Dealers and exaggerated treble

Yes, I've definitely experienced the "salespeople have no idea what they are doing" syndrome as well.


At least it is benign of intention.

Best,
E

I drove over there(never had, prior) and looked around, finding a graphic EQ, far removed(on another shelf) from the system),

THAT is exactly the sort of BS I'm talking about.

What got me thinking of this is that there's a couple of brands I've heard and hated as ear drills, which others call sublime. Golden Ear, Jim Thiel era Thiels, etc.

I recently had the experience of walking into a Wilson dealer and hearing the speaker cables reversed. When that was fixed, the treble was still nasty hot. Several Wilsons have configurable crossovers which lets you turn the relative level of the tweeters up or down, so this was a case where it would have been impossible to tell if they were altered without tools.


I heard Magico's at another local dealer and I winced at the presence. I literally could not listen to them. 

I'm also thinking about other dealers who would not let me play my own music.


Using digital servers it is super easy to juice music tracks. You equalize them before saving them to your music server, and voila, you magically have detail you've never heard at home before. 

So, overall, I'm wondering:


- how much of my opinion about brands has been shaped by bad dealer setups
- How many consumers of high end gear are easily duped by it.  I mean, if the dealers lost money doing this they would stop, right?