Interesting thread....
I can't imagine losing my local dealer. Sure, he and I don't see eye to eye on everything, but he has always taken good care of me. I don't pay retail there, but my discount isn't huge. The extra that I pay is easily made up in the level of service that I receive.
For instance:
Ordered a new pair of speakers with 6 week wait (no deposit taken) and he's given me his demo pair to use in the mean time.
Equipment loans are very common. At one point I had close to 50K worth of gear on loan as I was trying to decide between multiple preamps and amplifiers. After realizing that I couldn't satisfy all of my criteria with the products that he had available he encouraged me to look for a couple of used/discontinued products that would work. Let me keep the demos until I located the used gear.
I've spent a lot of money with him over the years (probably close to $100k), but the level of service has always been like this.
His shop isn't much to look at, but that really doesn't matter at all. The interesting thing is that he is the last true high end shop left in town. 5 years ago there were at least 5 true high-end stores. 3 years ago there were 3... Now he's the last one left.
I can't imagine losing my local dealer. Sure, he and I don't see eye to eye on everything, but he has always taken good care of me. I don't pay retail there, but my discount isn't huge. The extra that I pay is easily made up in the level of service that I receive.
For instance:
Ordered a new pair of speakers with 6 week wait (no deposit taken) and he's given me his demo pair to use in the mean time.
Equipment loans are very common. At one point I had close to 50K worth of gear on loan as I was trying to decide between multiple preamps and amplifiers. After realizing that I couldn't satisfy all of my criteria with the products that he had available he encouraged me to look for a couple of used/discontinued products that would work. Let me keep the demos until I located the used gear.
I've spent a lot of money with him over the years (probably close to $100k), but the level of service has always been like this.
His shop isn't much to look at, but that really doesn't matter at all. The interesting thing is that he is the last true high end shop left in town. 5 years ago there were at least 5 true high-end stores. 3 years ago there were 3... Now he's the last one left.