new.
I buy all my TVs and Sonos etc from Blasons in Northampton, known them since primary school. I also bought a Roon Nucleus + from them last year and all my kitchen appliances. They moved from mainly Hifi to mainly TVs to all appliances over the years.
