I definitely agree with the people who have suggested that you just tell the dealer what your budget is, what speakers you're looking at, and ask them if they know of customers selling them or if they have a demo. Ask if the have a pre-configured system setup you could listen to at a low traffic time. All great suggestions.
Here are some things I've seen:
- Half the time I am the only person at a specialty store. I usually take lunch at an odd time (3pm for example) and I'm the ONLY person there. If you go to tweeter that's different but smaller shops only have a couple of sales people and sometimes only 1 customer in at those odd hours.
- I often don't know what I want to buy. I say Im looking for speakers within a wide range - say 1K to 2.5K. The salesperson will latch on to 2.5K. but when I show more interest in a 1.2K speaker, he'll show me my choices there.
- I usally look at 3-4 dealers. That means that 2-3 of them got ZERO business from me (that day). Did I waste their time? Granted I wasnt planning to blow them off, but hey, bottom line, no sale. Your situation is different, but chances are if you are straight with them and they are half way decent people and businessmen (anyone ever get a female audio salesperson?) they will show you something that you want to buy from them, be it a demo or a trade in. Theres money to be made in used sales too.
Here are some things I've seen:
- Half the time I am the only person at a specialty store. I usually take lunch at an odd time (3pm for example) and I'm the ONLY person there. If you go to tweeter that's different but smaller shops only have a couple of sales people and sometimes only 1 customer in at those odd hours.
- I often don't know what I want to buy. I say Im looking for speakers within a wide range - say 1K to 2.5K. The salesperson will latch on to 2.5K. but when I show more interest in a 1.2K speaker, he'll show me my choices there.
- I usally look at 3-4 dealers. That means that 2-3 of them got ZERO business from me (that day). Did I waste their time? Granted I wasnt planning to blow them off, but hey, bottom line, no sale. Your situation is different, but chances are if you are straight with them and they are half way decent people and businessmen (anyone ever get a female audio salesperson?) they will show you something that you want to buy from them, be it a demo or a trade in. Theres money to be made in used sales too.